Terah תרח
Avraham's father, a dealer in idols at Ur Kasdim
Terach was born in 1878 and fathered Avram at seventy. The Torah lists him among Shem's descendants and reports dryly that he took his son Avram, his daughter-in-law Sarai and his grandson Lot and left Ur Kasdim "to go to the land of Canaan; and they came to Charan and settled there". The journey stopped halfway—and that is Terach.
Midrash fills in the rest: he sold idols, and the young Avram smashed them in the shop and put the stick in the largest one's hands so that his father would have to say aloud that statues can do nothing. By the same tradition Terach denounced his son to Nimrod.
He died in Charan in 2083, aged 205, in fact outliving Avraham's departure by sixty years. The Torah reports his death early, Rashi explains, so that no one would say Avraham abandoned his father. The sages add that he repented at the end.
On the timeline
Places
Related
Sources
Tanakh
- Bereishit 11:24–32 — the departure from Ur Kasdim and the halt at Charan
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Bereishit Rabbah 38–39 — the idol shop and Avraham with the axe
- Seder Olam Rabbah 1 — his 205 years within the count
Rishonim
- Rashi on Bereishit 11:32 — why Terach’s death is recorded before Avraham’s departure
Basis: stated in the Tanakh.