Genesis 11:28

This and the following verse are taken from J, and commence the personal history of the patriarch.

Haran died This may indicate a tradition that the hill people, or families who joined the main body of the Terahites, lost their separate existence and became completely merged in the house of Terah.

The grave of Haran was shewn in the days of Josephus (Ant. i. 151).

in the presence of his father i.e. while his father Terah was still alive.

in the land of his nativity To these words is appended the explanation, "in Ur of the Chaldees," very possibly added as a gloss by a later hand, as in Genesis 15:7. Abram in Genesis 24:4; Genesis 24:7; Genesis 24:10 refers to Haran, or Aram naharaim, as the land of his nativity; and that region is generally treated as the home of the ancestors of the Israelites. It is clear, however, that, beside the tradition which ascribed the origin of Israel to Mesopotamia, there was also another which derived them ultimately from S. Babylonia. See Genesis 11:31.