Abram
Archimandrite Nikifor’s Biblical Encyclopedia
(exalted father), Abraham (father of a multitude) (Gen. 11:27), son of Terah, was born in the Chaldean city of Ur. While still living in his father’s house, he received God’s call to leave his land, his kindred, and his father’s house, and to go into the land which the Lord would show him (Gen. 12:1; Heb. 11:8). This divine call was accompanied by the promise that his descendants would become a great nation, and that in him all the families of the earth would be blessed (Gen. 12:3).
In obedience to the divine call, Abram, together with his wife Sarai, his father Terah, and the rest of his kindred, set out from Ur for Canaan, but stopped for a time at Haran, situated northeast of Mesopotamia. Here Terah died (Gen. 11:31; Acts 7:4). Abram was then seventy-five years old. He continued his journey toward the land of Canaan, and having arrived there, came as far as Shechem, one of the most ancient cities of Palestine, and pitched his tent in the plain of Moreh, where the promise was again repeated to him that this land would be given to his descendants (Gen. 12:1–6).