Abraham’s Migration and Name Change: A Story for the Babylonian Exiles

[1] Most commentators see this as a reference to the ancient Sumerian city of Ur in southern Iraq, which, in biblical times, was part of Babylonia. For an alternative view, placing in Ur in Aramean Urfa, in modern day Turkey, see Gary Rendsburg, “Ur Kasdim: Where Is Abraham’s Birthplace?” TheTorah (2019).

[2] All English translations are from the NRSVue, unless otherwise specified, with slight adjustments (such as replacing “the LORD with YHWH,” following TheTorah’s style). The verse ends by saying that they stopped on their way in Haran, but eventually, upon YHWH’s command, Abram makes it to Canaan without his father and brothers (Gen 12). Reading the Abraham story as a “postdisaster” story, Joseph Blenkinsopp opines that “the journey of the Terahite family group from Ur to Harran correlates with the sites of the Judean (southern) and Samarian (northern) diasporas respectively.” Joseph Blenkinsopp, Abraham: The Story of a Life (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 21–22.

[3] Kathleen M. O’Connor, Genesis 1–25A (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2018), 3, 5–6: “A broad consensus among interpreters places the book’s composition after the Persian defeat of the Babylonian Empire … Genesis addresses descendants of survivors for whom the effects of the nation’s collapse continue to inhibit their future together and their life as God’s people.” Editor’s note: For another reading of an Abraham story through this lens, see Stephen Germany, “Abraham and Isaac in Gerar Foreshadows Judea under Persian Rule,” TheTorah (2021).

[4] David M. Carr (Holy Resilience: The Bible’s Traumatic Origins [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014], 96–97) writes: “This reference to the Chaldeans is one of our first clues that the stories about Abraham were reshaped by later Jews living in Babylonian exile…. the ‘Chaldeans’ were a Semitic people who took over Babylon in the mid-first millennium bce, around 700 bce… By including this brief mention of ‘Ur of the Chaldeans,’ the exilic authors of this Abraham story in Genesis made him into an indirect picture of themselves. Abraham in ‘Ur of the Chaldeans’ is now a proto-exile whose story mirrors the hopes and fears of the Judean exiles.” See also Isaiah 48:14.

[5] In Genesis, the eponymous patriarch Jacob is also described as one who returns to from abroad. Although born in the land, Jacob must leave it in order to escape the wrath of his brother Esau and also to find a wife. (See discussion in Tamara Cohn Eskenazi et al., eds., The Torah: A Women’s Commentary [New York: URJ Press, 2008], 161, who describes this account as “one of the Torah’s great paradoxes.”) Like Abram, he departs from the foreign land, where he met his wives, had his children, and made his fortune, to go back to Canaan upon YHWH’s command:

^{בראשית לא:ג} וַיֹּאמֶר יְ־הוָה אֶל יַעֲקֹב שׁוּב אֶל אֶרֶץ אֲבוֹתֶיךָ וּלְמוֹלַדְתֶּךָ וְאֶהְיֶה עִמָּךְ.... ^לא:יג ...עַתָּה קוּם צֵא מִן הָאָרֶץ הַזֹּאת וְשׁוּב אֶל אֶרֶץ מוֹלַדְתֶּךָ.

^{Gen 31:3} YHWH said to Jacob: “Return to the land of your ancestors and to your kindred, and I will be with you”… ^31:13 “…Now leave this land at once and return to the land of your birth.”

The depiction of a migration journey intertwines the two Israelite ancestors. As Bill Arnold writes in his commentary, “Jacob hears the command of [YHWH], tantamount to Abraham’s own call.” Bill T. Arnold, Genesis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 271.

[6] This is a simple name and seems to have been common in the ANE. See also the biblical Abiram, which is a variant on this same name. Usually, “Exalted Father” would be a reference to God, but here, given that Abram is the patriarch of Israel, the “father” is Abram himself.

[7] This usage is especially prominent in Isaiah, as will be discussed below, but it can be found elsewhere in the Bible as well. See, e.g., Deut 8:14; 2 Sam 22:28; Ezek 31:10; Hos 13:6; Prov 30:13.

[8] The last phrase “high” in v. 12 has been translated negatively by most versions, e.g., “so that it is brought low” (NJPS).

[9] A positive example of ר.ו.מ applied to a person appears in the so-called suffering servant passage:

^{ישעיה נב:יג} הִנֵּה יַשְׂכִּיל עַבְדִּי יָרוּם וְנִשָּׂא וְגָבַהּ מְאֹד.... ^נב:טו כֵּן יַזֶּה גּוֹיִם רַבִּים עָלָיו יִקְפְּצוּ מְלָכִים פִּיהֶם כִּי אֲשֶׁר לֹא סֻפַּר לָהֶם רָאוּ וַאֲשֶׁר לֹא שָׁמְעוּ הִתְבּוֹנָנוּ.

^{Isa 52:13} See, my servant shall prosper; he shall be exalted and lifted up and shall be very high… ^52:15 so he shall startle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths because of him…

It is worth observing the linguistic and thematic confluence with the Abraham account (see bolded terms). Though it would be a stretch to identify the suffering servant with Abraham himself, see Christopher R. North, The Suffering Servant in Deutero-Isaiah: An Historical and Critical Study (Oxford University Press, 1963), 113–114, 159, 189, who notes that some scholars have made the connection between Abraham and the Suffering Servant passages (though he considers many other possibilities).

[10] The imagery of the tallest tree falling contrasts with the humble yet righteous “shoot [which] shall come out from the stump of Jesse” (Isa 11:1). A subtler example appears in the song of the unnamed Babylonian king (which scholars conjecture originally to have targeted the Assyrian king Sargon II), where the prophet ridicules the tyrant’s boastful, albeit futile, claim:

^{ישעיה יד:יג} וְאַתָּה אָמַרְתָּ בִלְבָבְךָ הַשָּׁמַיִם אֶעֱלֶה מִמַּעַל לְכוֹכְבֵי אֵל אָרִים כִּסְאִי וְאֵשֵׁב בְּהַר מוֹעֵד בְּיַרְכְּתֵי צָפוֹן. ^יד:יד אֶעֱלֶה עַל בָּמֳתֵי עָב אֶדַּמֶּה לְעֶלְיוֹן.

^{Isa 14:13} You said to yourself: “I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God. I will sit on the mount of assembly on the heights of Zaphon; ^14:14 I will ascend to the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.”

Similarly, during the Assyrian king Sennacherib’s siege of Jerusalem, the prophet conveys divine chiding:

^{מלכיך ב יט:כב (=ישעיה לז:כג)} אֶת מִי חֵרַפְתָּ וְגִדַּפְתָּ וְעַל מִי הֲרִימוֹתָה קּוֹל וַתִּשָּׂא מָרוֹם עֵינֶיךָ אֶל קְדוֹשׁ יִשְׂרָאֵל.

^{2 Kgs 19:22 (=Isa 37:23)} Whom have you mocked and reviled? Against whom have you raised your voiceand haughtily lifted your eyes?Against the Holy One of Israel!

[11] Scholars have observed the ‘subduing of the arrogant’ motif resembles the Neo-Assyrian king’s conquering of his enemy subjects. Shawn Zelig Aster asserts that the Assyrian royal inscriptions record how the Assyrian kings (such as Tukulti-Ninurta I, Shalmaneser III, Sargon II, Esarhaddon, and Ashurbanipal) described themselves as the “scatterer” or “conqueror” of the “proud” (multarḫī) enemies. This Assyrian lexeme multarḫu (“proud”; or its earlier Assyrian adjective muštarḫu) is equivalent to Hebrew גאה (“proud”; cf. גאון “exaltation, splendor, majesty, pride”) in Isa 2:12. Shawn Zelig Aster, Reflections of Empire in Isaiah 1–39: Responses to Assyrian Ideology (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2017), 298–299, see also 202–204.

[12] According to Midrashic tradition, the “resh” (ר) in Abram/Abraham was thought originally to denote “he was the father only of Aram.” See A. J. Rosenberg, Genesis: A New English Translation: Translation of Text, Rashi, and Other Commentaries, vol. 1 (New York: Judaica Press, 1993), 194.

[13] Possibly ר.ה.מ is a variant ר.ו.מ “exalted,” or perhaps of ר.ח.מ “love.” Another suggestion is that Raham is the name of a people, mentioned on a thirteenth-century B.C.E. stele from Beth Shean, and thus, Abraham “Father of Raham” was the eponymous ancestor of the Rahamites. See Mario Liverani, Israel’s History and the History of Israel, trans. Chiara Perry and Philip R. Davies; (London: Equinox, 2005), 25; trans. from Italian, Oltre la Bibbia: Storia Antica di Israele (Roma-Bari: Gius, Laterza & Figli Spa, 2003); Richard S. Hess, “The Ancestral Period,” in Behind the Scenes of the Old Testament: Cultural, Social, and Historical Contexts, ed. Jonathan S. Greer, John W. Hilber, and John H. Walton (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018), 187–193 [p. 189].

[14] He also has an unknown number of sons from unnamed concubines (Gen 25:6), but as these do not become eponymous founders of nations, they are not relevant to the blessing.

[15] Cf. Isa 14:13–14.

[16] Benjamin Ziemer, Abram–Abraham: Kompositionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zu Genesis 14, 15 und 17 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2005), 394. See also Albert de Pury, “Abraham: The Priestly Writer’s ‘Ecumenical’ Ancestor,” in Rethinking the Foundations: Historiography in the Ancient World and in the Bible: Essays in Honour of John Van Seters, ed. Steven McKenzie and Thomas Römer (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2000), 153–81.

[17] Sarah is the mother of only two, Israel and Edom, the descendants of Isaac’s two sons, Jacob and Esau respectively, which does not really qualify for the description “multitude.”

[18] The name Ab-raham as “father of many” (אב־רהם) may also pose a pun for Ab-raḥam as “father of compassion” (אב־רחם). The notion of “father of womb” (cf. Gen 20:18) may portray Abraham as a “merciful, compassionate” ancestor, alluding to the lofty attributes of YHWH: “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful (רחום) and gracious” (Exod 34:6; cf. Isa 49:15; 54:7–10; 55:7; 60:10). Just as the servant of YHWH is pronounced to be “exalted and lifted up” (Isa 52:13; cf. 6:1), this ancestor for the exiles (Isa 51:2) takes the status of genuinely exalted “father of many nations and peoples.” If so, these allusions and puns depict Abraham not only as the “righteous” ancestor (Gen 15:6; cf. Rom 4:3; Gal 3:6) but also as the “compassionate” (rachem) ancestor, just as YHWH comforted (nachem) the exiles (Cf. Isaiah 40:1):

^{ישעיה מט:יג} רָנּוּ שָׁמַיִם וְגִילִי אָרֶץ (יפצחו) [וּפִצְחוּ] הָרִים רִנָּה כִּי נִחַם יְ־הוָה עַמּוֹ וַעֲנִיָּו יְרַחֵם.

^{Isa 49:13} Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing! For YHWH has comforted his people and will have compassion on his suffering ones.

[19] The two German words mean patriarch and matriarch, or just “ancestor.”

[20] Blenkinsopp, Abraham: The Story of a Life, 110. Another such passage, which plays off the relationship of Israel with other nations, is:

^{ישעיה ס:כא} וְעַמֵּךְ כֻּלָּם צַדִּיקִים לְעוֹלָם יִירְשׁוּ אָרֶץ נֵצֶר (מטעו) [מַטָּעַי] מַעֲשֵׂה יָדַי לְהִתְפָּאֵר. ^ס:כב הַקָּטֹן יִהְיֶה לָאֶלֶף וְהַצָּעִיר לְגוֹי עָצוּם אֲנִי יְ־הוָה בְּעִתָּהּ אֲחִישֶׁנָּה.

^{Isa 60:21} Your people shall all be righteous; they shall possess the land forever. They are the shoot that I planted, the work of my hands, so that I might be glorified. ^60:22 The least of them shall become a clan and the smallest one a mighty nation; I am YHWH; in its time I will accomplish it quickly.

Blenkinsopp (Abraham, 11): comments on this passage: “Though Abraham is not named here, we catch the echo of the twofold Abrahamic blessings, demographic and territorial, people and land, in response to the deportations and the fear and anxiety about the possibility of national and ethnic extinction.”

[21] This was true not only for Judeans in the Neobabylonian and Persian periods under discussion, but for Israelites in the Neo-Assyrian Period or Judeans in the Hellenistic period. It is a perennial problem for dominated minorities in any time or place.

[22] Marvin A. Sweeney, The Pentateuch (Nashville: Abingdon, 2017), 11: “The ‘endangered matriarch’ narratives in Gen 12; 20; 26; 34; and 38 play a key role in tying the Genesis narratives together by raising tension as to whether the ancestors of Israel will maintain their distinctive identities or assimilate into a more powerful Gentile culture.” The question of how Judeans should best relate to non-Israelites plays out in opposite ways in Persian period works. Ruth and Jonah, for instance, take a positive stance on Israel’s relationship with outsiders, Esther expresses angst about the outside world, while Ezra and Nehemiah push for total separation of Judeans from non-Judeans. See some discussion in, Jacob L. Wright and Tamara Cohn Eskanazi, “Contrasting Pictures of Intermarriage in Ruth and Nehemiah,” TheTorah (2015); Sara Japhet, “Survival and Revival: Megillat Esther and Ezra-Nehemiah,” TheTorah (2015).

[23] Name changes in the Bible do not always mark foreignness. Sometimes, it is meant to mark a new stage in a person’s life, or a new role they will play, such as Moses renaming Hoshea bin Nun, Joshua (Num 13:16). It can also reflect different perspectives on a person, such as how the prophet Nathan gave Solomon the name Jedidiah (2 Sam 12:25), or Jacob renamed his son Benjamin, rejecting the more negative name given to him by Rachel, Ben-Oni (Gen 35:18).

[24] Mordechai (=Marduk) does not appear to have had a Hebrew name at all.

[25] In Babylonia itself, some families may have followed multiple strategies. Thus, in a marriage contract found in Al-Yehudu, a Judean town in Babylon, dated to the reign of Cyrus, we find a Judean girl Nanaya-kānat, being married to a Babylonian man. Both of these factors point to assimilation, and yet, her brother’s name is Meshullam, a Hebrew name, which shows that, at the same time, the family did wish to emphasize their Judean roots. See discussion in, Laurie Pearce, “Jews Intermarried Not Only in Judea but Also in Babylonia,” TheTorah (2022); Kathleen Abraham, “West Semitic and Judean Brides in Cuneiform Sources from the Sixth Century BCE. New Evidence from a Marriage Contract from Āl-Yahudu,” AfO 51 (2005): 198–219. For more on the Judeans of Al-Yahudu, see Laurie E. Pearce and Cornelia Wunsch, Documents of Judean Exiles and West Semites in Babylonia in the Collection of David Sofer, CUSAS 28 (Bethesda: CDL Press, 2014).

[26] Editor’s note: For an alternative reading, in which Abraham is painted as non-ideal and the returnees as improving on him, see Hava Shalom-Guy, “Giving Israel Gold and Silver, Cyrus Improves on a Biblical Motif,” TheTorah (2020).

[27] Sociologists classify different types of migration, such as forced/involuntary migration (e.g., exile, refugee) and voluntary migration. For select comparative studies, consider Anthony H. Richmond, “Sociological Theories of International Migration: The Case of Refugees,” Current Sociology 36 (1988): 7–25; Jean-Pierre Cassarino, “Theorising Return Migration: The Conceptual Approach to Return Migrants Revisited,” International Journal on Multicultural Societies 6 (2004): 253–79; Christian Dustmann and Yoram Weiss, “Return Migration: Theory and Empirical Evidence from the UK,” British Journal of Industrial Relations 45 (2007): 236–56; Chesmal Siriwardhana and Robert Stewart, “Forced Migration and Mental Health: Prolonged Internal Displacement, Return Migration and Resilience,” International Health 5 (2013): 19–23.

[28] Editor’s note: For an argument that Psalm 114 was written to convince Judeans to return to their homeland, see, Marc Zvi Brettler, “Encouraging Babylonian Jews to Return, Psalm 114 Tells a Unique Exodus Story,” TheTorah (2020).

[29] See, e.g.,

^{ישעיה נא:יא} וּפְדוּיֵי יְ־הוָה יְשׁוּבוּן וּבָאוּ צִיּוֹן בְּרִנָּה...

^{Isa 51:11} So the ransomed of YHWH shall return and come to Zion with rejoicing….

See also, Isa 43:1–21; 48:20–21; 52:11–12; 60:4–16; 62:10–12. Consider John Ahn, “Forced and Return Migrations as the Mitte of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament,” in Christian Theology in the Age of Migration: Implications for World Christianity, ed. Peter C. Phan (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2020), 51–68. Notably, the Tanakh—the name for the Hebrew Bible in its traditional Jewish order—usually concludes with Chronicles, and thus Cyrus’ buoyant exhortation to Judeans to “go up” to Jerusalem, to return home:

^{דברי הימים ב: לו:כג} כֹּה אָמַר כּוֹרֶשׁ מֶלֶךְ פָּרַס כָּל מַמְלְכוֹת הָאָרֶץ נָתַן לִי יְ־הוָה אֱלֹהֵי הַשָּׁמַיִם וְהוּא פָקַד עָלַי לִבְנוֹת לוֹ בַיִת בִּירוּשָׁלַ‍ִם אֲשֶׁר בִּיהוּדָה מִי בָכֶם מִכָּל עַמּוֹ יְ־הוָה אֱלֹהָיו עִמּוֹ וְיָעַל.

^{2 Chron 36:23} Thus says King Cyrus of Persia: “YHWH, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Let any of those among you who are of his people—may YHWH their God be with them!—go up.”

In contrast, the Old Testament, following the Christian organization, closes with the anticipation of a great prophet (Mal 3:22–24 [*4:4–6]).