From Acts vii, 2-4 it appears that the lirst call which prompted the family to leave Ur was addressed to Abra- iiam, not to Terah, as well as the second, which, after the death of liis father, induced him to proceed from Haran to Canaan. The oriler to Abraham to proceed to Canaan immediately after Terah's death seems to in- dicate that the pause at Haran was on his account. Whetlier he declined to proceed any farther, or his ad- vanced age rendered him unetpial to the fatigues of the iourney, can only be conjectured. It appears, however, from Josh, xxiv, 2, U that Terah was given to idolatry, or rather, perhaps, to certain idolatrous superstitions, retained together with the acknowledgment and wor- ship of Jehovah, such as existed in the family in the time of his great-grandson Laban (Gen. xxxi, 30). Tiiis may suggest that it was not in the divine wisdom deem- ed proper that one who had grown old in such practices should enter the land in which bis descendants were destined to exemjilifv a pure faith.
From the simple facts of Terah's life recorded in the Old Test, has been constructed the entire legend of Abram which is current in Jewish and Arabian tradi- tions. Terah the idolater is turned into a maker of images, and '• Ur of the Chaldees" is the original of the '•furnace'' into which Abram was cast (comp. Ezek. v, 2). Kashi's note on (Jen. xi, 28 is as follows : " ' In the presence of Terah his father:' in the lifetime of his fa- ther. And the iMidrash Haggadah says that he died be- side his father, for Terah had complained of Abram his son before Nimrod that he had broken his images, and he cast him into a furnace of tire. And Haran was sit- ting and saying in his heart, If Abram overcome, I am on his side; and if Nimrod overcome, I am on his side. And when Abram was saved, they said to Haran, On whose side art thou? He said to them, I am on Abram's side. So they cast him into the furnace of lire and he was burned; and this is [what is meant by] f/r Casdiin (Ur of the Chaldees)." In Bereshith liab- ba (par. 17) the story is told of Abraham being left to sell idols in his father's stead, which is repeated in Weil, Biblical Legeiuh, p. 49. The whole legend de- pends upon the ambiguity of the word H^", which sig- nifies " to make" and ■• to serve or worship;" so that Te- rah, who in the Biidical narrative is oidy a worshipper of idols, is in the Jewish tradition an image-maker; and about this single point the whole story has grown. It certainly was unknown to .losephus, who tells noth- ing of Terah except that it was grief for the death of his son Haran that induced him to quit Ur of the Chal- dees (.4 nt. i, 6, 6).
In the Jewish traditions Terah is a j)rince and a great man in the palace of Nimrod (Jellinek, Bet ham- Midrash, p. 27), the captain of his army {Sepher Ihvj- i/dg/iar), his son in-law according to the Arabs (Beer, Lebeii Abiahdins, p. !)7). His wife is called in the Tal- mud (Buba Balhra, fol. 91 a) Amtelai. or Emtelai, the daughter of Carnebo. In the book of the Jubilees she is called Edna, the daughter of Arem, or Aram ; and by the Arabs A<lna (D'Herbelot, Bibliotheqne Orientate, s. v. "Abraham;" Iker, p. 97). According to D'Herbelot, the name of Abraham's father was Azar in the Arabic traditions, and Terah was his grandfather. Elmakin, quoted bj' Hottinger {^Smegma Oritntule, p. 281), says
' that, after the death of Yinia, Abraham's mother, Terah took another wile, who l)are him Sarah. He adds that j in tiie days of Terah tiie king of Babylon made war I upon the country in which he dwelt, and that liazrun, the brother of Terah, went out against him and slew him; and the kingdom of Babylon was transferred to Nineveh and Mosul. For all these traditions, see the liook of Jasher and the works of Hoitinger, D'Herbelot, ^\'eil, and Beer above quoted. I'bilo {]>e Somniis) in- dulges in some strange speculations with regard to Te- rah's name and his migration. — Smith.
Ter'aphim (Heb. terapMm, □"'Enri; only thus in the masc. jilur. in the Bible, but in the fem. plur. nsin, tcnipholh, in liabbinical writers) seems to denote tutelar household images, by whom families expected, for rever- ence bestowed, to be rewarded with domestic prosperity, such as plenty of food, health, and various necessaries of domestic life. This word is in the A. V. always ren- dered either by " teraphim," or by " images" with " tera- phim" in the margin, excejjt in 1 Sam. xv, 23; Zech. x, 2, where it is represented by "idolatry," "idols." The singular of the word does not occur, though in 1 Sam. xix, 13, l(j it appears that only one image is referred to. Possibly, as in the case of the Roman Penates (which word, also, has no singular), these representative images were always two or three in number. Strange to say, in the Sept. they are represented by a different render- ing in nearly every book where the word occurs: in (ien. xxxi by I'i^toKa:, in Judg. xvii, xviii by Siipa(piv or TO 5ttpa(ptiv\ in 1 Sam. xix by Kn>OTa<pui\ in P^zek. xxi, 21 by yXvKTa ; in Hos. iii, 4 b\' iijXoi ; and in Zech. x, 2 by aTro^.^eyyo^Erot. In the Vulg. we find nearly the same variations between theraphim, statuu, idola, simularru, ficjurm idolorum, idulohitrht. (In the following art. we chiefly make use of that found in Kitto's Cyclopedia.)