THEOSISAugustine of Hippo
Nahor lived for seventy-nine years and fathered Farrah. After Farrah's birth, Nahor continued to live for one hundred nineteen years, during which he had sons and daughters before he passed away. Farrah lived for seventy years and became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Aran. This provides the lineage of Farrah: he fathered Abram, Nahor, and Aran, and Aran was the father of Lot. Tragically, Aran died in the presence of his father Terah in the region where he was born, Ur of the Chaldeans. Rather than focusing excessively on the lifespan of each individual in this lineage, we will mention only the age at which each bore a son. This approach will help us measure the years from the end of the flood up to Abraham while briefly acknowledging the rest.
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In the second year following the flood, Shem, aged one hundred, fathered Afraxad; Afraxad, at one hundred and thirty-five, fathered Cainan; Cainan, at one hundred and thirty, fathered Salah. Salah also waited until he was one hundred and thirty years old to father Eber. Eber fathered Phalek when he was one hundred and thirty-four, during whose lifetime the earth experienced division. Phalek lived for a hundred and thirty years and became the father of Ragab; Ragab was a hundred and thirty-two when he fathered Seruch; Seruch lived for a hundred and thirty and fathered Nahor; Nahor, when he was seventy-nine, had Farrah; and Farrah, at seventy, became the father of Abram, later named Abraham by God. According to the Septuagint, one thousand seventy-two years passed from the Flood to Abram, though the Jewish texts suggest a significantly lesser time, often lacking clarity in their accounts.
Abraham, a devoted follower of the one true God, sought the divine amidst the seventy-two nations noted. At a time when humanity shared a single language, there is little evidence to indicate that the true reverence for God had completely eroded, preserving genuine faith only within the line of Shem through Afraxad and leading to Abraham. Instead, it was through their prideful ambition to construct a tower reaching the heavens—a clear symbol of reckless arrogance—that the assembly of the ungodly, or the 'hail' of wickedness, became evident. It remains uncertain whether this wickedness was nonexistent prior to that moment, hidden away, or if it was both. The faithful could be identified in the two sons of Noah, who received God’s blessings, along with their descendants. In contrast, the unrighteous were represented by the cursed lineage, from which arose Nimrod, a rebel against the Lord, making it challenging to discern the true alignment of righteousness and wickedness during that era.