Nahor and his Descendants

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

Abraham's older brother was Nahor. Na-Hor is a Horus name. In ancient Akkadian, Na is a modal prefix indicating service to, affirmation, or affiliation. Na-Hor indicates that this man was a devotee of HR, which in ancient Egyptian refers to the Most-High God. Horus names were not unusual among the Horite Hebrew. Other Hebrew rulers with a Horus name include Hur, a "father of Bethlehem" and Harnepher, a chief of the tribe of Asher (1 Chron. 7:36).

Nahor ascended to the throne of their father Terah that probably extended between Haran and Ur, along the Euphrates River. He was the progenitor of twelve Aramean tribes through his 11 sons and 1 daughter. Eight were children of Milcah and four were children of Reumah (Gen. 22.20-24). Since the lines of Nahor and Abraham intermarried, it serves us well to learn all that we can about Abraham's nephews.

Genesis 22:20 tells us Milcah married Nahor and gave birth to eight sons. The most notable of Milcah's sons was Kemuel, the father of Aram the Younger. Aram the Elder was one of Shem's sons (Gen. 10:22) and he had a son named Uz. Job was of the clan of Uz.

In Numbers 34:24 we find that a descendant of Kemuel was a leader of the Ephraimites. I Chronicles 27:17 says that the Ephraimite Kemuel had a son named Hashabiah who was a Levite ruler. I Chronicles 26:30 referes to Hashabiah as a "Hebronite" who was put "in charge of Israel west of Jordan in everything pertaining to Yahweh and to the service of the king." In other words, one of Lot’s relatives by his sister was a man of great authority in Israel.

In Patriarchal times the rulers among these Horite clans would have intermarried. In his commentary on Genesis, E.A. Speiser recognizes this. He believes that the “parallel treatment of the histories of Abraham and Lot is added proof that interrelationship was particularly intimate and important in early times.” (Anchor Bible Commentary, p. 146)  The intermarriage of the clans is indicated also by the meaning of the names of Lot’s sons. Moab (Muab in Egyptian) means "from the father" and Ben-Ammi means "son of kin."

Whether Moab and Ben-Ammi were Lot’s first-born sons by two wives or his grandchildren, he is presented in Genesis as a great chief with the same familial pattern as Terah, Abraham and Jacob. The marriage and ascendancy pattern involved two firstborn sons by different women. The first wife was the half-sister (as was Sarah to Abraham) and the second wife was usually a cousin (as was Keturah to Abraham).

A patrilineal cousin is a first cousin who is in the same descent group as her husband. In other words, she and her cousin husband have a common male ancestor. This was the preferred marriage arrangement for rulers among Abraham's Horite people whose religion and point of origin is the ancient Nile. The rulers had two wives. One was a half-sister (as was Sarah to Abraham) and the other was a patrilineal cousin or niece (as was Keturah to Abraham) who named her firstborn son after her father, following the cousin bride's naming prerogative.

One of Nahor's grandsons was Lot, the son of Haran. The name Lot is found in Egyptian records, as in the name of the ruler Nim-Lot. Nimlot means the “Waters of Lot.” An earlier pictograph for water was w.  A sense of this is retained in the Arabic word for sweet water: ka-w-thr, which literally means “pure water from the King.”  In the ancient world, kings dug wells and controlled all the sources of the fresh water. Lot and his Horite ruler ancestors were the great rulers of the ancient world who controlled the major waterways and built their temples and shrines along rivers, at oases, and at wells.

Related reading: Hebrew Names and Titles; Abraham's Sons;  Moses' Two Wives; The Pattern of Two Wives; The Marriage and Ascendency Pattern of Abraham's People; Lot's Daughters