Thare

THARE (Heb. Térah, Septuagint Θάξα, Θάξα). - Father of Abraham and of his two brothers Nahor and Haran, to whom together some historians therefore give the name Terahites. With Abraham, Sarai and Lot (v.) he emigrated from Ur in Chaldea to Haran (v.), where he died (Gen. 11:26-27, 31; Lk. 3:34).

With the abandonment of Ur and the migration toward the Mediterranean lands, the Terahites moved toward the regions that were later the seat of the glorious history of Abraham's descendants. Hence the importance of T. Genesis specifies the reason for the emigration. Jewish tradition (Judg. 5:7 ff.) suggests that the emigrants were in reality forced to flee because they were monotheists, not adherents of the local Chaldean cults; granted that this notice concerns all the emigrated Terahites and T. himself, the notice of An. 24:2, that the "ancestors" of the Hebrew people, among whom T. is expressly named, "served other gods," must be understood as referring to an earlier period. Traces of paganism are also found later among the Terahites who remained in Chaldea (Gen. 31:19; 35:2).

The same name (Heb. Térah, Septuagint Tazáh) belongs to a locality of the desert, mentioned in Num. 33:27.

Giovanni Rinaldi