Goldfoot Genealogy

Nadene Goldfoot                                                   

Sarah and Abraham

Terah

                                                       















   
Terah, Abram's father, along with Abram and Sarai, were part of their clan traveling westward from the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers of Mesopotamia in Ur when they arrived in Canaan. (The longest river in Western Asia, the Euphrates flows for a distance of 2,800 kilometers, arising in Turkey and flowing through Syria and Iraq to drain into the Persian Gulf. ) Abram had been born in the 2nd millennium BCE.  He was one of 3 sons of Terah.  Sarah was the daughter of Haran, Abram's brother.   He was married to his niece.  Abraham and Sarah will have a son, Isaac, and he in turn will be the father of Jacob. Abram was ready to sacrifice Isaac at the direction of G-d, who he heard tell him, but was stopped in time, with the lesson that was to be no more human sacrifices. His loyalty to G-d had been tested as well.    Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are our 3 patriarchs.  The clan is referred to as the Israelites or Ivreem.  Sarai's name was changed, along with Abram's in Genesis (17:15- 22)  before she became a mother. 

 
     Abraham took a 2nd wife after Sarah had died, Keturah.  He had more children by her  He died at age 175 and was buried in the Cave of Machpelah, which he had bought, and laid along Sarah.  
                                               

Abram and Lot

Terah, son Abram, nephew Lot and granddaughter Sarai left Ur and went to Canaan.  Ur of the Chaldees, (Iraq)  who may have been of the Cassites, though there was a tribe of Chaldeans of Chaldea (Heb. Kasdim) that seem more likely.  They were a Semitic tribe which migrated to S. Babylonia and adopted the ancient Babylonian culture.  They gradually gained supremacy over the native inhabitants and gave their name to the entire area.  
                                                    

Attempts were made at first, under Merodach-Baladan, to overthrow Assyria, and they finally succeeded in the 7th century BCE under Nabopolassar and his son, Nebuchadnezzar, who established an empire from Assyria to the Egyptian border.  It was the Assyrians who later attacked our northern Israel's 10 tribes of Jacob and took them away, where we have found remnants now called Pashtuns, and of course, now Muslims.  Then, when the Babylonians attacked in 597 and 586 BCE, they were under Nebuchadnezzar and took away most all of Judah to Babylonia.  
      
Chaldea was a country that existed between the late 10th or early 9th and mid-6th centuries BC, after which the country and its people were absorbed and assimilated into Babylonia.  Semitic-speaking, it was located in the marshy land of the far southeastern corner of Mesopotamia and briefly came to rule Babylon. The Hebrew Bible uses the term כשדים (Kaśdim) and this is translated as Chaldaeans in the Greek Old Testament, although there is some dispute as to whether Kasdim in fact means Chaldean or refers to the south Mesopotamian Kaldu.

As for the Cassites, The Kassites were people of the ancient Near East who spoke Kassite, who controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire c. 1531 BCE and until c. 1155 BCE. The endonym of the Kassites was probably Galzu, although they have also been referred to by the names Kaššu, Kassi, Kasi or Kashi.

Our ancestors came to Haran first,  and settled there.  Haran was a trading town of NW Mesopotamia (Iraq) and the center of a moon cult. They were polytheistic people worshipping many gods, but especially,"Sin, (Akkadian),  and the Sumerian Nanna, 
in the Mesopotamian religion, the god of the moon. ... At any rate, Nanna was intimately connected with the cattle herds that were the livelihood of the people in the marshes of the lower Euphrates River, where the cult developed.  They were here long enough for Abram's grandson, Jacob, to marry his uncle Laban's 2 daughters, Leah and Rachel.  
       When God changed a person's name and gave him a new name, it was usually to establish a new identity. God changed Abram's "high father" name to “Abraham,” "father of a multitude" (Genesis 17:5) and his wife's name from “Sarai,” “my princess,” to “Sarah,” “mother of nations” (Genesis 17:15–16).
      Abraham had the experience of being visited by G-d in a vision and telling him that his descendants would inherit land from the Nile River of Egypt to the Euphrates River.  That must be how he came to believe in only one G-d; becoming monotheistic.  
                                                 

       The crescent, Nanna’s emblem, was sometimes represented by the horns of a great bull. Nanna bestowed fertility and prosperity on the cowherds, governing the rise of the waters, the growth of reeds, the increase of the herd, and therefore the quantity of dairy products produced. His consort, Ningal, was a reed goddess. Each spring, Nanna’s worshipers reenacted his mythological visit to his father, Enlil, at Nippur with a ritual journey, carrying with them the first dairy products of the year. Gradually Nanna became more human: from being depicted as a bull or boat, because of his crescent emblem, he came to be represented as a cowherd or boatman.
                                                                  

        Babylonia is also located in Mesopotamia.  For centuries this was the center of Jewish life.   It is mentioned several times in Genesis with reference to our patriarchs.  Assyrian inscriptions from this time mention a Habiru (Hebrew?) settlement in the area which some scholars link with Terah's residence there.  A small Jewish community still existed here in the 12th century.  
                                                      

Jacob started by being in love with Rachel.  He wound up with 2 wives, Leah and her sister, Rachel, daughters of Laban, his uncle.  Then he took each of his wives' handmaidens also. Zilpah and Bilhah.  Rachel, in the middle, will have Jacob's 11th son, Benjamin later and then die in childbirth. It is her sister, Leah, who gave Jacob 6 sons; Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun, and a daughter (Dinah). Jacob was forced to marry Leah first as she was the oldest daughter. This was custom.

                                                  

Iraqi Jewish family

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Abe's grandson;  Jacob will be the father of 12 sons who are the progenitors of our 12 famous tribes of which Judah was Jacob's 4th son by Leah, from where Jews came from. Judah was a good son in that he persuaded his brothers to sell Joseph, Jacob's 11th son by Rachel ( to passing Ishmaelites rather than leave him to die in a pit), and so received Jacob's patriarchal blessing.   The rest, the other 11, were also following the same religion which Moses had given to all 12, which he found living in Egypt as Egyptian slaves and had been in Egypt for 400 years.  They needed to return to their homeland of Canaan which G-d had told Moses. Jacob had packed up everything and with his family group of 70, had left a draught where nothing was growing and water had disappeared for Egypt.    
                                                                               

At Cave of Machpelah

Jacob resettled in Canaan and his young son, Joseph, disappeared, which left him inconsolable.    They were eventually reunited in Egypt where Joseph had become Pharaoh's chief minister.  Joseph settled in Goshen in Eastern Egypt, dying there at the age of 147.  He was buried in the  CAVE Of MACHPELAH At Hebron, where grandfather Abraham had lived. Abraham had bought this cave to use as a family burial place.   The name, Jacob, has been discovered in Akkadian and Egyptian sources.                                           
 1  Serug d: in age 230 Abram's ggrandfather
.. +Milcah
.   2  Nahor I b: in East d: in 148 years old Abram's grandfather
..... +Iyoska
..... 3  Terah b: in 1883 BCE-Ur of Chaldees, Sumeria, Mesopotamia Iraq d: 2083 in Haran in the year 2083 BCE Age at death: ? Abram's father
......... 4  [1] Abram-Abraham b: 1948 in Ur of the Chalees in 2nd millennium d: in Hebron
............. +[2] Sarai-Sarah b: in Ur of Chaldees d: in Kiriath-arba Hebron, Canaan m: in Haran m: in Haran ,Abram's niece and wife
............. 5  Isaac ben Abraham b: 2048 in Negev
.............. +Rebekah bat Bethuel b: in Aram
6. Esau
6. Jacob
......... *2nd Wife of [1] Abram-Abraham:
............. +Hagar
............. 5  Ishmael d: in Near Egypt towards Assyria
................. +1st wife
......... *3rd Wife of [1] Abram-Abraham:
............. +Keturah
............. 5  Zimran ben Abram-Abraham
............. 5  Jokshan ben Abram-Abraham
............. 5  Medan ben Abram-Abraham
............. 5  Midian ben Abram-Abraham
............. 5  Ishbak ben Abram-Abraham
............. 5  Shuah ben Abram-Abraham
.........4  Haran b: in Ur of Chaldees d: Bef. 2083 in Ur of Chaldees Age at death: ?
............. 5  Lot
............. 5  Iskah
............. 5  [4] Milcah b: in Ur of Chaldees d: in Haran
................. +[3] NAHOR II b: in Ur of Chaldees d: in Haran
............. 5  [2] Sarai-Sarah b: in Ur of Chaldees d: in Kiriath-arba Hebron, Canaan
................. +[1] Abram-Abraham b: 1948 in Ur of the Chaldees in 2nd millennium d: in Hebron m: in Haran m: in Haran
......... 4  [3] Nahor II b: in Ur of Chaldees d: in Haran
............. +[4] Milcah b: in Ur of Chaldees d: in Haran
............. 5  Uz
............. 5  Buz
............. 5  Kemuel
............. 5  Chesed
............. 5  Hazo
............. 5  Pildash
............. 5  Jidlaph
............. 5  Bethuel Citizenship: Syrian
......... *Friend of [3] NAHOR II:
............. +Reumah
............. 5  Tebah ben NAHOR
............. 5  Gaham ben NAHOR
............. 5  Tahash ben NAHOR
............. 5  Maacah ben NAHOR
                                                                   
Resource: Tanakh, Stone Edition