Terah
Terah is a location mentioned in the Old Testament, located in the region of Judea in modern-day Israel. Known today as Wadi Umm Hashim. It appears across 2 verses in Scripture.
Biblical History
Terah appears in the Old Testament as a wilderness encampment during the Israelites' forty-year journey from Egypt to Canaan. In Numbers 33:27-28, Terah is listed as the twenty-second of the forty-two stations of the Exodus itinerary, situated between Tahath and Mithkah. This brief mention places Terah within the extended desert wandering period that followed Israel's refusal to enter Canaan at Kadesh-barnea (Numbers 14). The encampment narratives in Numbers 33 serve a theological as well as geographical purpose, preserving the memory of God's providential guidance of Israel through the wilderness even during the years of judgment. The exact location of Terah, like most of the wilderness stations, remains unknown. It is worth noting that Terah is also the name of Abraham's father (Genesis 11:24-32), who led the family from Ur of the Chaldeans toward Canaan but stopped and settled in Haran. Whether this place name has any connection to the patriarchal figure Terah is uncertain, though some have speculated the encampment may have been named commemoratively.
Archaeological & Historical Notes
The site of Terah as a wilderness encampment cannot be identified with certainty. Proposed locations place it somewhere in the Sinai Peninsula or the Negev desert, consistent with the general route of the Exodus itinerary. The identification with Wadi Umm Hashim in the Negev region remains speculative and is not accepted by all scholars. Archaeological surveys of the Sinai have documented numerous ancient campsites and temporary occupation sites from the Bronze and Iron Ages, but definitively linking any specific site to the named stations of Numbers 33 has proven elusive. The itinerary in Numbers 33 likely preserves authentic geographical memory, but modern identification of individual stations requires further epigraphic and archaeological evidence.
Verse Appearances (2)
References
- Orr, J. (ed.) (1915) The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Chicago: Howard-Severance Company. [Public Domain]
- OpenBible.info (n.d.) Bible Geocoding. Available at: https://www.openbible.info/geo/. [CC BY 4.0]
- Bagnall, R. et al. (eds.) (n.d.) Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places. Available at: https://pleiades.stoa.org. [CC BY 3.0]
- Wikidata contributors (n.d.) Wikidata. Available at: https://www.wikidata.org. [CC0]
- Lawrence, D. et al. (2025) Villages to Empires: a settlement dataset for the Southern Levant. doi:10.5281/zenodo.15111732. [CC BY 4.0]
- Church of England (1769) The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version. [Public Domain]