Terah Toledot. The ten-level genealogy from Shem to Terah completes the genealogical material of the Primeval Story and draws it to a conclusion by accounting for the origin of Abram. In fact, the genealogy consists of two toledot (see Chapter 2): the toledot of Shem (11:10) and the toledot of Terah (11:27). In so far as the toledot of Terah is really the story of Abram, this is the real beginning of the Abraham cycle (see Chapter 2). The editors who drew up chapter and verse divisions should have made the major break here. The Terah genealogy locates the family originally in Ur of the Chaldeans and establishes a number of important facts and connections. First, the family left Ur and headed west, perhaps as part of the historically attested movement of the Amorites, called Amurru in Mesopotamian sources. When Terah's family came to Haran on the Euphrates they settled there. The story of Abram develops beginning in Genesis 12. Presumably, when Yahweh commanded Abram to leave, he would have left Haran, not Ur, as later tradition has it (for example, see Acts 7:2-5). Second, Terah's family evidently had put down roots in Haran. This explains why Abram and Sarai later got a wife for Isaac from there, to keep it all in the family. Also, when Jacob fled Canaan, he went to this area, located his uncle Laban, and eventually married his daughters (see Chapter 2).