Whoever reads the accounts in Genesis 11.27—12.4 is left with the impression that it was after Abraham’s father died that God made him move; but if one takes into consideration the ages of Terah and Abraham as given in Genesis 11.26, 32, and 12.4, then Terah must still have been alive when the move was made from Haran. Neither this discrepancy nor the one mentioned in the previous verse is important to Luke or to Stephen; the purpose of both men is merely to indicate that God appeared to Abraham outside the Holy Land.

The Good News Translation has made explicit the subject of made him move, that is, God. Stephen now points out that even though it was God who made Abraham move to the country in which they now live, God did not then give Abraham any part of it as his own. As his own translates one Greek word which is usually rendered “inheritance,” but the meaning is not something which one inherits but rather something which one possesses.

If it is necessary to identify the place name Haran, one can always add “city,” preferably, of course, in the place of first occurrence of this term, namely, in verse 2.

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Acts of the Apostles. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1972. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .