Serug ( – ''Śərūḡ'', "branch"; – ''Seroúkh'') was the son of

Reu Reu or Ragau (; ), according to Genesis in the Hebrew Bible, was the son of Peleg and the father of Serug, thus being Abraham's great-great-grandfather and the ancestor of the Israelites and Ishmaelites. In scriptures According to the apo ...

and the father of Nahor, according to Genesis 11:20–23. He is also the great-grandfather of

Abraham Abraham (originally Abram) is the common Hebrews, Hebrew Patriarchs (Bible), patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father who began the Covenant (biblical), covenanta ...

, thus the ancestor of the Ishmaelites and the

Israelites Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...

In scriptures

In the

Masoretic Text The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; ) is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (''Tanakh'') in Rabbinic Judaism. The Masoretic Text defines the Jewish canon and its precise letter-text, with its vocaliz ...

(𝕸) on which modern Bibles are based, he was 30 years old when Nahor was born and lived for another 200 years, making his age at death 230, when Abraham was either 41 or 101. However, the

Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...

(LXX) and

Samaritan Pentateuch The Samaritan Pentateuch, also called the Samaritan Torah (Samaritan Hebrew: , ), is the Religious text, sacred scripture of the Samaritans. Written in the Samaritan script, it dates back to one of the ancient versions of the Torah that existe ...

texts state that he was 130 on fathering Nahor; the Samaritan Pentateuch gives his age at death as 230, stating that he lived another 100 years, while the LXX has 200, making him 330 at his death. Further details are provided in the

Book of Jubilees The Book of Jubilees is an ancient Jewish apocryphal text of 50 chapters (1,341 verses), considered canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, as well as by Haymanot Judaism, a denomination observed by members of Ethiopian Jewish ...

, which gives the names of his mother, Ora (11:1), and wife, Milcah (11:6). It also states that his original name was Seroh, but that it was changed to Serug in the time when

Noah Noah (; , also Noach) appears as the last of the Antediluvian Patriarchs (Bible), patriarchs in the traditions of Abrahamic religions. His story appears in the Hebrew Bible (Book of Genesis, chapters 5–9), the Quran and Baháʼí literature, ...

's children began to fight wars and the city of

Ur of the Chaldees Ur Kasdim (), commonly translated as Ur of the Chaldees, is a city mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as the birthplace of Abraham, the Patriarchs (Bible), patriarch of the Israelites and the Ishmaelites. In 1862, Sir Henry Rawlinson, 1st Baronet, Hen ...

was built where Serug lived. It says this Serug was the first of the patriarchal line to abandon

monotheism Monotheism is the belief that one God is the only, or at least the dominant deity.F. L. Cross, Cross, F.L.; Livingstone, E.A., eds. (1974). "Monotheism". The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (2 ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. A ...

and turn to

idol worship Idolatry is the worship of an idol as though it were a deity. In Abrahamic religions (namely Judaism, Samaritanism, Christianity, Islam, and the Baháʼí Faith) idolatry connotes the worship of something or someone other than the Abrahamic ...

, teaching sorcery to his son Nahor.

In popular culture

The biblical film ''Abraham'' (1993) uses Serug's name for a younger member of Abraham's caravan. The character's juvenile version is played by Aziz Khaldoun and the adult version is played by Tom Radcliffe.

References

{{Adam to Muhammad Book of Genesis people Ur of the Chaldees Book of Jubilees