“The Lord said to Abram: Go you, from your land” – what is written prior to this matter? “Teraḥ died in Ḥaran” (Genesis 11:32). Rabbi Yitzḥak said: If you follow the calculation [of years] until now, he [Teraḥ] still had an additional sixty-five years coming to him.3Abraham was born when Teraḥ was seventy years old (see Genesis 11:26), and he left him the first time when he seventy years old (Seder Olam Rabba 1), when Teraḥ was a hundred and forty years old.
But Teraḥ did not die until the age of two hundred and five (Genesis 11:32), sixty-five years after Abram left him. The explanation is that, initially, you expound that the wicked are considered dead [even] during their lifetimes.4So Teraḥ did die, in a sense, before Abraham left him. Because our forefather Abraham was fearful, and he said: ‘If I go, the name of Heaven will be desecrated because of me, as people will say: He abandoned his father and left him in his old age.’
The Holy One blessed be He said to him: ‘I exempt you from honoring your father and mother, but I do not exempt anyone else from honoring their father and mother.5That is what is meant by “Go you.” Moreover, I will have his death recorded before your departure; first: “Teraḥ died in Ḥaran” and then: “the Lord said to Abram.”