Where was Ur of the Chaldees?

City or district somewhere near the Euphrates, from whence Abraham was called of God. Gen. 11:28, 31; Gen. 15:7; Neh. 9:7. It is supposed to be identified with Mugheir, one of the most ancient sites in Chaldea, situate about 31 N, 46 10' E. There are ruins of the true Chaldaen type, with many tombs, indeed almost a city of tombs, the dead having been brought thither from long distances for burial because of the supposed sanctity of the place.

Aram is the last of the sons of Shem. His name was generally given to the high table-land north-east of Palestine, though applied also more widely in combination with other terms, as will presently be pointed out. In the A.V., following the Septuagint and the Vulgate, "Syria" represents that general use. In the largest sense it comprehended not only the watershed of the Jordan and the country north, west, and east, but that which stretched to the Tigris, with Armenia on the north down to Arabia on the south. In the S.E. quarter it is designated Aram-Naharaim, that is, Syria of the two rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris, translated "Mesopotamia" in Gen. 24:10, Deut. 23:4, Judges 3:8, 10. After 1 Chron. 19:6, we have no longer that name, as the country so named passed under the dominion first of Assyria, and last of Babylon where it attained its supreme place. In early days it was the country where Nahor and his family had a city after leaving Ur (the modern Musheir) of the Chaldees or Kasdim, a Cushite race.

This was strictly the southern part of Babylonia, but the many references in scripture to the Chaldeans show that the inhabitants of the whole of Babylonia are alluded to by that name. Perhaps Ur is the only place in Chaldea proper to which scripture definitely refers. This was apparently a maritime city, which agrees with the country extending to the Persian Gulf; but the Gulf has receded far from where the river once joined it. The land of Shinar adjoined Chaldea on the north, in which were the early cities of Babel, Erech, Accad and Calneh. Gen. 10:10. The whole district was situate between the rivers Tigris and the Euphrates, but extended west of the latter. It was anciently well watered by canals, and is judged to have been productive. Herodotus says mounds, were built where the river once spread like a sea through the whole plain. Now all is desolation, some parts very dry, and others a mere swamp, with lines of mounds in various directions. The prophecies declared that it would be so, but as stated above, they refer to the whole of Babylonia. Jer. 1:10; Jer. 51:24, 35; Ezek. 11:24; Ezek. 16:29; Ezek. 23:15-16.

After the mention of Ur of the Chaldees in Gen. 11:28, 31; Gen. 15:7; and the Chaldeans who fell upon Job's camels (Job 1:17) we do not read of them for some fifteen hundred years, when God sent them to punish Judah. 2 Kings 24:2. Then, however, they cannot be distinguished from the Babylonians. Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon was called a Chaldean, Ezra 5:12, and on the taking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar it was the Chaldeans who destroyed the city, 2 Kings 25; and in 2 Chr. 36:17 Nebuchadnezzar is called 'the king of the Chaldees.' It is evident therefore that the Babylonians are called Chaldees; and at one time the Assyrians were associated with the Babylonians. We read "Behold the land of the Chaldeans; this people was not, till the Assyrian founded it for them that dwell in the wilderness." Isa. 23:13. This passage has been variously interpreted. The meaning appears to be that it was the Chaldeans that were going to destroy Tyre. They were a people that had not been reckoned among the nations until the Assyrians, consolidated them into a nation. They had formerly dwelt in the wilderness (as when they fell upon Job's camels, Job 1:17). This was the people that would bring Tyre to ruin. Lowth translates the verse thus: "Behold the land of the Chaldeans; this people was of no account; (the Assyrian founded it for the inhabitants of the desert; they raised the watch towers, they set up the palaces thereof): this people hath reduced her to a ruin." Herodotus says "the Assyrians built the towers and temples of Babylon." Isa. 48:14,20; Jer. 21:4, 9,10; Ezek. 23:14; Dan. 5:30; Dan. 9:1.

The Chaldean observations reached to 2234 before Christ, 1903 years before Alexander. The date of Callisthenes' visit being 331 before Christ, the third (second historical) dynasty must be added to complete the term. Cyrus was about 538 before Christ; 1662+538 =2200. If we add 258 for the dynasty missing from the MS, the first Chaldean, we have 2458 for the whole; but the first was Median, not Babylonish, if at Babylon: hence, subtracting 224 (2458 - 224), we have 2234, exactly the alleged period of Babylonish astronomical observations; these Chaldeans being known observers of planetary movements in connection with their idolatry, which the Medians were not, so that it is unlikely the 2234 years of observations extend to their time. That is, the known date of Alexander, added to the alleged duration of stellar observations, agrees with the length of dynasties exactly, if we leave out the first which was not Chaldean, and give 258 to the lost one. Some would count back from Cyrus, because the empire was then transferred from Babylon to Susa. Bunsen finds the name of Zoroaster, and connects 2234 with the first Median dynasty; but this is far less likely as it was not religiously or historically probable. Not religiously, for the planet-gazers were the Chaldeans; not historically, as, though Babylon had fallen as the imperial race in Cyrus' time, the priests' observations were given to Callisthenes at Babylon. Such is the judgment of the ablest German critics. It does not affect much our enquiry. I know Bunsen attempts to deny a Euphratean Cush; but his notion is contrary to all testimony of history, names, and accounts of races and their movements. I shall therefore take this system. It is Niebuhr's and other Germans he quotes, as well as Rawlinson's, and a German whom he quotes; quite admitting that, though the proofs are remarkably strong, in these ancient dates and readings there is uncertainty. That is, the Median, not idolatrous as the Chaldees, was the first historic kingdom; then a Chaldean. Of this the earliest known monarch, Urukh, has left his name on the foundation of the earliest cities of Lower Babylonia, Ur (or Mogheir), Warka (probably Erech), Senkereh (Larsa), and Niffer. Here first idolatry is found — the worship of sun, moon, and planets. He calls himself king of Ur, and Kinsi Akkad — a supposed ethnical or national designation. Erech and Akkad are mentioned in Genesis. We have a known date of a king Ismidagon from an inscription of Tiglath-Pileser, which places him in 1861. This is, say, 340 years after Urukh.

For a long time Daniel's account of the taking of the city and of Belshazzar being the last king, was held to be contradicted by history, which names several kings between Nebuchadnezzar and the close of the empire. Of these, two are mentioned in scripture: Evil-merodach, 2 Kings 25:27; Jer. 52:31; and Nergal-sharezer. Jer. 39:3, 13. Two others are also named in history, Laborosoarchod and Nabonadius or Labynetus: the former reigned only nine months, and the latter cannot be made to agree with Belshazzar; but happily Col. Rawlinson in A.D. 1854 at Mugheir, the ancient Ur, found an inscription on a monument to the effect that Nabonadius associated his son Bel-shar-eser with himself on the throne. Some tablets also have been discovered bearing the record of certain contracts made by Bilu-sarra-utsur, son of the king, which is also believed to refer to Belshazzar.

"The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia. What unanswerable evidence of sovereign grace! To overlook it springs from a wicked heart of incredulity in turning away from a living God, and hardens the soul in self-sufficiency, so that His voice is distasteful, disliked, and dreaded. Yet had they not often heard and read Joshua's testimony (Joshua 24:2-3)? "Thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel, our fathers dwelt of old time beyond the river, Terah father of Abraham and father of Nahor; and they served other gods. And I took your father Abraham from beyond the river, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed, and gave him Isaac." Assuredly it was not Stephen who slighted Jehovah's call of him who was to be dignified pre-eminently as "the friend of God." It was many centuries before the law, far away from Canaan, expressly before he dwelt in Haran; it was in Mesopotamia, infamous as the mother of idolatries, and the prison to which idolatrous Judah was sent, judicially, captive, for that sin.

Nothing can be conceived finer than the exact discrimination given to this holy man of God in beginning with Abraham. He first was not only chosen by grace, but called out of open departure from the true God, from country and kin devoted to other gods, to be the head of a family, and at length a people, whether in flesh like Israel, or (when Israel lost place for a while by apostasy) by believers spiritually as now separated to God for Himself, His own peculiarly. It was first outward, first what was natural, not spiritual which only came to light when the Jews rejected their own Messiah. The principle was plain in Abraham, though even in his case darkened and delayed by yielding to human feeling. For though he went out of his land, he did not get out of his kin, but dwelt with his father in Haran till Terah died. Then only God removed him into the land in which the Jews gloried as their dwelling.

"The God of glory," begins Stephen, "appeared unto our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran." Thus all for him was found in One who by this marvelous vision drew him to Himself. We know that he and his were serving other gods in that land beyond the flood, (that is, Euphrates, Joshua 24:2). They were involved in the idolatry in which, even then, the whole land was immersed; and there and thus grace met him. He was not the heir of privilege; and for him the glory dwelt not in any place made with hands, but apart from the world, in which he became by the revelation henceforth a pilgrim. From the land of his birth God called him out, and from his kindred; and the land to which He called him was one unknown. Faith every way was a necessity to him; slow as he might be, and was, to sever the ties of nature, which were but hindrance to him. After his father was dead, God removed him to the land which was to be his own.

The distance from Ur of the Chaldees, Abraham's starting-place when he received the call of God, to Haran, (or Charran, Acts 7:2), is 600 miles.

Time was when Modernists scoffed at the idea of the flood recorded in Genesis 7 and 8. The excavators come along. Professor Langdon worked at Kish, near Babylon. Sir Leonard Woolley excavated at Ur of the Chaldees, the place from whence Abraham came. They both at the same time came upon deposits which could only have been the result of a mighty flood. Dr. Langdon stated in The Times 18th March, 1929, that the thick alluvial stratum he had discovered in his opinion afforded "conclusive testimony that the Genesis story of the Deluge is historical." He said in The Times, 4th January, 1929:- "When we [viz., Sir Leonard Woolley and himself] made these discoveries we were loathe to believe that we had obtained confirmation of the Deluge of Genesis, but there is no doubt about it now."

It is then in Joshua 24 we read that Joshua said to all the people, "Thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt of old on the other side of the river [the Euphrates], Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor; and they served other gods." It is the first notice the Bible affords of idolatry; and this not when it began, but when it corrupted the immediate progenitor of Abraham. There was abundant and flagrant evil in the antediluvian world; but of serving other gods we never hear. Nor is there any hint of its existence after the deluge till scripture thus speaks of the fathers in Terah's day, though self-will wrought strangely in the race generally and in Nimrod particularly. God was in none of their thoughts. Human association only drew out dispersion; and individual energy subjugated mankind, as it had the beasts previously.