Genesis Vol 3.pdf - College Press

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THE GENERATIONS OF TERAH 11:27-32
Both Ur and Haran were centers of moon worship, un-
rivaled in this respect by any other Mesopotamian city.
It is remotely possible, therefore, that this religious dis-
tinction, which was peculiar to Ur and Haran, caused
the two cities to be bracketed together, and then to be
telescoped in later versions, at a time when the Chaldeans
had already gained prominence, At all events, the correc-
tion required affects only incidental passages that are not
more than marginal footnotes to the history of the Pa-
triarchs. That history starts at Haran (12:J) as is evident
from its very first episode.” Murphy (MG, 2J6) writes
as follows: “In Ur of the Kusdim. The Kasdim, Cardi,
Kurds, or Chaldees are not to be found in the table of
nations. They have been generally supposed to be Shem-
ites. This is favored by the residence of Abram among
them, by the name Kesed, being a family name among his
kindred (Gen. 22:22), and by the language commonly
called Chaldee, which is a species of Aramaic. . . . The
Chaldees were spread over a great extent of surface; but
their most celebrated seat was Chaldea proper, or the land
of Shinar. The inhabitants of the country seem to have
been of mixed descent, being bound together by political
rather than family ties, Nimrod, their centre of union,
was a despot rather than a patriarch. The tongue of the
Kaldees, whether pure or mixed, and whether Shemitic or
not, is ppssibly ,distinct from the Aramaic, in which they
addressed Nebuchadnezzar in the time of Daniel (1:4,
2:4). The Kaldin at length lost their nationality, and
merged into the caste or class of learned men or astrologers,
into which a man might be admitted, not merely by being
a Kaldai by birth, but by acquiring the language and learn-
ing of the Kasdim (Dan. 1:4, v:ll) ,” Cf. also Adam
Clarke (CG, 39): “The Chaldees mentioned here, had not
this name in the time of which Moses speaks, but they were
called so in the time ifz which Moses wrote. Chesed was
the son of Nahor, the son of Terah, ch. 22:22. From
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