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Bible Encyclopedias
Ur
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
or the name of a place and of a man. There is apparently no direct connection between the titles, perhaps not even kinship of dialect.
1. The original seat of Abraham's family, whence he set out for Canaan (Genesis 11:28; Genesis 11:31; Genesis 15:7; Nehemiah 9:7). (See ABRAHAM).
I. The Name. — This is invariably "Ur of [the] Chaldees" (אוּר כִּשְׂדַּים, Ur Kasdim; Sept. ἡ χώρα τῶν Χαλδαϊ v ων ; Vulg. Ur Chaldceorum [but in Nehemiah ignis Chaldceorum]). The oldest derivation of the word 1. is from the Heb. אוּר, or אוֹר, light, in the sense of fire (so the Targum and Jerome). This derivation is no doubt connected with the legends in the Koran and Talmud, which represent Abraham as escaping by miracle from the flames into which Nimrod or other idolatrous persecutors had thrown him (see Wagner, in the Thesaur. Theol. philol. 1, 173). Various other etymologies have been proposed: some taking the word as הֹר, a mountain; some as denoting the east, or the light giving region; while Ewald, from the Arabic, makes it "place of sojourn," and others look to the Zendic vara, afolrt (Gesen.), or the Sanscrit ur, a town, or even the Heb, עַיר a city (Bonomi, Nineveh, p. 41). The name, however, was probably indigenous, and belongs to the old Chaldee of the first empire, the Assyrian Uru, and the cuneiform Hur.
II. Sites Proposed. —
1. One tradition identifies Ur with the modern Oifch, in the north-west part of Mesopotamia. There is some ground for believing that this city, called by the Greeks Edessa, had also the name of Orrha as early as the time of Isidore (B.C. cir. 150); and the tradition connecting it with Abraham is perhaps not later than Ephraem (A.D. 330-370), who makes Nimrod king of Edessa, among other places (Comment. in Genesis, in Opp. 1, 58, B.). According to Pococke (Description of the East, 1, 159), that Ur is Edessa or Orfah, is "the universal opinion of the Jews;" and it is also the local belief, as is indicated by the title "Mosque of Abraham," borne by the chief religious edifice of the place, and the designation "Lake of Abraham the Beloved," attached to the pond in which are kept the sacred fish (Ainsworth, Travels in the Track, etc., p. 64; comp. Niebuhr, Voyage en Arabie, p. 330).
2. A second tradition, which appears in the Talmud and in some of the early Arabian writers, finds Ur in Warka, the Ο᾿ρχόη of the Greeks, and probably the Erech of Holy Scripture (called Ο᾿ρέχ by the Sept.). This place bears the name of Huruk in the native inscriptions, and was in the country known to the Jews as "the land of the Chaldaeans."
3. A third tradition, less distinct than either of these, but entitled to at least equal attention, distinguishes Ur from Warka, while still placing it in the same region (see Journal of Asiatic Society, 12:481, note 2). There can be little doubt that the city to which this tradition points is that which appears by its bricks to have been called Hur by the natives, and which is now represented by the ruins at Mugheir, or Umgheir, on the right bank of the Euphrates, nearly opposite to its junction with the Shat el-Hie. The oldest Jewish tradition which we possess, that quoted by Eusebius from Eupolemus (Prcep. Ev. 9:17), who lived about B.C. 150, may be fairly said to intend this place; for by identifying Ur (Uria) with the Babilonian city, known also as Camarina and Chaldaeopolis, it points to a city of the Moon, which But was Kamar being "the moon" in Arabic, and Khaldi the same luminary in the Old Armenian.
4. An opinion unsupported by any tradition remains to be noticed. Bochart, Calmet, Bunsen, and others identify "‘ Ur of the Chaldees" with a place of the name mentioned by a single late writer (Ammianus Marcellinus) as "a castle" existing in his day in Eastern Mesopotamia, between Hatra (El- Hadhr) and Nisibis (Amm. Marc. 25:8). The chief argunments in favor of this site seem to be the identity of name and the position of the place between Arrapachitis, which is thought to have been the dwelling-place of Abraham's ancestors in the time of Arphaxad, and Haran (Harran), whither he went from Ur.
5. It may be added that Tuch regards Ur as a Median town called Οὐέρα by Strabo (11, 523), a view followed to some extent by Ewald, Lengerke, Ritter, and Knobel,
III. Probable Identification. — It will be seen that of the four or five localities thought to have a claim to be regarded as Abraham's city, two (or three) are situated in Upper Mesopotamia, between the Mons Masius and the Sinjar range, while the other two are in the alluvial tract near the sea, at least four hundred miles farther south. Let us endeavor first to decide in which of these two regions Ur is more probably to be sought.
That Chaldea was, properly speaking, the southern part of Babylonia, the region bordering upon the Gulf, will be admitted by all. Those who maintain the northern emplacement of Ur argue that, with the extension of Chaldsean power, the name traveled northward, and became coextensive with Mesopotamia; but, in the first place, there is no proof that the name Chaldea was ever extended to the region above the Sinjar; and, secondly, if it was, the Jews at any rate mean by Chaldea exclusively the lower country, and call the upper Mesopotamia, or Padan-Aram (see Job 1:17; Isaiah 13:19; Isaiah 43:14, etc.). Again, there is no reason to believe that Babylonian power was established beyond the Sinjar in these early times. On the contrary, it seems to have been confined to Babylonia Proper, or the alluvial tract below Hit and Tekrit, until the expedition of Chedorlaomer, which was later than the migration of Abraham. The conjectures of Ephraem Syrus and Jerome, who identify the cities of Nimrod with places in the upper Mesopotamian country, deserve no credit. The names all really belong to Chaldmea Proper. Moreover, the best and earliest Jewish authorities place Ur in the low region. Eupolemus has been already quoted to this effect. Josephus, though less distinct upon the point, seems to have held the same view (Ant. 1, 6).
The Talmudists also are on this side of the question; and local traditions, Which may be traced back nearly to the Hegira, make the lower country the place of Abraham's birth and early life. If Orfah has a Mosque and a Lake of Abraham, Cutha, near Babylon, goes by Abraham's name, as the traditional scene of all his legendary miracles. Again, it is really in the lower country only that a name closely corresponding to the Hebrew אוּר is found. The cuneiform Hur represents אוּר letter for letter, and only differs from it in the greater strength of the aspirate. Isidore's Orrha (῎Οῤα ) differs from Ur considerably, and the supposed Ur of Ammianus is probably not Ur, but Adur. The Orchoe (Ο᾿ρχοή ) of Southern Mesopotamia (Ptolemy, Geogr. 5, 20; comp. Strabo, 16:1, 6), noted by later writers (Cellarius, Geogr. 2, 760; Bonomi, Nineveh, p. 41, 399), is probably different from the Οὔρη of Josephus and the Οὐρίη of Eulpolemus.
The argument that Ur should be sought in the neighborhood of Arrapachitis and Seruj, because the names Arphaxad and Serug occur in the genealogy of Abraham (Bunsen, Egypt's Place, 3,'366, 367), has no weight till it is shown that the human names in question are really connected with the places, which is at present assumed somewhat boldly. Arrapachitis comes probably from Arapkha, an old Assyrian town of no great consequence on the left bank of the Tigris, above Nineveh, which has only three letters in common with Arphaxad (אִרְפִּכְשִׁד ); and Seruj is a name which does not appear in Mesopotamia till long after the Christian era. It is rarely, if ever, that we can extract geographical information from the names in a historical genealogy; and certainly in the present case nothing seems to have been gained by the attempt to do so Onithe whole, therefore, we may regard it as tolerably certain that "Ur of the Chaldees" was a place situated in the real Chaldea the low country near the Persian Gulf. The only question that remains in any degree doubtful is whether Warka or Mugheir is the true locality. These places are not far apart, and either of them is sufficiently suitable. Both are ancient cities, probably long anterior to Abraham. Traditions attach to both, but perhaps more distinctly to Warka. On the other hand, it seems certain that Warka, the native name of which was Huruk, represents the Erech of Genesis, which cannot possibly' be the Ur of the same book. See ERECH. Mugheir, therefore, which bore the exact name of "Ur or Hur, remains with the best claim, and is entitled to be (at least provisionally) regarded as the city of Abraham.
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