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very strong. Uru is the only city of the name known from Assyriology (although the addition of the gen. suggests that others were known to the Israelites: G-K. § 125 h): it was situated in the properly Chaldæan territory, was a city of great importance and vast antiquity, and (like Ḥarran, with which it is here connected) was a chief centre of the worship of the moon-god Sin (KAT$2$, 129 ff.). The only circumstance that creates serious misgiving is that the prevalent tradition of Gen. points to the NE as the direction whence the patriarchs migrated to Canaan (see below); and this has led to attempts to find a northern Ur connected probably with the Mesopotamian Chaldæans of 22$22$ (see Kittel, Gesch. i. 163 ff.). Syrian tradition identifies it with Edessa (Urhåi, Urfa). It is generally recognised, however, that these considerations are insufficient to invalidate the arguments in favour of Uru.—] = Bab. Kašdu, Ass. Kaldu, is the name of a group of Semitic tribes, distinguished from the Arabs and Aramæans, who are found settled to the SE of Babylonia, round the shore of the Persian Gulf. In the 11th cent. or earlier they are believed to have penetrated Babylonia, at first as roving, pastoral nomads (KAT$3$, 22 ff.), but ultimately giving their name to the country, and founding the dynasty of Nabopolassar.—By the ancients was rightly understood of Babylonia (Nikolaos Damasc. in Jos. Ant. i. 152; Eupolemos in Eus. Præp. Ev. ix. 17; Jer. al.); but amongst the Jews  came to be regarded as an appellative = 'fire' (in igne Chaldæorum, which Jer. accepts, though he rejects the legends that were spun out of the etymology). This is the germ of the later Haggadic fables about the 'fire' in which Haran met an untimely fate, and the furnace into which Abraham was cast by order of Nimrod (Jub. xii. 12-14; Jer. Quæst., ad loc.; T$J$, Ber. R. § 38, Ra.).

29. While we are told that Nāḥôr's wife was his brother's daughter, it is surprising that nothing is said of the parentage of Sarai. According to E (20$12$), she was Abraham's half-sister; but this does not entitle us to suppose that words expressing this relationship have been omitted from the text of J (Ewald). It would seem, however, that tradition represented marriage between near relations as the rule among the Teraḥites (20$12$ 24$3ff.$ 29$19$).

With regard to the names, seems to be an archaic form of = 'princess' (see on 17$15$), while  means 'queen.' In Bab. the relations are reversed, šarratu being the queen and malkatu the princess. It cannot be a mere coincidence that these two names correspond to two personages belonging to the pantheon of Ḥarran, where Šarratu was a title of the moon-goddess, the consort of Sin, and Malkatu a title

29. ] sing., according to G-K. § 146 f.—30. ] as 25$21$ 29$31$ (J); not in P (see 16$1a$).—] [E]. Only again as Kethîb of Or. MSS in 2 Sa. 6$23$. It is possibly here a scribal error, which eventually influenced the other pass.