try of Padan-Aram, in Northern Mesopotamia, near the base of
Mount Masios, and extending on both sides of the Euphrates.*

* The country of Padan-Aram is situated between the
Euphrates and the upper reaches of the Khabur, on both sides
of the Balikh, and is usually explained as the "plain" or
"table-land" of Aram, though the etymology is not certain;
the word seems to be preserved in that of Tell-Faddan, near
Harran.

Their earliest chiefs bore the names of towns or of peoples,--N
akhor, Peleg, and Serug:* all were descendants of Arphaxad,** and it
was related that Terakh, the direct ancestor of the Israelites, had
dwelt in Ur-Kashdim, the Ur or Uru of the Chaldaeans.*** He is said to
have had three sons--Abraham, Nakhor, and Haran. Haran begat Lot, but
died before his father in Ur-Kashdim, his own country; Abraham and
Nakhor both took wives, but Abraham's wife remained a long time barren.
Then Terakh, with his son Abraham, his grandson Lot, the son of Haran,
and his daughter-in-law Sarah,**** went forth from Ur-Kashdim (Ur of the
Chaldees) to go into the land of Canaan.

* Nakhor has been associated with the ancient village of
Khaura, or with the ancient village of Haditha-en-Naura, to
the south of Anah; Peleg probably corresponds with Phalga or
Phaliga, which was situated at the mouth of the Khabur;
Serug with the present Sarudj in the neighbourhood of
Edessa, and the other names in the genealogy were probably
borrowed from as many different localities.

** The site of Arphaxad is doubtful, as is also its meaning:
its second element is undoubtedly the name of the Chaldaeans,
but the first is interpreted in several ways--"frontier of
the Chaldaeans," "domain of the Chaldaeans." The similarity of
sound was the cause of its being for a long time associated
with the Arrapakhitis of classical times; the tendency is
now to recognise in it the country nearest to the ancient
domain of the Chaldaeans, i.e. Babylonia proper.

*** Ur-Kashdim has long been sought for in the north, either
at Orfa, in accordance with the tradition of the Syrian
Churches still existing in the East, or in a certain Ur of
Mesopotamia, placed by Ammianus Marcellinus between Nisibis
and the Tigris; at the present day Halevy still looks for it
on the Syrian bank of the Euphrates, to the south-east of
Thapsacus