Haran

AI summary: Haran is one of the Bible's key patriarchal cities outside the land of Canaan. It is the place of transition between Ur and the promised land for Abram, and later it remains the world of Nahor, Rebekah, Laban, and Jacob's long years away from home. Because of that, Haran belongs to the family history out of which Israel emerged. It also appears later in the memory of imperial conquest, showing that its importance extended beyond the patriarchal age. The cross references present Haran as a city of origin, kinship, and journey.¹

Heb. haran, i.e., “parched;” or probably from the Accadian charana, meaning “a road.” A celebrated city of Western Asia, now Harran, where Abram remained, after he left Ur of the Chaldees, till his father Terah died (Gen. 11:31, 32), when he continued his journey into the land of Canaan. It is called “Charran” in the LXX. and in Acts 7:2. It is called the “city of Nahor” (Gen. 24:10), and Jacob resided here with Laban (30:43). It stood on the river Belik, an affluent of the Euphrates, about 70 miles above where it joins that river in Upper Mesopotamia or Padan-aram, and about 600 miles northwest of Ur in a direct line. It was on the caravan route between the east and west. It is afterwards mentioned among the towns taken by the king of Assyria (2 Kings 19:12; Isa. 37:12). It was known to the Greeks and Romans under the name Carrhae. ³