The term “Chaldees” is of comparatively late origin much later than Abraham, and contemporary with the Babylonians. This article probes —
This town and people are first mentioned in common versions of the Bible in Genesis 11, verses 28 and 31. However, the term “of the Chaldees” does not occur in the oldest Hebrew text of the 3rd. century B.C. When the term occurs in other Hebrew manuscripts the word used in place of Chaldees is “Kasedim”. It is obvious that the Abrahamic family came to Karan from some place and our interest is in discovering something about it.
When we analyse “Ur of the Kasedim”, we find that we are not only considering a place, “Ur”, but also a people, “Kasedim”. There is a principle involved in this type of research in ancient times, for people who sustain a relationship to a place also sustain a relationship in time. We find in all historical study a topographical element and a chronological relationship. Where is the location of these people? Can we find it on an ancient map? What can we find out about the people and their connection with other Biblical events? When did these people come into the historical picture? Who were their progenitors? What was their significance? There is not a lot of information and some of it is contradictory. Commentators are divided and some conclusions are open to serious question.
The Time Question
Although we are often unable to determine the exact age of a relic or a people or a manuscript, we can determine a time when such objects could not have been in existence. This gives a starting point for narrowing down the proper time period. For example — if a discovery was made which could be shown to be of the tribe of Judah or Ephraim, we could not go back beyond the sons of Jacob for a starting point. If a relic or artifact was dug up of Greek or Roman character, it would indicate a time period later than Babylonian. Another example of great interest was found by excavators in Babylonia. It illustrated a ram caught in a thicket by his horns. While the age of the object could not be determined, Biblical readers will know that this object was obviously commemorative of the incident of Abraham and Isaac in Gen. 22:13.
With this introduction we take up the investigation of the people of Kasedim. Who was their progenitor? Their historical record goes no further back than Genesis 11, which appears to be about 1921 B.C. According to Gesenius, the best authority in the Hebrew language, the Kasedim were descended from “Kesed”, the son of Nahor, Abraham’s brother (in fact Abraham’s nephew, Gen. 22:22). From this it would appear that the Kasedim were not in existence when Terah, Abram and Nahor were living in Ur but appeared on the historical scene at a later date.
We next hear of the Kasedim in Job. 1:17 where three bands of Rashim (meaning chiefs) of Kasedim had stolen Job’s camels. Nothing further is recorded in Scripture for about 800 years but it is evident that they continued to develop as a people throughout the succeeding years. The next passage of Scripture where the Kasedim are mentioned is Isaiah (13:19 and 23:13) “Behold the land of the Kasedim”, called Chaldeans in the AV and correctly so here for it is about 713 B.C. and the correct time period for the use of this term.
The Chaldeans
The Chaldeans had come into an established country which could be called Babylonia-Chaldea with its capital Babylon and which had been developed by the Assyrians. Note the latter half of Isaiah 23:13, “This people was not until the Assyrians founded it for them that dwell in the wilderness, they set up the towers thereof, they raised up the palaces thereof; and He, (God) brought it to ruin”.
We know of the Assyrian kings’ building record in Babylon which they made their second capital. “This people was not” means, this writer thinks, that they were nomadic tribes who became one people and rose to power at the decline of the Assyrian Empire. This explanation is also applicable to Isaiah 13:19, “And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldee’s excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah”. Thus the Chaldeans are related to a date much later than Abraham.
It is difficult to be absolutely positive about these questions because records collected by ancient scholars and scribes were destroyed by invaders. Another difficulty is the use of names of people at the time of writing for occupiers of a land many centuries beforehand, when such a name is outside the historical period being written about.
This particularly applies to the names Chaldee and Kasedim.A further difficulty lies in the practice of calling all and sundry by the name of the dominant group in the area. The early biblical writers between 600 and 700 B.C. (and particularly the exilic writers of the last chapter of 2nd. Chronicles and from 2 Kings 24:2 on) classed all in Chaldea-Babylon as Chaldeans (or Kasedim in the Hebrew) instead of separating them into their racial groups. Like all great cities, Babylon attracted a large number of foreign peoples apart from considerable numbers of captives of whom a large number were Jews. There were Arameans, Chaldeans, Persians, Kasedim and many others too numerous to mention. We need to be aware of this factor in deciding where the Chaldeans fit into the historical picture.
Nimrod
We can begin to put the pieces together by starting with Nimrod. It seems that after the dispersion of the sons of Noah from the land of Shinar (still so called in Daniel’s day), Nimrod remained in the great Plain of Shinar. He established a great kingdom at the head of the Persian Gulf. Babylon was founded by him and he was one of the great men of the ancient world. We have no accounts of the immediate successors of Nimrod. There is not much use speculating about the many people that ruled this area which at a much later date became known as Chaldea. There were many dynasties. Some of the people who dominated this area were Elamites, Kassites, Amorites and a notable Arab chief Hammurabi (1546-1300 B.C. for his 5th. dynasty) who achieved much as a lawmaker and administrator. To this time there is no record of any names directly related to Chaldee; and Abraham was well before this dynasty.
After this Arabian dynasty ended, Tiglathi-Nin of Assyria invaded and conquered this land which they called “Kaldu”. The first reference to this name occurs in the annals of Ashurnasipal II (884859 B.C.). Some earlier records referred to “The Sealands”. In 850 B.C., Shalmanezer III raided the area and reached what he called “The Sea of the Kaldu” — the top of the Persian Gulf at the mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates. The Assyrians carefully distinguished the “Kaldu” from their Babylonian neighbours and from Arameans, Arabs and other tribes in the area. However, in the time of the decline of the Assyrian power and the rise of the New Babylonia, the term Kaldu included Upper and Lower Babylon and adjacent territories. A native governor, Nabopolassar, was able to extend “Kaldu” influence northward and in 626 B.C. he became king of Babylon by popular consent and established Chaldean dynasty. The prestige of this dynasty was such that Chaldea was henceforth (and retrospectively) synonymous with Babylonia.
Extracts From References
Peloubert’s Bible Dictionary:
The Hebrew prophets applied the term ‘land of the Chaldees’ to all Babylonia and `Chaldeans’ to all subjects of the Babylonian empire. The ancient Chaldeans, Kaldai or Kaldi, were in the earliest times merely one out of many Cushite tribes inhabiting the great alluvial plain. Their special seat was probably the southern portion of the country, which is found of late to have retained the name of Chaldea. In the process of time, as the Chaldeans or Kaldi grew in power, their name gradually prevailed over those of other tribes inhabiting the country, and by the era of the Jewish captivity it had begun to be used generally for all the inhabitants of Babylonia. The language of the ‘Chaldees’ was almost identical with the Assyrian. The term ‘Chaldees’ to denote the language in which certain chapters of Daniel and Ezra were written is incorrect. It was Aramaic.”
This extract indicates that the original inspired Scriptural record of these times has been edited by ancient scribes with some licence which amounts almost to carelessness, in the use of the name “Chaldees”.
Chambers Encyclopedia (P. 24):
“During the 11th. and 10th. centuries B.C., a number of Aramean tribes infiltrated into the south of the country and a kindred people, the Chaldeans, settled in the marsh country of the “Sea-Lands”.
Who the “kindred” people were is not specified; but it is quite possibly the Kasedim who would be kindred to the Arameans. Note the late date (well after Abraham) when this commentary places the immigration of tribes to this area who were ancestors of the Chaldeans.
Encyclopedia International (1963):
“Chaldaea or Chaldea, properly the marsh region of Southern Babylonia extending eastward from Ur, and occupied by the Kaldu tribes from about 1000 B.C. The new Babylonia dynasty to which Nebuchadnezzar belonged was of Kaldu origin. Chaldea was used by Nebuchadnezzar’s contemporaries Jeremiah and Ezekiel as a synonym for Babylonia, Other Biblical writers used the term Chaldea variously to mean pertaining to the Kaldu or Babylonian. The supposed anachronism of qualifying Ur in Southern Mesopotamia as “of the Chaldees” at the time of Abraham has occasioned the theory, not generally accepted, that Chaldea in some Biblical and classical contexts denotes part of Armenia, where a city, Ura’ is attested in cuneiform sources.”
This note refers to attempts to reconcile the difficulty by proposing another site for Ur — Ura in Armenia. Once again the date 1000 B.C. places the record of any people of known origins in the southern Babylonia region of the sealands, well after Abraham.
Conclusion
It seems that Abraham came from a tribal race, of unknown name and origin, some time after the empire of Nimrod and prior to that of the Assyrians. As Professor E. Wright observes, there is no evidence that connects the Abrahamic family, either Scripturally or historically, with the city of Ur in the land which is now known as Chaldea. There is textual evidence that the phrase “of the Chaldees” (describing the homelands of Abraham’s father) did not exist. In any case the use of the term “Chaldees” is anachronistic for the times of Abraham; and the names of tribes from which that name could have been derived are untraceable back so far. The mystery of the Men of Ur remains unsolved.
The Solution