Ur of the Chaldeans (‘ûr
kaśdîm) is the ancient city of Ur in southern Mesopotamia (Millard 2001;
Day 2002: 207-16). The specifications is that Ur “of the Chaldeans” makes it
clear that this is southern Mesopotamia. The Chaldeans were a tribal people of
uncertain origin who became prominent in southern Mesopotamia in the eighth to
sixth centuries BCE (Frame 1997). Their ethnonym (Akkadian kaldu, Greek
Chaldaioi) is represented in Hebrew as kaśdîm, with the letter śin.
The variation between śin and l indicates that the original
consonant was a lateral fricative [l], perhaps of East Arabian origin
(Steiner 1977: 137-43). It is possible that the Chaldeans were originally an
Arabian people (Frame 1997: 483). Ronald Hendel, Genesis 1-11: A New
Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AYB 1A; New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2024], 413)
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