Haran and Canaeh, etc. From Arabia we pass to Mesopotamia. Haran (Genesis 11:31) stands for the Carrhae of the Romans, situated at the point where the old military and commercial roads bifurcated Cowards Babylon and the Delta of the Persian Gulf in the one direction, and Canaan in the other.
It appears in Genesis 24:10 and Genesis 29:4 as the city of Nahor, in Mesopotamia (Aram-Naharaim, equivalent to "Syria of the two rivers"), or, more definitely, in Parian-Atom, which lies below Mount Masius, between the Khabour and the Euphrates.
It is famous in Roman history for the defeat of Crassus by the Parthians. Caaneh. The eastern of the two roads just mentioned ran on to Calneh (of which Cauneh is a variant), named in Genesis 10:10 as one of the cities built by Nimrod.
It is probably represented by the modern Niffer, about sixty miles southeast of Babylon. It is named in Isaiah 10:9 in connection with Carehemish, in Amos 6:2 with Hamath the great, as conquered by the Assyrians.
It has been conjecturally identified by the Targum and other ancient writers with Ctesiphon, but (?). Eden; spelt differently in the Hebrew from the Eden of Genesis 2:8. It is probably identical with the Eden near Thelassar (Td.
Assar) of Isaiah 37:12 and 2 Kings 19:12, where, as here, it is connected with Haran as among the Assyrian conquests. Its site has not been determined, and it has been placed by some geographers in the hill-country above the Upper Mesopetamian plains; by others near the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates.
The position of the Eden of Amos 1:5, near Damascus, points to a Syrian town of the same name. The merchants of Sheba. The recurrence of the name after the full mention of the people in Verse 22 arises probably from the fact that they were the carriers in the commerce between the Mesopotamian cities just named and Tyre.
Asshur. The name may stand (Smend), as it commonly does, for Assyria as a country; but its juxtaposition with the names of cities has led some geographers to identify with a city Sum (Essurieh) on the west bank of the Euphrates, above Thapsacus (the Tiphsah of 1 Kings 4:24), and on the caravan-route which runs from Palmyra (the Tadmor of 2 Chronicles 8:4) to Haran.
Chilmad. The name is not found elsewhere. The LXX. gives Charman, a town near the Euphrates, mentioned in Xenophon, 'Anab.,' 1.5. 10, as Charmaude. It can scarcely have been a place of much general note, but may have had some special reputation which made it prominent in Tyrian commerce.