And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.
Haran died ... in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees. Josephus speaks of the sepulchre being still pointed out in his time at Ur. As to the locality of Ur, the name has been assigned to various towns, such as those represented by the modern Orfah (which Col. Chesney, 'Hist. of Euphrat. Exped.,' says is still called by the Arabs Ur of the Chaldees), Warka, and others. Knobel considers it 'the mountain of the Chaldees' [taking 'uwr (H217) = har (H2022)]. But the cuneiform inscriptions have shown Mugheir, or Mugeyer, in Southern Mesopotamia, which was what was properly called Chaldea, to be the true site of Ur. Mugheir is an oval-shaped mass of antique ruins, conspicuous among which are those of a spacious temple dedicated to the moon, and built with great bricks, cemented with bitumen, whence the name, Mugheir, 'the bitumened.' It is situated about six miles from the Euphrates, on its right or western bank, near the junction of that river with the Shatel-Hie.
Ur was a place of great importance, as the most ancient capital of Chaldea, and a market of commerce. х 'Uwr (H217), Ur, or Hur, means the moon goddess. Kasdiym (H3778), the people of Chesed, nephew of Abram, according to some; but that is absurd, since the name was in use before Chesed himself was born. Others consider it applied to a people who were originally a nomadic race, occupying the mountains where the Kurds are now found. Their name was properly Kardiym, altered, through the interchange of letters, which was frequent, into Chaldaioi, by the Greeks. A third class derive it from Khaldi, which in the old Armenian tongue denotes moon-worshippers (Rawlinson).]
Ur of the Chaldees, then, was so named as a city dedicated to the worship of the moon (cf. Job 31:2-28), in conformity with the Zabian idolatry that early prevailed in Chaldea. [The Septuagint has, instead of Ur, en tee choora toon Chaldaioon, in the country of the Chaldees.] There is great probability that a country, not a place, is meant, Terah and his sons being nomadic shepherds; and so Loftus regards Ur as a district of the Chaldees, including both the ruined sites of Warka and Mugheir ('Resear. in Chald. and Susiana').