While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The Chaldeans made out three bands, and fell upon the camels, and have carried them away, yea, and slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.
Chaldeans - not merely robbers, as the Sabeans; but experienced in war, as is implied by "they set in array three bands" (Habakkuk 1:6-8). Their original seat was in the region of the Carduchian mountains, north of Assyria (Xenophon 'Cyrop,' 3: 2, 3; and 'Anab.' 4: 3, 4), and near Armenia, whence they proceeded southwards in wandering bands before they were established in a settled empire namely, the Babylonian (cf. the note of Isaiah 23:13). Rawlinson distinguishes three periods:
(1) When their seat of empire was in the south, toward the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates. The Chaldean period, from 2300 BC to 1500 BC In this period was Chederlaomer (Genesis 14:1-24), the Kudur of Hur or Ur of the Chaldees, in the Assyrian inscriptions, and the conqueror of Syria.
(2) From 1500 to 625 B.C., the Assyrian period.
(3) From 625 to 538 B.C. (when Cyrus the Persian took Babylon), the Babylonian period. Chaldees in Hebrew-Chacdiym. They were akin, perhaps, to the Hebrews, as Abraham's sojourn in Ur, and the name Checed (H2617), a nephew of Abraham (Genesis 22:22), imply. The three bands were probably in order to attack the three separate thousands of Job's camels (Job 1:3).