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examine the incidents in the Abramic migration. The city of Uru 
or Ur, the “1-1 X of the Hebrews, was distinctly a Moon city, its 
name, £( *<« | being composed of moon and city, and its 
temple was dedicated to the “Moon-god, the illuminator of heaven and 
earth.” In a hymn to this deity we read, Abu Nannar bel Urie ebilli ilani , 
“ Father illuminator, prince of Ur, ruling the gods.” From this city Terah 
migrated, and went to dwell in Haran, also a great seat of the Moon-god. 
For we find Nabonidus in a recently-discovered inscription commanded to 
restore this temple by Merodach. And the passage is remarkable. He 
caused his army to come from Khazzate (G-aza), on the borders of Egypt, 
from the upper sea (Mediterranean) across the Euphrates,* to restore the 
temple of E KHUL-KHUL — “the house of the Moon-god, my lord, which is 
within Harran.” Assurbanipal speaks of the temple of the Moon-god which is 
within Harran, as the place in which he was crowned. The family of Abram 
were idol-worshippers certainly prior to the call, and so, when they moved from 
Ur, in South Mesopotamia or Chaldea, to Kharran, in the land of the Nairi or 
Aram Naharaim, they went to a city of similar worship. It is also important 
to note without going the fanciful extent of Dr. Goldziher that the names 
of the family of Terah are similar to those of the Moon-god and goddess in 
Babylonia, thus indicating in all probability that it was this god that the 
“ fathers worshipped on the other side of the flood ” or river. Sarai, “ the 
Princess,” and Milcah “ the Queen,” both correspond to Sarrat and Milkat 
the Queen, both names of Gula the Moon-goddess, as was also Laban, in 
Assyrian Labanu, of the Moon-god. Ur was, moreover, one of the first cities 
in which Semitic names and inscriptions occur, so that its identity with the 
Biblical Ur of the Chaldees is supported on a strong basis. The use of the 
name Ura or Gura for Babylonian Akkad was at so remote a period, and 
afterwards entirely replaced by the later names of Akkad and Kaldu, that it 
is doubtful if the name had not become extinct long before the Hebrews 
separated from their Babylonian Semitic friends. 
* This entirely refutes Dr. Beke’s theory of Kharran being near 
Damascus. 
YOL. XVII. 
T 
