THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PROPHECY. "NOT THE WISDOM OF THIS WORLD."-1 COR. II. 6. SCIANT IGITUR, QUI PROPHETAS NON INTELLIGUNT, NEC SCIKE DESIDERUNT, ASSERENTES SE TANTUM EVANGELIO ESSE CONTENTOS, JAMES NISBET AND CO., 21 BERNERS STREET. 1854. THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PROPHECY. JANUARY 1854. ART. I.-WHO WERE THE CHALDEANS?* THE question which we have placed at the head of this article is one which bears very directly upon the interpretation of Old Testament prophecy; and we propose, therefore, to devote a few pages to its elucidation. The Chaldees are, in the sacred writings, known by the Hebrew name of D. The passages in which this appellation occurs may be divided into two classes: those which belong to the period after the rise of the empire of Nebuchadnezzar (among which, of course, we must reckon all the prophecies regarding that empire, even although they may have been uttered at a somewhat earlier date), and those which belong to the period anterior to the rise of the Babylonian empire. The latter class contains only a few passages, and need not detain us long. In Gen. xi. 28, 31, and xv. 7, Ur of the Chaldees (DTV) is mentioned as the place from which Abraham departed, at the command of God, to go into Canaan. To these texts we may add Neh. ix. 7. and Acts vii. 4; in which last Stephen says that Abraham came out of the land of the Chaldeans (εκ γης Χαλδαιων). Recent investigations have rendered it probable that this Ur is the city of Edessa, or Callirhoë. It is, however, remarkable, that nowhere in Scripture is Ur called a city, but is always coupled with the word land. Thus, Gen. xi. 28, "in the land of his nativity in Ur." The LXX., in all the passages which have been quoted, translate "Ur of the Chaldees” by ἡ χωρα των Χαλδαίων. Thus we learn that, in the time of Abraham, the seat of the Chaldeans was in northern * Many of the materials and some of the conclusions of this paper are taken from Gumpach's Zeitrechnung der Babylonier und Assyrier, published at Heidelberg in 1852. |