Hara

Fausset's Bible Dictionary

 1 Chronicles 5:26. Pul and Tiglath Pileser carried the men of Reuben, Gad, and half Manasseh away to Hara while most were taken to Habor. The name may be akin to Aria and Aryans, the Greek for Media and the Medes. Probably Haran the Mesopotamian city whither Abram came from Ur, where he received his second call from God, and where his brother Nahor's children settled ( Genesis 11:31;  Genesis 24:10;  Genesis 27:43;  Genesis 25:20) in Padan Aram or the low and beautiful region at the foot of the hills below mount Masius, between the Khabour and the Euphrates. (See Abraham .) Here still is a town bearing the old name Harran, whose people retained until lately the Chaldean language and idols; upon the Belilk (in ancient times, Bilichus), an affluent of the Euphrates. Called Charran  Acts 7:2;  Acts 7:4. The scene of Crassus' defeat. At our Lord's time in Abgarus' kingdom of Edessa.

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

HARA . Mentioned in   1 Chronicles 5:26 as one of the places to which Israelites were deported by the king of Assyria on the capture of Samaria. But in the corresponding accounts (  2 Kings 17:6;   2 Kings 18:11 ) Hara is not mentioned, and most probably the name ‘Hara’ in   1 Chronicles 5:26 is due to a corruption of the text. There is much to be said for the suggestion that the original text read hârç Mâdai , ‘mountains of Media,’ corresponding to the cities of Media of the parallel passages (LXX [Note: Septuagint.] ‘the Median mountains’); and that Mâdai dropped out of the text, and hârç , ‘mountains of,’ was changed to the proper name Hara .

L. W. King.

Smith's Bible Dictionary

Ha'ra. (Mountain Land). Mentioned in  1 Chronicles 5:26 only, is either a place utterly unknown, or it must be regarded as identical with Haran or Charran .

Morrish Bible Dictionary

Place to which some of the captives of Israel were carried.  1 Chronicles 5:26 . It is not included in the parallel passage in  2 Kings 17:6 , and may in Chronicles signify 'hill country.'

Holman Bible Dictionary

 1 Chronicles 5:26 1 Kings 17:6 1 Kings 18:11

American Tract Society Bible Dictionary

 1 Chronicles 5:26 , probably a mountainous region in the northern part of Media.

Easton's Bible Dictionary

 1 Chronicles 5:26

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

(Heb. Hara', הָרָא ), a province of Assyria. We read that Tiglath-pilneser "brought the Reubenites, Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh unto Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the river Gozan" ( 1 Chronicles 5:26). The parallel passage in  2 Kings 18:11, omits Hara, and adds "in the cities of the Medes." Bochart consequently supposes that Hara was either a part of Media, or another name for that country. He shows that Herodotus (7:62) and other ancient writers call the Medes Arians, and their country Aria. He further supposes that the name Hara, which signifies mountainous, may have been given to that northern section of Media subsequently called by the Arabs El-gebal ("the mountains;" see Bochart, Opp. 1, 194). The words Aria and Hara, however, are totally different both in meaning and origin. The Medes were a branch of the great Arian family who came originally from India, and who took their name, according to Muller (Science of Language, p. 237 sq., 2nd ed.), from the Sanskrit word Arya, which means noble, "of a good family." Its etymological meaning seems to be "one who tills the ground "and it is thus allied to the Latin arare (see also Rawlinson's Herodotus, 1, 401).

Hara is joined with Hala, Habor, and the river Gozan. These were all situated in Western Assyria, between the Tigris and Euphrates, and along the banks of the Khab Û r. We may safely conclude, therefore, that Hara could not have been far distant from that region. It is somewhat remarkable that the name is not given in either the Sept. or Peshito version. Some have hence imagined that the word was interpolated after these versions were made. This, however, is a rash criticism, as it exists in all Hebrew MSS., and also in Jerome's version (see Robinson's Calmet, s.v.Gozan; Grant's Nestorian Christians, p. 120). The conjecture that Hara and Haran are identical cannot be sustained, though the situation of the latter might suit the requirements of the Biblical narrative, and its Greek classical name Carrhae resembles Hara. (See Haran). The Hebrew words הַרא and חרן are radically different. Hara may perhaps have been a local name applied to the mountainous region north of Gozan, called by Strabo and Ptolemy Mins Masius, and now Karja Baghlar (Strabo, 16:23, Ptolemy, 5, 18, 2). — Kitto, s.v.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

hā´ra ( הרא , hārā'  ; Septuagint omits): A place named in   1 Chronicles 5:26 along with Halah, Habor and the river of Gozan, whither the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh were carried by Tiglath-pileser. In   2 Kings 17:6;  2 Kings 18:11 , Hara is omitted, and in both, "and in the cities of the Medes" is added. Septuagint renders ὄρη Μήδων , órē Mḗdōn , "the mountains of the Medes," which may represent Hebrew הרי מדי , hārē mādhay , "mountains of Media," or, ערי מדי , ‛ārē mādhay , "cities of Media." The text seems to be corrupt. The second word may have fallen out in  1 Chronicles 5:26 , hārē being changed to hārā' ̌ .

Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblial Literature

Hara (mountain). One of the places to which the tribes beyond the Jordan were carried away by Tiglath-pileser. The word occurs only in a single passage . Bochart and Gesenius conjecture that it is a name for the northern part of Media.