Chaldeans, Chaldees

Narrator: Chris Genthree

Duration: 3min

• 2 min. read • grade level: 10

After the mention of Ur of the Chaldees in Genesis 11:28, 31²⁸And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees. (Genesis 11:28)
³¹And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there. (Genesis 11:31) and Genesis 15:7⁷And he said unto him, I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it. (Genesis 15:7); and the Chaldeans who fell upon Job’s camels (Job 1:17¹⁷While 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. (Job 1:17)) we do not read of them for some fifteen hundred years, when God sent them to punish Judah (2 Kings 24:2²And the Lord sent against him bands of the Chaldees, and bands of the Syrians, and bands of the Moabites, and bands of the children of Ammon, and sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by his servants the prophets. (2 Kings 24:2)). Then, however, they cannot be distinguished from the Babylonians. Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon was called a Chaldean (Ezra 5:12¹²But after that our fathers had provoked the God of heaven unto wrath, he gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this house, and carried the people away into Babylon. (Ezra 5:12)), and on the taking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar it was the Chaldeans who destroyed the city (2 Kings 25); and in 2 Chronicles 36:17¹⁷Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man, or him that stooped for age: he gave them all into his hand. (2 Chronicles 36:17) Nebuchadnezzar is called “the king of the Chaldees.” It is evident therefore that the Babylonians are called Chaldees; and at one time the Assyrians were associated with the Babylonians. We read “Behold the land of the Chaldeans; this people was not, till the Assyrian founded it for them that dwell in the wilderness” (Isa. 23:13¹³Behold the land of the Chaldeans; this people was not, till the Assyrian founded it for them that dwell in the wilderness: they set up the towers thereof, they raised up the palaces thereof; and he brought it to ruin. (Isaiah 23:13)). This passage has been variously interpreted. The meaning appears to be that it was the Chaldeans that were going to destroy Tyre. They were a people that had not been reckoned among the nations until the Assyrians consolidated them into a nation. They had formerly dwelt in the wilderness—as when they fell upon Job’s camels (Job 1:17¹⁷While 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. (Job 1:17)). This was the people that would bring Tyre to ruin. Lowth translates the verse thus: “Behold the land of the Chaldeans; this people was of no account; (the Assyrian founded it for the inhabitants of the desert; they raised the watch towers, they set up the palaces thereof): this people hath reduced her to a ruin.” Herodotus says “the Assyrians built the towers and temples of Babylon” (Isa. 48:14,20¹⁴All ye, assemble yourselves, and hear; which among them hath declared these things? The Lord hath loved him: he will do his pleasure on Babylon, and his arm shall be on the Chaldeans. (Isaiah 48:14)
²⁰Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans, with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth; say ye, The Lord hath redeemed his servant Jacob. (Isaiah 48:20); Jer. 21:4, 9-10⁴Thus saith the Lord God of Israel; Behold, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, wherewith ye fight against the king of Babylon, and against the Chaldeans, which besiege you without the walls, and I will assemble them into the midst of this city. (Jeremiah 21:4)
⁹He that abideth in this city shall die by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence: but he that goeth out, and falleth to the Chaldeans that besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be unto him for a prey. ¹⁰For I have set my face against this city for evil, and not for good, saith the Lord: it shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire. (Jeremiah 21:9‑10): Ezek. 23:14¹⁴And that she increased her whoredoms: for when she saw men pourtrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldeans pourtrayed with vermilion, (Ezekiel 23:14); Dan. 5:30³⁰In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain. (Daniel 5:30); Dan. 9:1¹In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans; (Daniel 9:1)).

It has been judged that the Hebrew word Kasdim, translated “Chaldeans,” is from the Assyrian word Kasadu, “to conquer,” and is applied to those who “conquered” the Chaldean plain. The earlier inhabitants had an agglutinative language, such as the descendants of Cush would have: whereas the Chaldeans spoken of in the Old Testament were a Semitic race, who then possessed the land. At first they were a number of tribes in South Babylonia, but were afterward united and increased. They became merged by the mixing of races and living together, so as not to be distinguishable from the Babylonians.

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