Following Ur of Chaldees' History of the Chaldean Tribes, Where they Came From Part I

 Nadene Goldfoot                               

   We know Ur as Ur of the Chaldees.  Who were these people?  Abraham lived in the 2nd millennium about

1948 BCE.  The Babylonian Empire's heyday was in 1750 BCE, after Abraham's time.  CHALDEANS (Kaldu), West Semitic tribes of southern Babylonia attested in Assyrian texts from the early 9th century BCE.  By the middle of the 8th century they had lost their political and ethnic identity and became a constituent element in the population of Babylonia. Following Berossus, classical authors referred to Babylonians as Chaldeans and also used the name Chaldaioi as a synonym for astrologers and magicians.  

     

  

 

          

                          

The Chaldeans were traditional allies of the Elamites and Iranians in their struggle against the Assyrians.  

When the Chaldean chief, Merodach-Baladan, seized the Babylonian throne in 721 BCE, he organized an alliance between the Chaldean tribes and the Elamites against Assyria. 

Baladan, King of Babylonia lived from 721 to 710 BCE and for nine months in 703, maintained Babylonian independence in the face of Assyrian military supremacy for more than a decade.

 

Commencing in 728, the king of Assyria also officially held the title of king of Babylonia.  During that time, Merodach-Baladan, a member of the Yakin tribe, was a district ruler in Chaldea.  

 

During the unrest surrounding the accession 

of 

Sargon II of

 Assyria in 722, Merodach-Baladan entered 

Babylon and claimed the Babylonian throne, 

which had belonged to his forebear, E-

Marduk.  An attack by the Elamites two years 

later so weakened the Assyrians--though both 

sides claimed victory. 

   

The Merodach-Baladan Boundary Stone:  

Merodach-baladan II, chief of the Bit-Yakin tribe
and then King of Babylon reigned 722-710 + 703-702 BCE
boundary stone (kudurru) The king is evidently granting
property rights to one of his clients.

The Chaldeans seemed to come from the area of Parthia, which was today's Iran or yesterday's Persia. Ancient records called it  ‘Airyana vaeja’ – the ‘Aryan/Iranian expanse.’  Susa, a city, was in Persia.  

Sources: Albert T. Clay, Light on the Old Testament from Babel, 1906. Ira Maurice Price, The Monuments and the Old Testament, 1925.

According to Assyrian accounts, Sargon marched south against Babylonia in 710 BCE. After defeating the Elamites and Merodach-Baladan’s other allies, he turned toward Babylon. Merodach-Baladan fled, and the leading citizens of Babylon brought Sargon unopposed into the city, where he officially became king of Babylonia.

 In 626 the Chaldean leader Nabopolassar decided to renew the Babylonian struggle against Assyrian domination; he founded the Neo-Babylonian, or Chaldean, dynasty. In 614 the Medes of Media, led by King Cyaxares, captured the Assyrian capital, Aššur.   The Medes were sons of Japheth, and cooperated with the Babylonians in the 6th century  but later defeated by Cyrus of Persia.  

Resource:

from Encyclopedia Iranica

https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/chaldeans-kaldu-west-semitic-tribes#:~:text=CHALDEANS%20(Kaldu)%2C%20West%20Se

mitic,in%20the%20population%20of%20Babylonia.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Merodach-Baladan-II