HARAN, otherwise Charræ in Mesopotamia, a city celebrated for having been the place where Abraham first retreated Genes xi. 31, 32. Gen. xxvii. 45. xxviii. 10. &c.after he left Ur; and where Terah, Abraham’s father, died and was buried. Thither it was likewise that Jacob retired to Laban, when he fled from the indignation of his brother Esau. Lastly, at Haran or Charræ in Mesopotamia, Crassus the Roman General was defeated, and killed by the Parthians. Haran was situated between the Euphrates and the river Chebar, at a good distance from the place, where these two rivers join. Some read it Charan, but the Author of the Vulgate always HaranSee Basnage Antiquitez des Juifs, t. 2. p. 542..
M. Basnage in his Antiquities of the Jews, printed in 1723, pretends that some have unadvisedly endeavoured to find the city of Ur between Nisibe and the Tigris, and the city of Haran at Charræ in Mesopotamia, between the Euphrates and the river Chaboras. He maintains that Ur was situated pretty near the place where the city of Edessa was afterwards built, the Capital of King Abgarus’s kingdom; and that Haran or Charan was a town, at present unknown, out of the limits of Mesopotamia, in Syria of Shobah, in the way towards the land of Canaan. I report this opinion only for the sake of its singularity; the Author bringing nothing but very weak conjectures Hardouin. Chronolog. V. T. p. 24.to support it.
F. Hardouin believed that Haran was in Mesopotamia; which he places between Jordan and the Euphrates; and that it is not the city Charræ, celebrated for the defeat of Crassus; but that of Palmyra, or some other city in Cœle-Syria. He endeavours to prove, that there was a Mesopotamia on this side the Euphrates, between this river and Jordan; and this he does by the title of the Ixth Psalm, which imports that David fought in Mesopotamia and in Syria of Shobah; and again, by the iid chapter, verse 14. of the book of Judith, where it is said, that Holofernes having passed the Euphrates, came into Mesopotamia. But these authorities do by no means prove his assertion. The title of the above-named Psalm does not say, that Mesopotamia was on this side of the Euphrates; David might make war in Mesopotamia at one time, and in Syria of Shobah at another; or rather we should say, that he defeated the people of Mesopotamia in Syria, and on this side of the Euphrates. See 2 Sam. x. 16, 19. 1 Chr. xix. 19. Holofernes might have returned to the other side of the Euphrates, and into Mesopotamia, after having first of all passed this river.
The people of Charræ in Mesopotamia are said to have adored the Moon under the name and habit of a God, and not a Goddess; and that in the worship which they paid to this Deity, the men wore the habit of women, and the women that of men.