Ur

About Ur

Ur, also known as Ur of the Chaldeans, was an ancient city located in southern Mesopotamia, near the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. It is best known as the hometown of Abraham, the patriarch of the Israelites. According to Genesis, Abraham (then called Abram) lived in Ur with his father Terah, his wife Sarai, and his nephew Lot (Gen. 11:28-31). God called Abraham to leave Ur and go to the land of Canaan, promising to make him a great nation and a blessing to all the families of the earth (Gen. 12:1-3). Abraham obeyed and set out from Ur, traveling first to Haran and then to Canaan (Gen. 11:31; 12:4-5). Later, when God confirms His covenant with Abraham, He reminds him that He brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give him the land of Canaan (Gen. 15:7). The city of Ur is also mentioned in Nehemiah 9:7, where the Levites recount God's faithfulness in bringing Abraham out of Ur and making a covenant with him. Archaeologists have identified the ancient city of Ur with modern-day Tell el-Muqayyar in southern Iraq, which was once a thriving center of Sumerian civilization. The biblical account of Abraham's origins in Ur highlights God's sovereign plan in calling and guiding His chosen people from the very beginning.

Description from STEPBible TIPNR (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0, lightly reformatted. This is background reference material, not Scripture and not a FaithGraph editorial claim.