Hara
Ha'ra (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" (1Ch 5:26). The parallel passage in 2Ki 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 Khabûr. 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.
