Aram-naharaim

Aram-naharaim, meaning Aram of the two rivers, is the biblical designation for upper Mesopotamia, the region between the Euphrates and the Tigris—or, more precisely, between the Euphrates and its tributary the Habor (Khabur). It corresponds to the region the Greeks called Mesopotamia and is so rendered in the Septuagint and in Acts 7:2. Abraham's family settled here before his call, at Haran in Paddan-aram (Gen. 24:10; 28:2), and this is the homeland to which Abraham sent his servant to find a wife for Isaac.

Psalm 60 bears the superscription “When he strove with Aram-naharaim,” linking it to David's campaigns against the Aramean states of the north. Hosea 12:12 recalls Jacob's service in Aram as background for an appeal to national humility. The region's cultural and linguistic links to Israel—the patriarchs were themselves Aramean by descent (Deut. 26:5)—make Aram-naharaim a crucial geographic and theological reference point in the narrative of Israel's origins.