Hara

Hara (meaning a hill or mountainous land) was a province of the Assyrian empire to which Israelite exiles from the Transjordanian tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half-Manasseh were deported when the Assyrian king Tilgath-pilneser (Tiglath-pileser III) carried them away captive (1 Chr. 5:26). It is mentioned alongside the Habor River, the Gozan River, and the cities of the Medes as exile destinations.

Hara is mentioned only in this single verse, which has led some textual scholars to propose that the word hara may be a scribal corruption of Hara (Hebrew for mountains), that it might be the same as the cities of the Medes mentioned in 2 Kings 17:6, or that it designates a specific Assyrian administrative district not yet identified in extrabiblical sources. The Assyrian policy of dispersing conquered populations across the empire's different provinces was systematic, and the mention of multiple destinations for the Israelite exiles reflects the administrative reality of that policy.