HARA (NT,I), 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' (I Chron. v. 26). The parallel passage in 2 Kings xviii. It omits Hara, and adds 'in the cities of the Medes.' Bochart consequently sup poses that Hara was either a part of Media, or another name for that country. He shews that Herodotus (vii. 62) and other ancient writers. call the Medes Arians, and their country Aria. He farther supposes that the name Hara, which signi fies mountainous,' inay have been given to that northern section of Media subsequently called by the Arabs Elgebal (` the mountains ;' see Bochart, opp. i. 194). All this, however, appears to be mere conjecture. The words Aria and Ilara 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 Midler (Science of Lan guage, pp. 237, sq., 2d ed.), from the Sanscrit word Arya, which means noble," of a good family.' Its etymological signification seems to be one who tills the ground ;' and it is thus allied to the Latin Arare (see also Rawlinson's Herodotus P. 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 Khabfir. We may safely conclude, therefore, that Hara could not have been far distant from that region. It is somewhat re markable that the name is not given in either the Septuagint 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. 12o). 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 resembles Hara. The Hebrew words ZA-171 and inn are radically different. Hara may perhaps have been a local name applied to the mountainous region north of Gozan, called by Strabo and Ptolemy Mons Masius, and now Karja Baghlar (Strabo xvi. 23 ; Ptolemy v. 18, 2).—J. L. P.