Ur

The ancient Sumerian city-state in southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) where Abraham was born and God first called him to leave his homeland for an unknown destination. As a major center of moon-god worship and sophisticated urban civilization, Ur represents the pagan world from which God separated Abraham to found a people devoted to the one true God.

Ur flourished as one of Mesopotamia’s greatest cities from approximately 2100-2000 BCE, during the Ur III period. Archaeological excavations beginning in the 1920s uncovered the massive ziggurat dedicated to Nanna (the moon god), royal tombs filled with treasures, and evidence of a highly developed society with complex administration, mathematics, and literature. The city’s wealth came from trade, agriculture sustained by irrigation from the Euphrates, and craft production—particularly textiles and metalwork.

Scripture identifies Ur as the birthplace of Abraham’s family: “Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there” (Genesis 11:31). The designation “Ur of the Chaldeans” (Ur Kasdim) distinguishes it from other cities named Ur, though the Chaldean presence came later, suggesting either an anachronism or a later editorial clarification.

God’s call to Abraham originated while he was “in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran” (Acts 7:2), commanding him: “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1). This required Abraham to abandon not just a geographic location but an entire cultural and religious system. Ur’s ziggurats and idols represented humanity’s attempt to reach heaven through monumental construction and polytheistic ritual—the opposite of Abraham’s call to walk by faith with the one unseen God who reveals Himself through covenant promises.

By leaving Ur, Abraham became the archetypal sojourner, the father of faith who “went out, not knowing where he was going…For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:8, 10). God later reminded Abraham of this departure to emphasize His faithfulness: “I am the LORD who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess” (Genesis 15:7). Abraham’s journey from Ur to Canaan established the pattern of God calling people out from the world to become His distinct, holy people.