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More Sights

Some of our soldiers took these images during a guided tour of Ur.

Hi all,

Today I had a great experience that I would like to share with everybody, and have spent the last month trying to be able to do this. I was another base, and was rather surprised to be presented with the purported birthplace of none other than the patriarch Abraham. In the no-man's-land that surrounds the base, one can visit a ziggurat and a collection of ruins claimed by the locals to be the City of Ur, where he was born and raised until he was called to leave. They even pointed out a labyrinth of walls said to be the remains of his house.

I did some research and found out that the City of Ur is mentioned four times by name in the Old Testament, three times in the book of Genesis and once in the book of Nehemiah.

In Genesis 11, verses 28 and 31 we read, "Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldeans. …Terah took Abram his son [i.e. Abraham; see Nehemiah 9:7 below], and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife; and they went out together from Ur of the Chaldeans in order to enter the land of Canaan; and they went as far as Haran, and settled there."

Again in Genesis 15 we read of God saying to Abraham, "I am the LORD who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it" (Genesis 15:7). And finally, in Nehemiah chapter 9, in a prayer to God we read, "You are the LORD God, who chose Abram and brought him out from Ur of the Chaldees, and gave him the name Abraham" (Nehemiah 9:7).

I got a couple of pictures, I hope you like them.

Greetings,

SGT. Jorge P.