Genesis 11:31 names it as the place to which Terach took his family after fleeing the destruction at Ur Kasdim (Ur of the Chaldees); making it the "aboriginal source" of what would become the Beney Yisra-El.
Genesis 24 records the journey of Av-Raham's chief steward Eli-Ezer to Charan, to obtain a wife - Rivkah - for Yitschak.
Genesis 27:43: After supporting his theft of his brother Esav's blessing, Rivkah tells Ya'akov to go to her brother Lavan in Charan, in Padan Aram.
Genesis 28:10 Ya'akov sets out; and arrives (29:5) ff, and then spends the next 20+ years there.
2 Kings 19:12 and Ezekiel 27:23 also mention it.
Charan (חרן) means "a hot place". Haran (הרן) on the other hand, which is how most English versions mispronounce Charan and thereby cause immense confusion, Haran was the father of Lot, and also Av-Raham's brother. It does seem rather an odd coincidence that Charan should have come to live in Haran; and makes one wonder if there is not perhaps an orthographic error in here (a view not shared by the mediaeval scholar Matthew Paris, who spent much time in the capital of Franceand even more among the complexities of Bible translation). Given the nature of the terrain - which is the mountainous north of Syria - and the fact that it was a moon-shrine and not a sun-shrine, the term Charan ("a hot place") seems a great deal less apposite than Haran ("mountaineer" or "hill-dweller").
Genesis 27:43: After supporting his theft of his brother Esav's blessing, Rivkah tells Ya'akov to go to her brother Lavan in Charan, in Padan Aram.
Genesis 28:10 Ya'akov sets out; and arrives (29:5) ff, and then spends the next 20+ years there.
2 Kings 19:12 and Ezekiel 27:23 also mention it.
Charan (חרן) means "a hot place". Haran (הרן) on the other hand, which is how most English versions mispronounce Charan and thereby cause immense confusion, Haran was the father of Lot, and also Av-Raham's brother. It does seem rather an odd coincidence that Charan should have come to live in Haran; and makes one wonder if there is not perhaps an orthographic error in here (a view not shared by the mediaeval scholar Matthew Paris, who spent much time in the capital of Franceand even more among the complexities of Bible translation). Given the nature of the terrain - which is the mountainous north of Syria - and the fact that it was a moon-shrine and not a sun-shrine, the term Charan ("a hot place") seems a great deal less apposite than Haran ("mountaineer" or "hill-dweller").
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