Mesopotamia.[587] Serug's son is Nahor, _i.e._ "the river," the Euphrates. Nahor is followed by Terah, who had his home at Ur. If this series of the first text preserved a genuine historical recollection, a portion of a Semitic tribe, settled in the mountains of South Armenia, or even the whole tribe--the sons of Arphaxad--journeyed to the south, after leaving nothing but their name in the mountain valley. The separation from their kindred was signified by the name Salah, _i.e._ "leaving." At first the sons of Arphaxad pastured their flocks at Serudsh, in the north-west of Mesopotamia, and from thence they passed to Ur on the lower Euphrates, while another branch, the sons of Joktan, turned away from the mouth of the Euphrates in the direction of Arabia. At a later time the sons of Arphaxad settled at Ur must again have marched up the Euphrates to Carrhae. Then followed a second division; one portion, the Nahorites, _i.e._ the people of the river, remained at Carrhae, while others, the Abrahamites, wandered to Canaan, or rather into the deserts bordering on Canaan. Moreover, since the first text denotes Abraham's eldest son Ishmael, as the progenitor of the Ishmaelites, _i.e._ of a considerable number of tribes of North and Central Arabia, and since the revision derives the Midianites, who wandered on the peninsula of Sinai, and further in the East, and other Arabian tribes, from the sons of Keturah, the younger sons of Abraham (pp. 324, 393), it follows that on the borders of Canaan a portion of the Abrahamites must again have broken off, and passed on to the peninsula of Arabia. However this may be, the kinship of the Hebrews with the Babylonians, Assyrians, and Aramæans, the derivation of their tribe from the river-land of the Euphrates and Tigris, is beyond a doubt, and we must regard the districts of Arphaxad and Serug, of Ur and Carrhæ, as the original home of the tribe, which afterwards grew up to be the Hebrews. In any case it is clear from this genealogical table that the Hebrews considered themselves closely allied to the Nahorites of Haran, but more especially to a considerable number of the Arabian tribes, or Ishmaelites, _i.e._ the Nebajoths, the Kedarites, the Temanites, the Jeturites, and finally the Midianites. This is proved, not only by the derivation of the Ishmaelites from the eldest son of Abraham, but also by the close relationship in which the Edomites, the brothers of the Hebrews, are represented as standing to the Ishmaelites. The names Ishmael and Israel are similarly formed; the first means "God (El) hears," the second, "God strives," or "God rules."