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Additional data from OpenBible.info2 Kings 17:6 In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

2 Kings 18:11 The king of Assyria carried Israel away to Assyria, and put them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes,

1 Chronicles 5:26 The God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tilgath Pilneser king of Assyria, and he carried them away, even the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and brought them to Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the river of Gozan, to this day.

HALAH

ha'-la (chalach; Halae, Hallae, Chaach, for Chalach, Chala; Vulgate (Jerome's Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) Hala):

1. Many Identifications:

Mentioned in 2 Kings 17:6; 2 Kings 18:11 1 Chronicles 5:26, as one of the places to which the kings of Assyria sent the exiled Israelites (see GOZAN; HABOR). Various identifications have been proposed, all of them except the last more or less improbable for philological reasons:

(1) the Assyrian Kalach (Nimrud, the Calah of Genesis 10:11);

(2) the Assyrian Hilakku (Cilicia);

(3) Chalkitis in Mesopotamia (Ptol. v.18, 4), adjoining Gauzanitis (Gozan)-a good position otherwise;

(4) the Calachene of Strabo, in the North of Assyria. Equally unsuitable, also, is

(5) the Chalonitis of Pliny and Strabo, Northeast of Assyria, notwithstanding that this was apparently called Halah by the Syrians. An attractive identification was

(6) with the river Balikh (by change of "H" into "B")-compare Septuagint "in Halae and in Habor, rivers of Gozan"-but even this has to be abandoned in favor of

(7) the Assyrian Halahhu, which (except the doubling and the case-ending) is the same, letter for letter.

2. The Most Probable of Them:

It is mentioned in the W. Asia Inscr, II, plural 53, l. 35, between Arrapha (Arrapachitis) and Racappu (Reseph). According to the tablet K. 123, where it is called mat Halahhi, "the land of Halahhu," it apparently included the towns Se-bise, Se-irrisi, Lu-ammu(ti?), and Se-Akkulani, apparently four grain-producing centers for the Assyrian government. The first quotation implies that Halah was near or in Gauzanitis, and had a chief town of the same name. Of the 8 personal names in K. 123, 5 are Assyrian, the remainder being Syrian rather than Israelite.

T. G. Pinches

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HALAH, its site has probably been discovered at a place called "the castle" near the Khabour, 300 ms. n. w. of Babylon. 2 Kings 17:6.H2477: Chalach

an area under Assyr. control