Halah
Ha'lah (Hebrew Chalach', חֲלִח., signif. unknown; Sept. Ε᾿λαέ and Α᾿λαέ, Vulg. Hala; but in 1Ch 5:26; Sept. ΞαΞαδ, Vulg. Lahela), a city or district of Media, upon the river Gozan, to which, among other places, the captives of Israel were transplanted by the Assyrian kings (2Ki 17:6; 2Ki 18:11; 1Ch 5:26). Many, after Bochart (Geog. Sacra, 3:14, p. 220), have conceived this Halah or Chalach to be the same with the CALAH or Kelach of Ge 10; Ge 11, the Calacine (Καλακινή) which Ptolemy places to the north of Assyria (6, 1), the Calachene (Καλαχηνή) of Strabo (11, 530), in the plain of the Tigris around Nineveh. But this is probably a different place, the modern Kalah-Shergat. Major Rennell, identifying the Gozan with the Kizzil-Ozan, indicates as lying along its banks a district of some extent, and of great beauty and fertility, called Chalchal, having within it a remarkably strong position of the same name, situated on one of the hills adjoining to the mountains which separate it from the province of Ghilan (Geog. of Herod. p. 396). The Talmud understands Cholwan, five days journey from Bagdad (Furst, Lex. s.v.). Ptolemy, however, mentions (5. 18) another province in Mesopotamia of a similar name, namely, Chalcitis (Χαλκῖτις), which he places between Anthemusia (compare Strabo, 16:1, § 27) and Gau'zonitis (Gozan); and this appears to be the true Halah of the Bible. It lay along the banks of the Upper Khabûr, extending from its source at Ras el-Ain to its junimtiorp with the Jerujer, as the name is thought to remain in the modern Cla, a large mound on this river, above its junction with the Jerujer (Layard, Nin. and Bab. p. 312, note). Halah, Habor, and Gozan were situated close together on the left bank of the Euphrates (Rawlinson, Ancient Monarchies, 1, 246).
