per, and [Greek: kondylos], knuckle.

CHALDAEA. The expressions "Chaldaea" and "Chaldaeans" are frequently
used in the Old Testament as equivalents for "Babylonia" and
"Babylonians." Chaldaea was really the name of a country, used in two
senses. It was first applied to the extreme southern district, whose
ancient capital was the city of _Bit Yakin_, the chief seat of the
renowned Chaldaean rebel Merodach-baladan, who harassed the Assyrian
kings Sargon and Sennacherib. It is not as yet possible to fix the exact
boundaries of the original home of the Chaldaeans, but it may be
regarded as having been the long stretch of alluvial land situated at
the then separate mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates, which rivers now
combine to flow into the Persian Gulf in the waters of the majestic
_Shatt el 'Arab_.

The name "Chaldaea," however, soon came to have a more extensive
application. In the days of the Assyrian king Ramman-nirari III.
(812-783 B.C.), the term _mat Kaldu_ covered practically all Babylonia.
Furthermore, Merodach-baladan was called by Sargon II. (722-705 B.C.)
"king of the land of the Chaldaeans" and "king of the land of Bit Yakin"
after the old capital city, but there is no satisfactory evidence that
Merodach-baladan had the right to the title "Babylonian." The racial
distinction between the Chaldaeans and the Babylonians proper seems to
have existed until a much later date, although it is almost certain that
the former were originally a Semitic people. That they differed from the
Arabs and Aramaeans is also seen from the distinction made by
Sennacherib (705-681 B.C.) between the Chaldaeans and these races.
Later, during the period covering the fall of Assyria and the rise of
the Neo-Babylonian empire, the term _mat Kaldu_ was not only applied to
all Babylonia, but also embraced the territory of certain foreign
nations who were later included by Ezekiel (xxiii. 23) under the
expression "Chaldaeans."

As already indicated, the Chaldaeans were most probably a Semitic
people. It is likely that they first came from Arabia, the supposed
original home of the Semitic races, at a very early date along the coast
of the Persian Gulf and settled in the neighbourhood of Ur ("Ur of the
Chaldees," Gen. xi. 28), whence they began a series of encroachments,
partly by warfare and partly by immigration, against the other Semitic
Babylonians. These aggressions after many centuries ended in the
Chaldaean supremacy of Nabopola