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heren
הרנ
'heren' (aka Haran) was the brother of Abraham.
Abraham had two brothers, Nehor and Heren. Heren died young, leaving his son Lot in the care of his uncle Abraham.
The Queen of Heren
Nehor married 'Melek' (aka Milcah)(meaning “Queen”) who was “of the house of Heren”1). This may be best interpreted that Nehor married the queen of the house of Heren; in other words, Heren's wife.
In many ancient middle-eastern and Mesopotamian cultures, it was common practice for a man to marry his deceased brother’s widow. The practice is included in the well-attested “Middle Assyrian Laws” developed around 1400 BCE, however, the earlier “Code of Hammurabi composed 1750 BCE does not include this practice. By the time of the Mosaic Law, the practice had become a legal requirement in yeberi culture, as outlined in Deuteronomy 25:5-10, which states that the widow should not marry outside the family, but instead, the brother-in-law should take her as his wife. Similar customs existed in contemporary neighboring Ugaritic and Hatti civilizations. like Ugarit, and Hatti. The timeline of Abraham predates any of these documents, so it is possible that the tradition stems from Nehor's action. On the other hand, it seems likely that the practice has been in use for many thousands of years.
Sometime after Heren's death, the family moved upriver from the lower Euphrates delta, into the highlands know as Paddan Aram. It was here that they either founded or settled in city which became known as Heren (Harran). And it was here that Nehor and the “Queen of Heren” stayed. It is here that Abraham sends his servant to find a wife for ixeheq (Isaac) as described in Genesis chapter 24.
Heren's Daughter
Traditional translations of Genesis 11:29 unanimously interpret “Milcah”, the wife of Nehor as being the daughter of Heren.2)
This seems a bit strange, because the ancient Hebrew text of this verse does not include the word for “daughter” at all. The phrase typically rendered as “Milcah the daughter of Haran” comes from the Hebrew phrase מלכה בת הרנ
The Samaritan Pentateuch reads ” מלכה בת הרן “ 3) and the Masoretic text has ” מִלְכָּ֔ה בַּת־הָרָ֥ן “.
Here we have two common words, melek (with the addition of the very common ה suffix) and bet. Neither of these words are particularly controversial or mysterious.
melek means “king” or in this case, “queen”, as it does not imply gender and is consistently applied to rulers of any gender.
bet means “house” or “house of”. It is commonly used to refer to place names. You may recognize this use in a few commonly known locations in Israel, including “Bethel” and the little town known as “Bethlehem”. Out of over two thousand instances of the word 'bet', Genesis 11:29 is the only instance where this word is ever interpreted as “daughter”.
However, we must consider the rest of the verse. Immediately following the phrase we have already analyzed, we find the following: 'abi melekeh abi icekeh'
This phrase is typically interpreted “father of Milcah, father of Iscah”. This interpretation might be correct. abi certainly does mean “father”. The phrase appears refer to Heren.
So maybe the text is actually stating that Heren was the father of both Milcah and Iscah. This implies not only that Nehor married his niece, but that he probably married both of the sisters. Were that not the case, what would be the point of mentioning Iscah?4)
However it is possible to interpret this phrase as a statement about the town or household of Heren. Heren could be here described as “father of the Queen, father of the hut”. Iscah appears to be a derivation of cekeh which means “hut”. This might be a comment on the dichotomy of rich and poor in the city of Heren.