Aram, the brother of Arphaxad, represents, of course, the Aramæans of Aram, or "the highlands," which included the greater part of Mesopotamia and Syria. In the later days of the Assyrian Empire, Aramaic, the language of Aram, became the common language of trade and diplomacy, which every merchant and politician was supposed to learn, and in still later times succeeded in supplanting Assyrian in Assyria and Babylonia, as well as Hebrew in Palestine, until in its turn it was supplanted by Arabic.
Lud seems to be a misreading; at all events, Lydia and the Lydians, on the extreme western coast of Asia Minor, had nothing to do with the peoples of Elam, of Assyria, and of Aram. What the original reading was, however, it is now impossible to say.
In the midst of all these geographical names we find a notice inserted relating to "the mighty hunter" Nimrod, the beginning of whose kingdom, we are told, was Babylon, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh in the land of Shinar. His name has not yet been discovered in the cuneiform records. Some Assyrian scholars have wished to identify him with Gisdhubar, the hero of the great Chaldean epic, which contains the account of the Deluge; but Gisdhubar was a solar hero who had originally been the Accadian god of fire. It is true that Gisdhubar was the special deity of the town of Marad, and that Na-Marad would signify in the Accadian language "the prince of Marad"; such a title, however, has not been found in the inscriptions. Erech, called Uruk on the monuments, is now represented by the mounds of Warka, far away to the south of Babylon, and was one of the oldest and most important of the Babylonian cities. Like Calneh, the Kul-unu of the monuments, it was situated in the division of the country known as Sumir or Shinar. Accad, from which the northern division of the country took its name, was a suburb of Sippara (now Abu-Habba), and, along with the latter, made up the Sepharvaim or "Two Sipparas" of Scripture. The Accadian form of the name was Agadê, and here was the seat of a great library formed in remote days by Sargon I, and containing, among other treasures, a work on astronomy and astrology in seventy-two books.
The translation of the verse which follows the list of Nimrod's Babylonian cities is doubtful. It is a question whether we should render with the Authorised Version: "Out of that land went forth Asshur," or prefer the alternative translation: "Out of that land he went forth to Assyria." The latter is favoured by Micah v. 6, where "the land of Nimrod" appears to mean Assyria. But the question cannot be finally decided until we discover some positive information about Nimrod on the monuments.