Paddan-aram

Biblical Text

The name Paddan-aram appears only in Genesis.

• Genesis 25:20: Rebekah, whom Isaac took as his wife, is introduced as the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram and the sister of Laban.
• Genesis 28:1–7: Isaac instructs Jacob not to take a wife from among the Canaanite women and sends him to his uncle Laban in Paddan-aram to marry one of Laban's daughters. Seeing this, Esau takes a daughter of Ishmael as an additional wife (Genesis 28:8–9).
• Genesis 29–31: In Laban's household Jacob marries Rachel and Leah. There he fathers children and builds up his flocks and herds. Jacob describes this period as twenty years (Genesis 31:38, 41).
• Genesis 31:18; 33:18; 35:9: Jacob returns to Canaan with the possessions he acquired in Paddan-aram. After his return, God appears to him again and blesses him.
• Genesis 35:26; 46:15; 48:7: Jacob's children are summarized as those born in Paddan-aram. In 48:7 the name is shortened to "Padan" (KJV).

Background

"Aram" refers to the Arameans. The meaning of "Paddan" is uncertain. It is often interpreted as "field" or "plain," yielding "the field of Aram," and the statement in Hosea 12:12 that Jacob "fled into the country of Syria" (KJV; literally "the field of Aram") is taken to refer to the same place. Another view connects the word with an Akkadian (ancient Mesopotamian) term meaning "road."

Paddan-aram is commonly thought to refer to the region around Haran. This identification rests on the statements that Jacob set out toward Haran (Genesis 28:10) and that Laban's people came from Haran (Genesis 29:4). Many also regard it as another name for the region called "Mesopotamia" (Genesis 24:10; Hebrew Aram-naharaim), to which Abraham's servant traveled to find Rebekah. However, its precise boundaries have not been determined, nor has it been linked to any specific archaeological site.

Significance in Scripture as a Whole

Paddan-aram was where members of Abraham's extended family continued to live. It therefore serves as the setting for the accounts in which the patriarchs take wives from among their own kin rather than from among the Canaanites. Since eleven of Jacob's sons, including Joseph, were born there, most of the ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel were born in this land.

The statement in Deuteronomy 26:5, "A Syrian ready to perish was my father" (KJV; often rendered "a wandering Aramean"), is commonly interpreted as referring to Jacob. The New Testament does not mention Paddan-aram directly. However, Stephen says that Abraham came to Canaan by way of Mesopotamia and Haran (Acts 7:2–4), and the Epistle to the Hebrews portrays the patriarchs as those who lived as "strangers and pilgrims on the earth" (Hebrews 11:13–16).

Interpretive Issues

• Variation in names: Paddan-aram, Haran, and Mesopotamia all appear within the same narrative. Traditionally they are read as different names for a single region. Some critical scholars hold that the name Paddan-aram occurs mainly in a particular source stratum of the Pentateuch (the so-called Priestly source). By contrast, conservative denominations and scholars who accept the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch reject such source divisions.
• Benjamin's birthplace: Genesis 35:26 summarizes all twelve sons as born in Paddan-aram, yet Benjamin was born in the land of Canaan on the way to Ephrath (Genesis 35:16–19). Many commentators regard the verse as a general summary.
• Homiletical interpretations: Preachers commonly treat the hardships Jacob endured there as a process of "refining" through which his character was transformed. The text itself, however, does not explicitly offer such an assessment.

In the Korean Church

In Korean preaching, Paddan-aram is treated mainly as the setting of the Jacob narrative, with attention to the twenty years Jacob spent in Laban's household after encountering God at Bethel (Jacob's Ladder) and to his return home.