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•CHARMER one who practises serpent-charming (Psalm 58:5; Jeremiah 8:17; Ecclesiastes 10:11). It was an early and universal opinion that the most venomous reptiles could be made harmless by certain charms or by sweet sounds. It is well known that there are jugglers in India and in other Eastern lands who practise this art at the present day.
In Isaiah 19:3 the word “charmers” is the rendering of the Hebrew ’ittim, meaning, properly, necromancers (R.V. marg., “whisperers”). In Deuteronomy 18:11 the word “charmer” means a dealer in spells, especially one who, by binding certain knots, was supposed thereby to bind a curse or a blessing on its object. In Isaiah 3:3 the words “eloquent orator” should be, as in the Revised Version, “skilful enchanter.”
•CHARRAN another form (Acts 7:2, 4) of Haran (q.v.).
•CHEBAR length, a river in the “land of the Chaldeans” (Ezekiel 1:3), on the banks of which were located some of the Jews of the Captivity (Ezekiel 1:1; 3:15, 23; 10:15, 20, 22). It has been supposed to be identical with the river Habor, the Chaboras, or modern Khabour, which falls into the Euphrates at Circesium. To the banks of this river some of the Israelites were removed by the Assyrians (2 Kings 17:6). An opinion that has much to support it is that the “Chebar” was the royal canal of Nebuchadnezzar, the Nahr Malcha, the greatest in Mesopotamia, which connected the Tigris with the Euphrates, in the excavation of which the Jewish captives were probably employed.
•CHEDORLAOMER (= Khudur-Lagamar of the inscriptions), king of Elam. Many centuries before the age of Abraham, Canaan and even the Sinaitic peninsula had been conquered by Babylonian kings, and in the time of Abraham himself Babylonia was ruled by a dynasty which claimed sovereignity over Syria and Palestine. The kings of the dynasty bore names which were not Babylonian, but at once South Arabic and Hebrew.