ancestral origins are identified in Genesis as associated with pastoralists near Haran in northern Mesopotamia, it seems more than plausible that those origins can be illuminated by the Mari texts as a specific tribal heritage descended from the Syrian Binu Yamina of the Bronze Age. In light of this connection, a further link could be the Amorite tribal term ḫibrum, used at Mari to refer to the component of the Binu Yamina population based in the backcountry and traveling with the flocks. This could