Dictionaries :: Anah

Anah:

speech. (1.) One of the sons of Seir, and head of an Idumean tribe, called a Horite, as in course of time all the branches of this tribe were called from their dwelling in caves in Mount Seir (Gen 36:20,29; 1Ch 1:38).

(2.) One of the two sons of Zibeon the Horite, and father of Esau's wife Aholibamah (Gen 36:18,24).

Anah:

one who answers; afflicted

Anah:

a'-na (‘anah, meaning uncertain; a Horite clan-name (Ge 36)):

(1) Mother of Aholibamah, one of the wives of Esau and daughter of Zibeon (compare Ge 36:2,14,18,25). The Septuagint, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Peshitta read "son," identifying this Anah with number 3 (see below); Ge 36:2, read (ha-chori), for (ha-chiwwi).

(2) Son of Seir, the Horite, and brother of Zibeon; one of the chiefs of the land of Edom (compare Ge 36:20,21 =1Ch 1:38). Seir is elsewhere the name of the land (compare Ge 14:6; Isa 21:11); but here the country is personified and becomes the mythical ancestor of the tribes inhabiting it.

(3) Son of Zibeon, "This is Anah who found the hot springs in the wilderness" (compare Ge 36:24 =1Ch 1:40,41)

The word ha-yemim, occurs only in this passage and is probably corrupt. Ball (Sacred Books of the Old Testament, Genesis, critical note 93) suggests that it is a corruption of we-hemam (compare Ge 36:22) in an earlier verse. Jerome, in his commentary on Ge 36:24, assembles the following definitions of the word gathered from Jewish sources.

(1) "seas" as though yammim;

(2) "hot springs" as though hammim;

(3) a species of ass, yemim;

(4) "mules."

This last explanation was the one most frequently met with in Jewish lit; the tradition ran that Anah was the first to breed the mule, thus bringing into existence an unnatural species. As a punishment, God created the deadly water-snake, through the union of the common viper with the Libyan lizard (compare Ge Rabbah 82 15, Yer. Ber 1 12b; Babylonian Pes 54a, Ginzberg, Monatschrift, XLII, 538-39).

The descent of Anah is thus represented in the three ways pointed out above as the text stands. If, however, we accept the reading ben, for bath, in the first case, Aholibamah will then be an unnamed daughter of the Anah of Ge 36:24, not the Aholibamah, daughter of Anah of 36:25 (for the Anah of this verse is evidently the one of 36:20, not the Anah of 36:24). Another view is that the words, "the daughter of Zibeon," are a gloss, inserted by one who mistakenly identified the Anah of 36:25 with the Anah of 36:24; in this event, Aholibamah, the daughter of Anah, will be the one mentioned in 36:25. The difference between (2) and (3) is to be explained on the basis of a twofold tradition. Anah was originally a sub-clan of the clan known as Zibeon, and both were "sons of Seir"-i.e. Horites.

Written by Horace J. Wolf

Anah: 1. Son of Seir

Gen 36:20, 24, 29; 1Ch 1:38

Anah: 2. Father-in-Law or Mother-in-Law of Esau

An error of copyist, probably, calls him daughter, instead of son, of Zibeon, the Hivite,

Gen 36:2, 14, 24.

Called also BEERI,

Gen 26:34.

Anah:

(one who answers) the son of Zibeon and father of Aholibamah, one of Esau's wives (Genesis 36:2; 36:14; 36:25). He is supposed to have discovered the "hot springs" (not "mules," as in the Authorized Version). in the desert as he fed the asses of Zibeon his father. (B.C. 1797)