Page:The Books of Chronicles (1916).djvu/75

2 And the sons of Keturah, Abraham's concubine: she bare Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah. And the sons of Jokshan; Sheba, and Dedan. And the sons of Midian; Ephah, and Epher, and Hanoch, and Abida, and Eldaah. All these were the sons of Keturah. And Abraham begat Isaac. The sons of Isaac; Esau, and Israel. The sons of Esau; Eliphaz, Reuel, and Jeush, and Jalam, and Korah. The sons of Eliphaz; Teman, and Omar, Zephi, and Gatam, Kenaz, and Timna, and Amalek. The sons of Reuel; Nahath, Zerah, Shammah, and Mizzah.

32, 33.&emsp; (= Gen. xxv. 1—4).

32. Keturah] called a wife of Abraham in Gen. xxv. 1. The Chronicler by calling her a concubine may imply that he considered that the tribes descended from her were not so closely akin to Israel as the Ishmaelites, or possibly he held that Sarah ought to be the only wife of Abraham, and "corrects" his source accordingly.

Medan, Midian] Kindred tribes often bore names only slightly differing in form.

Midian] In Judg. viii. 14 the Midianites are reckoned as Ishmaelites.

Sheba, and Dedan] Sheba and Dedan in ver. 9 (which belongs to the same source P) are included among the Hamitic peoples. Doubtless the names in the present passage, which comes from J, refer to the same tribes; but J follows a different tradition as to their origin. Possibly there is truth in both views, and the people of Sheba were of mixed African and Arabian descent.

33. Ephah] Is. lx. 6.

Hanoch] as Gen. xxv. 4. Cp. ver. 3.

34—37.&emsp; (Cp. Gen. xxxvi. 10—14.)

34. Esau] "Esau is Edom," Gen. xxxvi. 1, 8.

36. Teman] Amos i. 11, 12; Hab. iii. 13. The word means South, and is applied in the first passage to Edom itself, in the second to the wilderness of Edom, both being south of Canaan.

Kenaz] Other references (Judg. i. 13, iii. 9, 11) show a close connection with Caleb, which in turn implies that the Calebites were closely related to the Edomites (cp. iv. 13).

Amalek] the eponymous ancestor of the Amalekites who lived in the south and south-east of Palestine, see iv. 42 f.