Achbor

עכבור

The name means "field-mouse".

Genesis 36:38 names Achbor's son as Ba'al-Chanan who succeeded Sha'ul of Rechovot ha-Nahar as king of Edom.

2 Kings 22:12/14 has Achbor ben Miycha-Yah as one of the men sent by King Yoshi-Yahu (Josiah) to investigate the discovery of "a certain book"; the earliest recorded written version of the Torah, or at least of something that may have been similar to the Torah.

Jeremiah 26:22 describes El-Natan ben Achbor, who was sent by King Yeho-Yakim (Jehoachim) to Mitsrayim (Egypt) to fetch the self-exiled prophet Uri-Yahu (Uriah) - in the next verse the king "struck him down with the sword and threw his body into the burial place of the common people".

Jeremiah 36:12 has the same El-Natan ben Achbor, now as one of the officers who informed on Yirme-Yahu (Jeremiah) to King Yeho-Yakim.

Animal names were commonplace in the ancient world, and can still be found in some parts of the contemporary world (e.g. among the First Nations of north America). Normally they denoted membership of a totem-clan attached to a god or - more frequently - goddess; the clan's raison d'être would have been to provide particular duties at a sacred shrine. In general these are the animals which it is specifically prohibited to eat or sacrifice; for the obvious reason of deicide. Totem-clans were particularly strong in Pharaonic Egypt, and are reflected in several Yisra-Eli tales in the Tanach, including the "horns of Mosheh", which belonged originally to Anubis, and the donkeys of Set which were the cult followed by King Sha'ul.

The field-mouse is normally associated with corn, and the corn itself is the vegetation-god: Osher (Osiris) in Egypt, Tammuz in Babylon.

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