Adah

עדה


A name of many meanings:

i) "to pass by"; this appears in Job 28:8 but practically nowhere else, and Job was originally a Chaldean manuscript and may therefore be irrelevant here; as is

ii) "to attack in a hostile manner"; the word is likewise Arabic and does not appear in this usage in the Tanach.

iii) in the Hiphil (Causative) form "he'ediyah" (העדיה) means "to put on ornaments", whence Adah is usually reckoned to have meant "an ornament" or simply "a beautiful woman" (cf Job 40:10; Ezekiel 23:40; Jeremiah 4:30 et al).

iv) Of significant cultural interest, Ed is used most often to mean "a witness" or "testimony", whence Edat Yisra-El (עדת ישראל) from the same root = "the congregation of Israel" (Exodus 12:13), and Edat Beney Yisra-El (עדת בני ישראל) in Exodus 16:1-9; while Edat YHVH (עדתיהוה) in Numbers 27:17 and Ha-Edah (העדה) in Leviticus 4:15 gives "a religious congregation", connecting to the feminine noun Edah (עדה), meaning "a testimony" or "a precept of the divinity".

v) Idah (עדה), again from the same root, and connected to the Arabic and Aramaic words for "menstruation", or any other fixed or appointed time. The two-letter root letters Ayin/Dalet (עד) are the same as the root of Eden (עדן) and innumerable other words known to be of Chaldean or Assyriac rather than Kena'ani (Canaanite) origin.

A number of Biblical characters bear the root in their name:

According to Genesis 36:2-4 Adah was the daughter of Elon of the Beney Chet (Hittites), a group of the Beney Kena'an (Canaanites) from whom Esav (Esau) took himself wives; though this conflicts with Genesis 26:34, in which his wives are given differently. Elon means "an oak tree" - specifically a terebinth oak, as in Eloney Moreh, the terebinths of Moreh, and was a priest-kingly title rather than a man’s name (as, of course, was Arthur, in England, and no doubt there are Egyptians today who name their sons Pharaoh, just as there are Americans who choose Earl; because later it became a regular name); as such Adah "the princess", as daughter of Elon "the priest-king", makes perfect sense.

Genesis 4:19 has Adah as a wife of Lamech, and mother of Yaval and Yuval.

Iddo (עִדֹּא), a prophet and writer referred to in the Book of Chronicles (details at the link) and thought to be the grandfather of the prophet Zechar-Yah (Zechariah); and also the Prophet's son, presumably named for his ancestor.

Adi-El (עֲדִיאֵל), again referred to in Chronicles (again details at the link);

Ada-Yah (עֲדָיָה), the grandfather of King Yoshi-Yahu (Josiah) whose name crops up in a number of books of the Bible; he was one of the principal patrons of the first Tanach, and the naming of a patriarchess as Adah may have been a deliberate courtesy to the King.

Adinah (עֲדִינָא) was one of King David's captains (1 Chronicles 11:42).

Aditayim (עֲדִיתַיִם) was a town in the tribe of Yehudah (Joshua 15:36 et al).

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