Genesis 36:27 names him as a grandson of Se'ir the Chorite, fathered by Etser and brother to Bilhan and Za'avan.
Numbers 33:31, Deuteronomy 10:6 and 1 Chronicles 1:42 all have Ya'akan (יעקן), which is probably a diminutive form of Yah-Akan (יה-עקן), from the root AKAN which means "to twist" or "to wrest".
Some scholars think Akan with a Kuph (עקן) may be an error for Achan (עכן) with a Chaf (עקן), who כappears in Joshua 7:1 and 22:20. This Achan was the son of Karmi ben Zavdi, the son of Zerach of the tribe of Yehudah. He committed a cherem, which one English translation renders rather quaintly as "a sacrilege in the accursed thing". Nicely vague! A "cherem" is what the Stern Gang did at Dir Yassin, the Germans at Babi Yar, Shim'on and Levi at Shechem and Pol Pot throughout Kampuchia – in this case the complete annihilation of a city, down to its last inhabitant. In later history the word was reduced to mere excommunication. The occasion of Achan's sacrilege was the fall of Yericho (Joshua 5:13), though orthodox scholars like to imagine that he did nothing more than steal a little bit of booty.
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