Alvan

עלון


Which looks remarkably like Elon, without the nekudot - though Elon has an Aleph (א), not an Ayin (ע).

Genesis 36:23 records him as the son of the Edomite Shoval, who was himself the son of Se'ir the Chorite (1 Chronicles 1:40 gives Alyan, for which change cf ALVAH).

The significance of this is that the city to which both Yishma-El and Esav went after losing their birthrights is stated as having been Se'ir, and yet Se'ir is here regarded as a descendant and not an ancestor of Esav (though admittedly children were named after late grandparents even then, and cities after their founding patriarach). After Esav, that land became known as Edom, retaining Se'ir as its capital (cf Deuteronomy 2:12). But the genealogical table has been twisted, to give precisely the sort of retrospective veracity which occurs throughout the Ezraic re-writing of the scriptures. What we in fact have is evidence of the Chorites or Hurrians, who were amongst the very earliest inhabitants of the lowlands of Kena'an, being conquered by a southern nomadic group, in this case the Edomites. Since Esav's wives, who supposedly mothered these tribes, were both Beney Chet (Hittites), we can also identify a second level of tribal intermingling that must have preceded the conquest – i.e. the Hittite-Edomite assimilation. This we already know to have taken place, from the intermixing of Edomite Adam myths with Hittite Chavah (Eve) myths, in the legend of the Garden of Eden.

The name probably means "unrighteous" and is therefore, once again, a name unlikely to have been bestowed by the parents, but applied as a sobriquet or nickname later on.

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