Aner

ענר


Genesis 14:13 names him as the brother of Eshkol and Mamre, in the latter of whose lands Av-Raham was dwelling; he was an ally of Av-Raham in the War of the Kings and received a share of the spoils (Genesis 14:24).

1 Chronicles 6:55 (6:70 in some versions) refers to a Levitical town in Menasheh named Aner, also called Ta'anach (תענך) - though that is probably a mis-reading of Anach (ענך). It was given as a city of refuge, specifically for the sons of Kehat.

Gesenius believes that Aner may be a corrupt reading of Na'ar (נער) = "youth", and as such originally one of the three members of the Divine family of the shrine of Machpelah; the Kena'ani (Canaanite) Ba'al. If so, we should read Eshkol as the goddess and Mamre as the oak-god El.

On the other hand, Aner could justas easily be a corruption of Ne'ir, a neighbouring hill – see Chevron - in which case we should read Aner, like Eshkol and Mamre, as places rather than people; and of course, this being a world in which teraphim were placed everywhere because the gods were everywhere and needed propitiating, the fruit orchard at Eshkol, the oak trees at Mamre, and the hill-shrine at Aner, would all have been religiously connected in some way ("a church on every hill and in every village" as English Christianity has always insisted), and so Gesenius' reading does not require Na'ar to be plausible anyway.

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