Epher

עפר


Genesis 25:4 makes him a son of Midyan (מִדְיָן), himself a son of Av-Raham with Keturah (קְטוּרָה); his siblings were Eyphah (עֵיפָה), Chanoch (חֲנֹךְ), Avi-Da (אֲבִידָע) and El-Da'ah (אֶלְדָּעָה).

1 Chronicles 4:17, giving the genealogy of the tribe of Yehudah, has an Ezrah (עֶזְרָה), whose ancestry and gender are not obvious from the text, and who is not to be confused with the differently-spelled Ezra the Scribe, but who either fathers, or more probably mothers (the next verse refers to a second wife, daughter of Pharaoh, though still the husband is unclear) Yeter (יֶתֶר) - a variation of the Midyanite Yitro (יִתְרוֹ) - Mered (מֶרֶד), Epher (עֵפֶר) and Yalon (יָלוֹן), as well as Mir-Yam (מִרְיָם - Miriam), Shammai (שַׁמַּי), and Yishbach (יִשְׁבָּח) the father of Eshtemo'a (אֶשְׁתְּמֹעַ). The last of these is also the name of a city in

Yehudah.

Three verses earlier (1 Chronicles 4:14) we find Meo'onotai (מְעוֹנֹתַי), a most un-Yehudit name; he is the father of Aphrah (עָפְרָה), though it is usually rendered as Ophrah in English and we should regard the two pronunciations as interchangeable; presumably it is to Epher what Dinah is to Dan, Yehudit to Yehudah and Asherah or Sarah to Asher. Meo'onotai is probably a scribal error, or a dialect variant, of Me'onot-Yah (מעונות יה), which would mean "the habitations of Yah", a reference to her shrines rather than a person's name. As with the tale in Judges 9:5 referenced below, the names here are probably not sons and daughters at all, but clan-designations, or even colleges of priests and-or priestesses.

1 Chronicles 5:24, names the heads of the half-tribe of Menasheh, which dwelt "in the land, from Bashan to Ba'al-Chermon and Senir and Mount Chermon" - Senir is actually the Amorite name for Mount Chermon - as Epher (עֵפֶר), Yishi (יִשְׁעִי) - a variant of both Jesse (Yishai - יִשַׁי ) and Yesha-Yahu (Isaiah - יְשַׁעְיָהוּ) - Eli-El (אֱלִיאֵל), Azri-El (עַזְרִיאֵל), Yirme-Yah (יִרְמְיָה ) - which was the original version of Jeremiah, before it became masculinised into Yirme-Yahu in order to remove the moon-goddess from a by-then patriarchalised cult - Hodav-Yah (הוֹדַוְיָה) and Yachdi-El (יַחְדִּיאֵל), "mighty men of valour, famous men, heads of their fathers' houses".

Is there any link to Eyphah (עיפה), also a Midyanite tribe?

The name means "a calf" or "young animal", (Opher, from the same root, gives "deer, fawn, goat, gazelle"); whence Aphrah (עפרה), a town in the tribe of Bin-Yamin (Joshua 18:23, 1 Samuel 13:17) and Beit Le'aphrah (בֵית לְעַפְרָה) in Micah 1:10. There is also an Aphrah in Menasheh according to Judges 6:11, which finds Gid'on (Gideon) sitting under an oak tree there when he is called to lead Yisra-El. Judges 9:5 finds Gid'on's son Avi-Melech ben Yeru-Ba'al (אֲבִימֶלֶךְ בֶּן-יְרֻבַּעַל) at Aphrah, murdering his seventy brothers on a single stone for a fee paid by the men of Shechem; see also 1 Chronicles 4:14.

However, as so often, it is far more complicated than it has so far seemed, and the reason for the interchangeability of Ophrah and Aphrah may lie here, rather more than in the different ways that different people pronounce the qamats, and whether it is chataph or not (at the link, enjoy the irony, is is Kamats and Chataf):

Aphar (עפר), spelled exactly the same, also means "dust" or "dry earth", and is used for clay and loam; and in Leviticus 17:13 (inter alia) for a heap of rubbish; often intended specifically for grave dust.

But more importantly Ephron (עפרון) was a town on the borders of Bin-Yamin (2 Chronicles 13:19), and a mountain on the borders of Yehudah and Bin-Yamin (Joshua 15:9). Genesis 23:8 and 25:9 make him a man, a Beney Chet (Hittite), from whom Av-Raham "purchased" the cave of Machpelah. That particular Ephron is clearly the Hittite bull-god Phoroneus, whose sister-wife Io, was the cow-goddesses of Phoenicia, though the Aramaean cow-goddess Le'ah is also "buried" at the Machpelah shrine. Bull-gods and cow-goddesses are invariably linked to the moon, the twin horns representing the moon's twin crescents. Mosheh is frequently depicted wearing these horns for his crown, though in this we should see Hor (Horus) and Hat-Hor, the Egyptian bull and cow god, or possibly Anubis, and not the Hittite-Aramaic ones of Machpelah. Nevertheless the similarity of the cults may help us understand the Midyanite references in Genesis 25:4 and 1 Chronicles 4:17 and 5:24.

The Adam and Chavah (Eve) story is placed at Chevron, the site of the Cave of Machpelah, by some of the Mishnaic Rabbis, and especially in the Zohar, the central scripture of the Kabbalah (or Cabbala, if you prefer). However Adam was created Min ha-Adamah (מן האדמה) – "from the red earth" - and not Min ha-Aphar (מן העפר) – "from the dust"; even though we are told in various places in the scriptures that man was made of dust and will return to it: Aphar ve epher (עפר ואפר); "dust to dust, ashes to ashes", one of the most exquisite of all the Bible's word-plays; for non-Yehudit readers, the first word is Epher, with an Ayin, the second Aphar, with an Aleph; nothing to do with the interchangeability of Aphrah and Ophrah; and the translation should really be "dust and ash", but the way King James has done it keeps what English can of the pun.

Other than this dust and ashes pun, there is no link to the tribe Ephrayim or to Ephrat(ah), all three of which are likewise Aleph (א) not Ayin (ע) words.

Copyright © 2019 David Prashker

All rights reserved

The Argaman Press