Genesis 25:4 names him as a son of Midyan, Av-Raham's son by Keturah (see also 1 Chronicles 1:33). His siblings were Epher (עֵפֶר), Chanoch (חֲנֹךְ) Avi-Da (אֲבִידָע) and El-Da'ah (אֶלְדָּעָה).
1 Chronicles 2:46 ff describes Ephah as a region and tribe of the Beney Midyan, with a female Ephah as the concubine of Kalev (Caleb); suggesting a tribal link between the Beney Edom and the Beney Midyan which we will encounter throughout the Yoseph and Mosheh stories.
1 Chronicles 2:47 then makes him a son of Yehdai (יהדי) which feels like a dialect variation of Yehudah (יהדה), and possibly a Yah prefix; but the text does not tell us who this Yehdai was, and there is no other reference to him in the Tanach.
1 Chronicles 2:47 then makes him a son of Yehdai (יהדי) which feels like a dialect variation of Yehudah (יהדה), and possibly a Yah prefix; but the text does not tell us who this Yehdai was, and there is no other reference to him in the Tanach.
The meaning of the name presents a problem. There is the tribe, and then there is a word that is used to mean "darkness" in Amos 4:13 and Job 10:22, both spelled exactly the same; but the normal word for "darkness" in the Tanach is Choshech (חֹשֶׁךְ)? Then there is Ophel (עֹ֛פֶל), which is also used to mean "darkness" in the very same verse of Job, and Ophel like Eyphah is normally reckoned to be a geographical location, in this case the Hill of Ophel in Yeru-Shala'im.
I have explained the background to Choshech on its own blog-page and shall not repeat it here; just click the link on his name.
The root that gives Ophel is Aphal (עפל), which means "swollen", and is used both for a tumour and a tumulus, the one being a swelling inside the body, the other a piece of land deliberately "swollen" to make a burial ground; and presumably it is from the latter of these that the metaphor of "darkness" arises in Amos and Job. Can we assume something similar for Eyphah? The root on this occasion is Ayaph (עיף) meaning "tired", as in Jeremiah 31:25: "For I satisfy the weary ones and refresh everyone who languishes." Exhaustion is not obviously a synonym for darkness however, unless there was a slang usage; I can imagine someone in a few centuries time finding a text with the word "cool" in it to describe something that has nothing to do with temperature, and having much the same difficulty as we are having with "darkness" here.
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