TheBibleNet: September 2016

Tuval (Tubal), Tuval Kayin (Tubal-Cain)

תובל/תובל קין

Genesis 10:2 et al; reckoned by most scholars to be the Tibareni of Asia Minor, neighbours of the Moschi, or Meshech (מֶ֤שֶׁךְ) according to Ezekiel 32:26.

Are Tuval and Tuval-Kayin the same people, but with one as their full, or perhaps their later name? I think most likely the latter, because Kayin (Cain) was not himself obviously of Anatolian origins; so likely a marriage or a tribal merger.

In Greek Tuval = Tabali = Tibareni, Anatolian tribesmen described by Herodotus as neighbours of the iron-working Chalybes; and Tuval Kayin is said in the Genesis text to be the ancestor of metal-workers.

If Kayin is to be considered as the founder of the Keynim (Kenites), Tuval-Kayin may reasonably be considered as an off-shoot of that tribe. As with his half-brothers, the explanation of the name as founder of brass and iron smithing seems to be popular folk-lore rather than etymology - and as such much more credible.

Genesis 4:22: "As for Tsilah (צִלָּה), she also gave birth to Tuval-Kayin, the forger of all implements of bronze and iron; and the sister of Tuval-Kayin was Na'amah."

However, we can never ignore the roots of words in Yehudit, as this is how the language functions. So, first, see my notes on his root-namesake YUVAL, but especially follow my notes there to Psalms 90:2 and 93:1.

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Tsochar

צחר

Not to be confused with Tso'ar (צער), Lot's city near the Dead Sea.

Genesis 23:8 names him as the father of Ephron of the Beney Chet (Hittites) who sold the Cave of Machpelah to Av-Raham - given that Ephron (Phoroneus) was himself the sun-god, can we see Tso'ar as the equivalent of Chronos to his Zeus?

Genesis 46:10 makes him a son of Shim'on, as does Exodus 6:15; but Numbers 26:13 renames him Zerach (זרח). This needs to be thought about, because Zerach is a significant name in the Yisra-Eli legends. Both texts give Tsochar five sons, and let us speculate, because this happens so often in the text of the Tanach, and we have just encountered a sun-connection, that this is the number of the planets, with mum and dad usually serving as son and moon when these tales turn cosmological; or possibly an attempt by the Redactor to hide the astronomical by leaving out some names and replacing others.

The Exodus text, for example, gives Yemu-El (יְמוּאֵל), Yamin (יָמִין), Ohad (אֹהַד), Yachin (יָכִין) - another significant name in Temple astrology - and Tsochar (צֹחַר), and then adds Sha'ul (שָׁאוּל) as "the son of a Kena'ani (Canaanitish) woman" - which, being the name for the Underworld as well, suggests the sixth planet Pluto, and therefore an explanation for the missing Ephron.

Numbers gives Nemu-El (נְמוּאֵל), Yamin (יָמִין), Yachin (יָכִין), Zerach (זֶרַח) and Sha'ul (שָׁאוּל).

Nemu-El is simply Yemu-El in the passive form; Yamin means "right" (as opposed to left), and is used to mean the east, where the sun rises; Zerach is likewise the east (Mizrach - מזרח). Yachin partners Bo'az as the welcome pillars of the Solomonic Temple, but its root meaning is not known. Sha'ul and She'ol are interchangeable, with She'ol as the Hebrew equivalent of Hades in the myths, the equivalent of the planet Pluto astronomically.

The root of TSOCHAR is "whiteness"; used for sheep's wool (Ezekiel 27:18), and for asses (Judges 5:10) which are red with white spots.

But clearly this is only a part of the answer. The word is an alternative to Lavan (לבן), which means "white", but is also an epithet for the moon - Ha Lavanah/הלבנה); both thus suggesting a masculine moon-deity. Likewise etymologically it links to Tsohar (צהר) with a Hey (ה) = "brightness"; the one being the moon's radiance, the other the sun's. Given what we know about Ephron of the Beney Chet (Hittites), it is not surprising that his father should have been a moon-god. That Ya'akov should have made a treaty with Lavan in parallel with Av-Raham's treaty with the son of Tsochar is worth some further investigation.

And then there is the oddity that this isn't the first time that Zerach has been "replaced". In Genesis 38:29, the progeny of Yehudah's incestuous relationship with his daughter-in-law Tamar were, with the Masoretic pointing, Parets (פָּרֶץ) and Zarach (זָרַח). Zarach came out first, and the midwife put a scarlet thread on his ankle to denote him as first-born; but then he went back in, and out came Parets to claim the birthright. Is Zerach then a synonym for Tsochar, or an error?

See also 1 Chronicles 4:7, where the text is unclear, and much disputed. A woman named Chelah (חֶלְאָה), one of the two wives of Ash'chur (אַשְׁחוּר) has three sons, one of whom is either named Yitschar (יצחר) or Tsochar (צֹחַר).

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Tso'ar

צער

Genesis 13:10; Isaiah 15:5; Jeremiah 48:34 (the two prophetic texts so similar, one cannot help but wonder if one was simply [mis]quoting the other = a town on the southern shore of the Dead Sea more anciently called Bela (but see notes).

Genesis 19:22/30 names it as the place to which Lot fled with his daughters before (!) the destruction of the Cities of the Plain; it was here that his wife watched the devastation and became a pillar of salt. It was also here that the famous incest with his two daughters took place which resulted in the engendering of the Beney Mo-Av (Moabites) and Beney Amon (Ammonites).

Tso'ar means "small", whence we can presume it was a mere village, where Sedom and Amorah were larger walled cities.

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Tsiv'on

צבעון

Genesis 36:2: Esav "took wives from among the Beney Kena'an", including Ahali-Vamah (אהליבמה), the daughter of Anah (ענה) and grand-daughter of Tsiv'on the Chivite.

Genesis 36:20 names the sons of Se'ir the Chorite as Lotan (לוטן), Shoval (שובל), Tsiv'on (צבעון), Anah (ענה), Dishon (דשון), Etser (אצר) and Dishan (דישן). In Genesis 36:2, as noted above, Anah was Tsiv'on's daughter not brother, which suggests they may originally have been matriarchal tribes; Dishon and Dishan are probably the same tribe. Here they are Chorites, but in 36:2 Tsiv'on was called a Chivite. And in 36:21 we will learn that Chori (חרי) was the son of Lotan, suggesting that the Chorites were themselves originally Chivites. Note that Lotan's sons were Chori (חורי) and Heymam (הימם), and that his sister was Timna (תמנע).

Genesis 36:24 then confuses the matter still further. Tsiv'on's sons are given as Ayah (איה) and Anah (ענה); so that Anah now has a third relationship to Tsivon. He is said to be "that Anah who found the mules in the wilderness, as he fed the asses of Tsiv'on his father". Cf Shaul's coronation pilgrimage in 1 Samuel 9. Tsiv'on is now clearly identifiable as the Egyptian Set, ass-god of the red desert and the principal Edomite deity after Se'ir. The ritual of coronation of the sacred king involved a pilgrimage to the principal shrines of ass-worship, and the dramatic ritual of discovering the mules - which is to say, the god's body at his sacrifice is dispersed to the four corners of the world and, as Isis did the body of Osher (Osiris), so its parts had to be collected and reassembled in one burial-place that he might be reborn in the body of the new king. An Ayah, incidentally, still to this day in Egypt as in India, is a wet-nurse: the sort who brought up Mosheh, and Perseus, to name but two, and who appears in the Tanach as Devorah, Rivkah's (Rebecca's) wet-nurse. She would have been the mother of the heir-apparent, probably the wife of the enthroned king, and as such would have counted as surrogate on Earth of the mother-goddess herself. Esav marrying Ahali-Vamah now becomes clearer.

Genesis 36:29 lists the Chorite dukedoms, amongst them Tsiv'on.

The root is Tseva (צבע), which today is used to mean "colour", but anciently meant much more specifically "a dyed garment", and even more specifically a multi-coloured garment, like the one that Ya'akov gave Yoseph (Genesis 37:3) and the ones the Hyksos "shepherd-kings" are portrayed wearing in the Egyptian manuscripts.

There is a confusion of roots between Tseva (צבע) and Tsava (צבע), one of which means "to moisten", as in dipping clothes into dye; the other means "to ravine", as in a ravenous beast (whence Tsevoyim/צבעים = "gazelles" or "hyenas"); this may well explain the myths of Yoseph's coat of many colours, and his brothers claiming the blood on it came from his being ravaged by a wild beast; the coat would have been given as a badge of office to the Hyksos priesthood, and, in Yoseph's case, as son of the sheikh, would have been his initiation costume at the age of thirteen; each of his brothers would probably have had one too.

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Tsilah

צלה

Genesis 4:19/22 names her as the second wife of Lamech (Adah was the first) and mother of Tuval-Kayin (תובל-קין), the master of copper and blacksmiths, and Na'amah (נעמה).

The root is usually given as "shadow" from Tsel (צל); but see my notes to Chavah (Eve), and Genesis 2:22, and then below, for why this is incorrect.

Tselah, with a final Ayin (ע) instead of the Hey (ה) that it has here, was the rib from which Chavah was reputedly made, and connects with the verb Tsoleyah (צולע) = "to limp" (c.f. Psalm 35:15 and 38:18), itself connected to Ya'akov/Jacob as the Yisra-Eli Oedipus (= swollen-foot)/limping-god or goat-god (Genesis 32:32); and also Tselah the women's court of the Temple (1 Kings 6:5; Ezekiel 41:6). But that is with an Ayin (ע); this is with a Hey (ה).

Tsalah (צלה) = "to roast" (1 Samuel 2:15 and Isaiah 44:16), whence Tselil (צְלִיל) in some texts and Tselol (צְלֹול) in others, is a round cake usually of barley bread (Judges 7:13).

Connected to the same root, and surely no coincidence, are:

Tsalal (צלל) = "to tingle"; in Arabic Tsalal means "a cymbal"; the Yehudit equivalent is Tsiltseli (צלצלי), achieved by doubling the root; there is also Tselatsal (צלצל) = "to tinkle", a word used for bells, triangles and various other metal percussion instruments, as well, amusingly, as the cricket. cf Isaiah 18:1, where the word is often mistranslated as "shadow", treating it as coming from the Tsel (צל) rather than the root Tsalal (צלל).

Why is this significant? Because Lamech's first wife Adah had two sons, Yaval (יבל) and Yuval (יובל). A Yovel (יובל) is a primitive trumpet, and Genesis 4:23 tells us the two brothers were the ancestors of players of harp and pipe. We have seen a similar pattern in the families of both Korach and Kohat, so that now the entire Temple orchestra and choir is implicated!

Both Adah and Na'amah are epithets for the mother-goddess (see notes to each), and it was to her temple (i.e. the women's court mentioned above) that the orchestra belonged, music being forbidden in other parts of the Temple. Sha'ul (Saul), the first king of the Beney Yisra-El, allowed music in his court; it was his patronage of the royal choir and orchestra which brought the boy David to court. Strange coincidence - Sha'ul was buried, alongside his father and Yo-Natan (יוֹנָתָן) his son, in the Benjamite town of Tselah (צֵלַע) according to 2 Samuel 21:14; that Tselah was a Benjamite town is confirmed by Joshua 18:28. "The place of the shadow" - a fitting burial-site for a man whose name suggests that he was himself the King of the Underworld!

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Tsiphyon

צפיון

Genesis 46:16 names him as the eldest son of Gad; his siblings were Chagi (חגי), Shuni (שוני), Etsvon (אצבן), Eri (ערי), Arodi (ארודי) and Areli (אראלי).

Presumably from the root Tsaphon (צפון) = "north".

Numbers 26:15 gives the name as Tsephon (צפון), dropping the Yud.

But there are obvious links too to Yoseph's Mitsri (Egyptian) name of Tsaphnat Paneyach (צפנת פענח), and also to Tsepho (צפו) = "astronomical observer".

The town of Tsaphon (צפון) is mentioned in Joshua 13:27 as being part of the tribal hegemony of Gad, taken over from Siychon (סיחון), the Amorite king of Cheshbon (חֶשְׁבּוֹן), on the eastern shores of the sea of Genaseret (Kinneret/Sea of Galilee).

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Tsidon/Tsiydon (Sidon)

צידן

Genesis 10:15 and 19: the ancient Phoenician city of Tsidon, which still stands today despite Israeli attempts to destroy it in 1982, and again in 1996.

It was the largest fishing port of the ancient world, and the centre of Phoenician trade, fully called Tsiydon Rabah (צידן רבה - the Yehudit invariably adds a Yud), the metropolis of Tsidon (in its Lebanese-Arabic pronunciation), and very much a city-state in the manner of the later Greek cities, most of which began as Phoenician colonies, and adopted their alphabet.

The name was applied to all the northern Kena'anim (Canaanites) of what today is southern Lebanon, whom the Greeks called Phoenicians, including the Tsurim (Tyrians) - the word "Phoenician" itself comes from Phoinix = "purple"; just as Kena'an was known locally as Kinnahu = "purple" in the Hurrian language, from the purple dye gleaned from the murex sea-snail which was so crucial to the Tsidonians' trading success across the known world.

1 Kings 16:31 names Et-Ba'al (אֶתְבַּעַל) as the king of the Tsidonians; coinage found at Tsur (Tyre) honours King Ithobaal I, and other archaeological discoveries describe Tsur in his day as "the metropolis of the Tsidonians", so we can assume that king of Tsidon was a secondary title, in much the way that the British Queen is also queen of Canada and the Falkland Islands.

As to the meaning of the name, Gesenius says "fishing", but this is narrow, though accurate. Tsayid (ציד) in full = "hunter", and is best known from the reference to Nimrod as "a mighty hunter before the Lord" - gibor tsayid liphney Adonay - גבור ציד לפני יהוה" in Genesis 10:9. Presumably it means fishing because you hunt for fish?

However, there is also the possibility that the name comes from Tsi (צי), which means "a ship", plus Dan (דן), giving Tsi-Dan (צידן), and meaning "the ships of the Dana'ans", as well as opening a link to my essay "The Leprachauns of Palestine".

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Tsevo'im

צבים

Genesis 10:19 and Deuteronomy 29:22 (23 in some translations) name it as a town in the Vale of Sidim destroyed with Sedom (Sodom).

Genesis 14:2 spells it צביים (Tseviyim).

Tsevo'im (צביים) appears to derive from Tseva (צבא), = "host", a term used in the Tanach to mean both "an army" and the "constellations of the Heavens", as in Adonai Tseva'ot (אדני צבאות), "the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens". The epithet Melech Tsevo'im (מלך צביים) could thus mean either "commander of the troops", which would be logical in the context of Genesis 14:2, where Shem-Ever is named as the king of the Tsevo'im (צביים), one of the protagonists in the War of the Kings; though it could also be his kingly designation, denoting which deity he served.

This presupposes that צביים does indeed come from צבא. Other possibilities include:

Tsav (צב) = "a lizard", though the double-plural (יים) mitigates against this.

Tsavah (צבא) = to "wish" or "will" or "desire".

Tsaveh (צבה) = "swelling" (Numbers 5:21).

There is also Tsevo'im (צבאים) = "a gazelle" or "hyena"; though Yirme-Yahu (Jeremiah) spells Tsevo'im (צבעים) with an Ayin - ע - (Jeremiah 12:9), as do both 1 Samuel 13:18 and Nehemiah 11:34, and regard Tsevo'im as the name of a valley and a town in the tribe of Bin-Yamin.

Gesenius spells it with an Aleph (צְבֹאיִם), noting that Hosea 11:8 spells it that way, and therefore deduces that it mean "gazelles", as opposed to with an Ayin (ע), which would mean "hyenas", as in Proverbs 6:5 and 1 Kings 5:3 - 1 Kings 4:23 in some translations; the latter gives its name to a town and valley near Beit-Horon of Bin-Yamin in 1 Samuel 13:18 and Nehemiah 11:34 (Abu Dhabi also means "gazelles").

The former simply adds further layers of confusion, for Tseva (צבא) with an Aleph (א) means "army", and is also used, as Adonay Tseva'ot (יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת) to mean "the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens", which is to say the head of the pantheon that represents the heavenly bodies; cf Isaiah 34:4; 40:26 and 45:12; Jeremiah 33:22; Daniel 8:10, and many others. At an unknown point in history, probably around the time of the exile in Bavel (Babylon) in the 6th century BCE, the stars and constellations and planets became semi-anthropomorphised as the host of "angels" gathered around the heavenly throne - cf 1 Kings 22:19; 2 Chronicles 18:18; Psalm 148:2), out of which arose star-worship, or astrology, as we would call it, a superstition outlawed in Deuteronomy 4:19 and 17:3 but clearly still in place according to 2 Kings 17:16, Job 38:7 and Zephaniah 1:5, and palpably still in place today, as evidenced by the constant use of the astrological superstition "mazal tov - may the stars allign in your favour", used by every Jew in the world on an almost daily basis.

The name Adonai Tseva'ot is mainly applied in the prophetic books, never in Judges, and only in passages of the Pentateuch believed to have been written in Ezraic times.

Given its mention in the context of the War of the Kings, the army reference makes some sense. This needs more thinking about, but Drummond in "The Oedipus Judaicus" takes the account of the War of the Kings to be an astrological rather than a historical phenomenon, and this is highly likely (it is a reasonable conjecture that, while some historical incidents may happen to be used as contexts, nothing in the first eight books of the Tanach is historical).

Tseva is also used for "sacred service", i.e. the ministry of priests in the Temple (Numbers 4:23 and 8:24 et al), and today as "service" in the Israeli military - Tseva ha-Haganah le Yisra-El (צבא ההגנה לישראל), Tsahal (צה"ל) for short, is the official name of the Israeli Defense Forces.

This should then be read as the original priestly role of the Levites in the Temple, which was in part astronomical (the observation of the heavens to know the time when Shabbat came in, or festivals began; not the same as astrology or angelology), and that the creation of watchtowers such as Tsepho and Mitspeh was precisely for the purpose of astronomical observation.

1 Chronicles 8:9 names a Tsivya as one of the sons that Shacharayim (שַׁחֲרַיִם) fathered on Chodesh (חֹדֶשׁ), after he sent away (most translations say "divorced" but the word used is "shilcho" - שִׁלְחוֹ - not "girsho" - גרשו ) his previous two wives - Chushim (חוּשִׁים) and Ba'ar'a (בַּעֲרָא). His other sons with Chodesh were Yovav (יוֹבָב), Meysha (מֵישָׁא), Malkam (מַלְכָּם), Ye'uts (יְעוּץ), Sach-Yah (שָׂכְיָה) and Mirmah (מִרְמָה). A simple piece of genealogy, except that we have noted the astrological, and cannot avoid noticing that ha Shachar is the dawn, that Chodesh is a month, that three wives reflects the three phases of the moon, that mythologically it is always the new moon that gives birth, so the "sending away" of the full and waning moons is logical, and the number of the sons - why seven of course, as if the horoscopes had not already predicted that number!

Finally, there is an entirely different usage of the root Tsevi (צבי), which can be found in Isaiah 4:2, 24:16 and several times in chapter 28; it also occurs in Daniel 8:9 and 11:16 - on each occasion with the meaning "glory" or "splendour". This culminates in poetical references to both the land of Yisra-El, and Yeru-Shala'im itself, in Ezekiel 20:6 for example, and Jeremiah 3:19. Daniel 11:45 even goes so far as to poeticise Mount Tsi'on (Zion) as Har Tsevi Kodesh (הַר צְבִי קֹדֶשׁ), "the Hill of Holy Service".

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Tsepho

צפו

Genesis 36:11 names him as a son of Eli-Phaz.

1 Chronicles 1:36 gives his name as Tsephi (צפי).

The name is taken to mean "watchtower", and connected with Mitspeh, the shrine that functioned as both a terrestrial watchtower and an observation tower for the heavens; but this is too vague.

The root Tsaphah (צפה) means "to shine" or "to be bright", which does not at first appear to have anything to do with "watchtowers", though 1 Samuel 14:16, 2 Samuel 13:34 and 18:24 all use it in this sense (Tsophim - צֹּפִים - "watchmen", definitely in the sense of soldiery). Jeremiah 6:17 uses it metaphorically to mean a prophet in the sense of a man to whom the future is revealed by vision; but the metaphor only works because the word Tsophim is understood to mean "watchmen". Likewise Ezekiel 3:17, Isaiah 21:6 (Ha Metsapeh on this occasion - הַֽמְצַפֶּ֔ה - but still with the same meaning), Micah 7:4 (Metsapeycha - מְצַפֶּיךָ) and Habakkuk 2:1; and in Proverbs 15:3 and 31:27 it has the specific sense of "making accurate observations".

The prophetic link may also occur because the first Prophet of Yisra-El, Shemu-El (Samuel), came from Ramatayim Tsophim (1 Samuel 1).

A Tsopheh (צופה) can thus be read equally as a "security guard" and a person who makes detailed observations in the daily world, and also the ancient name for an astronomer; with the watchtower serving equally as military look-out, and as the point of observation of the constellations from where exact accounts of the movements of the stars were recorded. What else "shines" or "is bright", but the stars at night or the sun by day?

And then there is the "hill of wisdom" in Yeru-Shala'im, which isn't actually called the Hill of Wisdom in modern Ivrit or Biblical Yehudit, but Har ha Tsophim, "Mount Lookout". "Hill of Wisdom" might translate into Greek as Mount Scopus, because skops in Greek is the owl, and the wise owl was the bird of the goddess of wisdom, Athena; but actually it is called Mount Scopus in English because scopus in Greek means "watcher" (as in telescope, microscope etc); and as it happens now to house the Hebrew University, it probably should be called "The Hill of Wisdom" in Ivrit too, only that would be Har Chochmah, and as such a lovely contrast to the neighbouring "Hill of Evil Counsel"

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Tsemarim

צמרים

Genesis 10:18 names Ha Tsemari (הצמרי) as a nation of the Beney Kena'an, probably from the town of Simyra - or Sumra in its modern form - at the western base of Mount Lebanon. The birthplace of the Roman Emperor Alexander Severus, it is associated with the Arki (Arkites); the Romans knew the town as Arca Caesarea.

Joshua 18:22, however, names it as a town in the tribe of Bin-Yamin, also known as Har Tsemarim (הר צמרים), in the hill country of Mount Ephrayim; c.f. 2 Chronicles 13:4

The root means "wool", and Tsemeret (צמרת) is used for the shaggy (i.e. wool-like) bark of certain trees, as well as for its foliage (Ezekiel 17:3, 31:3).

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Tsaphnat Pa'ne'ach, Tsephan-Yah (Zephaniah)

צפנת פענח

Genesis 41:45: Yoseph's Mitsri (Egyptian) name, or title, more likely. Yoseph itself is probably a Yehuditisation of Yah Suph, the god of the reeds or the Reed Sea, the Nile Delta around Goshen where Ya'akov was settled; which is to say Osher (Osiris). In Egyptian it means "Saviour of the Age", and is thus a title of the sacred king, or in this case the vizier who stands in for the sacred king.

The Yehudit word Tsaphan (צפן) means "to hide" or "conceal", whence he is usually translated as "Keeper of a Secret"; but it is erroneous to explain a Mitsri name through the Yehudit, when it clearly entered the language from the Mitsri.

However it did become a Yehudit root, and Tsaphan is echoed in the name of the prophet Zephaniah (properly Tsephan-Yah - צפניה), the ninth of the twelve minor prophets. His father was named Kushi (כּוּשִׁי), his great-grandfather was named Chizki-Yah (חִזְקִיָּה - Hezekiah), which scholars tend to assume must have been the king of that name, though there is no evidence to support that speculation, and in fact the King may actually have been named Chizki-Yahu (חִזְקִיָּ֔הוּ), though spellings, even within the Book of Kings, vary. Tsephan-Yah lived and prophesied during the reign of Yoshi-Yahu (יֹאשִׁיָּהוּ - Josiah), which is to say in the first half of the 7th century BCE, which made him a contemporary of Yirme-Yahu (יִרְמְיָהוּ - Jeremiah).

A priest of the same name, the son of Ma'asey-Yah (מַעֲשֵׂיָה), is mentioned in Jeremiah (21:1 and many others). While this is not the prophet, it is almost certainly the same Tsephan-Yah who was taken prisoner in Yeru-Shala'im, when Nevuzaradan conquered the city in the time of king Tsidki-Yahu (צִדְקִיָּהוּ - Zedekiah). 2 Kings 25:19 ff tells how

"The commander of the guard took as prisoners Sera-Yah (שְׂרָיָה) the chief priest, Tsephan-Yah the priest next in rank, and the three doorkeepers. Of those still in the city, he took the officer in charge of the fighting men, and five royal advisers. He also took the secretary who was chief officer in charge of conscripting the people of the land and sixty of the conscripts who were found in the city. Nevuzaradan the commander took them all and brought them to the king of Babylon at Rivlah. There at Rivlah, in the land of Chamat, the king had them executed."

Zechariah 6:10 names a Tsephan-Yah who was the father of Yoshi'ah (Josiah - יֹאשִׁיָּה), a priest in Yeru-Shala'im at the time when Darius issued the decree that the Temple should be rebuilt.

1 Chronicles 6:36 names a Tsephan-Yah of the Beney Kohat who was an ancestor of the prophet Shemu-El (Samuel).

Exodus 14:2 has a place named Ba'al Tsephon (the attached link cannot identify its location because, alas, it is looking for it in the wrong place!), and see my notes in the Exodus text for further explanation of this word.

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Tol'a

תלע

Genesis 46:13 names him as the eldest son of Yisaschar. His brothers are Tol'a (תולע), Puvah (פֻוָּה), Yov (יוב) and Shimron (שִׁמְרוֹן). The name means "a worm".

1 Chronicles 7:1 gives the same information, but then adds that "The sons of Tol'a were Uzi (עֻזִּי), Repha-Yah (רְפָיָה), Yeri-El (ירִיאֵל), Yachmai (יַחְמַי), Yivsam (יִבְשָׂם) and Shemu-El (שְׁמוּאֵל), "heads of their fathers' households. The sons of Tol'a were mighty men of valour in their generations; their number in the days of David was 22,600".

But what a strange name to give your first-born son! Tal'a = "a worm", especially one bred on putrefaction; i.e. linked to the death-cult and the Underworld. See also Exodus 16:20; Isaiah 14:11 and 66:24; Jonah 4:7; Deuteronomy 28:39 and Psalm 22:7, all of which use the word with this meaning.

Judges 10:1 informs us that "after Avi-Melech died, there arose to save Yisra-El Tol'a the son of Pu'ah, the son of Dodo, a man of Yisaschar; and he dwelt in Shamir¹ in the hill-country of Ephrayim"; in other words a Judge of Yisra-El - for twenty-three years, according to the verse that follows. Given that the Judges were not judges as we think of them today, but oracular prophets, and that the snake was the principal oracular beast, perhaps the name Tol'a isn't quite so surprising; we are in the realms of Nechushtan and of the Nachash of Eden etc. The Avi-Melech mentioned here is not the one from the Av-Raham and Yitschak stories in Genesis, but the man made king of Shechem in Judges 9. [¹ see my notes to Judges 10:2 for Shamir]

cf Numbers 26:23 for Tol'a'i, the Tol'a'ites who were Tol'a's tribal descendants.

Tol'a is also used to mean "scarlet" (some translations prefer "crimson"), in Lamentations 4:5 and Isaiah 1:18, which links to the scarlet thread on Parets' ankle (Genesis 38), and to the three shades of colour used in the priestly vestments and the adornments of the ark and the Torah. The scarlet is Tola'at Shani (תוֹלַעַת הַשָּׁנִי), the purple Argaman (אַרְגָּמָן), and the blue Techelet (תְּכֵלֶת) - cf Exodus 39:1. This leaves open the question: was he named Tol'a because he wore the priestly robes, or was he named Tol'a because he was an oracular prophet? Entirely possible of course that he was named Tol'a because his parents liked the name!

The oddity of two such different meanings for the same word leads me to wonder if there might have been a reason for it, that requires context to fathom. I am going to make a speculation, and leave it here for others to wonder: we have no idea what was the name by which the ancients knew the snail that we call the murex, the one that was used to produce those dyes which made the three colours of the priestly garments possible. But the way the worm is described in all of the references linked above, not just a worm but a very slimy sort of worm, a kind of living putrescence, could very easily describe the snail, rather better indeed than it does the regular garden worm. Was Tol'a "scarlet" because Tol'a wasn't "a worm", but "the murex"?

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Togarmah

תגרמה

The name appears in Genesis 10:3 and 1 Chronicles 1:6, both of which tell us that he was a son of Gomer (גומר) and a grandson of Yaphet (יפת); and that his brothers were Riphat (רִיפַת) and Ashkenaz - some Yehudit versions give the first of those as Diphat (דִיפַת), a similar error to Dodanim and Rodanim elsewhere.

Ezekiel 27:14 speaks of Beit Togarmah (בֵּית תּוֹגַרְמָה) as one of Yisra-El's trading partners; "they traded for your wares with horses and horsemen and mules".

Ezekiel 38:6, prophesying the downfall of Gog Magog, includes among the armies that of Gomer and Beit Togarmah, "in the uttermost parts of the north".

They were probably the Cymmerians, who later became the Cymry and Cumbrians of Britain, and abounded in horses and mules. The Armenians regard Torgom, son of Gomer as their ancestor, which does rather add some weight to the speculation. Mag, incidentally, becomes softened to Mac when the language reaches Brython. Thus Gog Magog is really "Gog son of Og", just as Hamish MacDougall is Hamish son of Douglas. Probably, though, this came from the Scythians, who spoke the same Hittite-source language.

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Tiras

תירס

Genesis 10:2: a northern nation out of Yaphet (יפת).

Tiras = corn.

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Timna, Timnah

תמנע, תמנה

See also Teyman (תימן) for even more comparison and confusion!

Genesis 36:11 has Teyman (תימן) as a son of Eli-Phaz ben Esav, a sibling to Omar (אוֹמָר), Tsepho (צְפוֹ), Ga'tam (גַעְתָּם) and Kenaz (קְנַז), all of whom verses 15 and 16 name as Edomite clan-chieftains.

The very next verse, Genesis 36:12, has Timna (תמנע), with a final-letter Ayin, as a concubine of Eli-Phaz, and [dis]credits her with mothering Amalek, who is also named as an Edomite clan, though not one of those who gathered around Esav in Genesis 36:42.

1 Chronicles 1:39 likewise notes Timna (again with a final-letter Ayin) as a concubine of Eli-Phaz, and likewise [dis]credits her with mothering Amalek (if you know the story of Amalek you will understand my repeated square bracket); it also notes that she was the sister of Lotan, one of the sons of Se'ir of the Beney Chor.

The question then is: are Teyman and Timna merely the coincidence of similar names, or do we have textual confusion? The answer is probably the former. A family in ancient Greece where the son is named Theodore (Teddy for short), and the wife Dorothea (Dorothy today) would not have been uncommon.

But then there is the third variant, Timnah (תמנה) with a Hey (ה), which refers to a different town, for which see the notes to Teyman, or probably several different towns, as we shall see. That Timnah is referred to in Genesis 38:12 as an ancient Kena'ani (Canaanite) town; Joshua 15:10 and 57 say it was given to Yehudah, but Joshua 19:43 gives it to Dan, presumably in its Coast of Sharon location, before it moved to La'ish; so definitely a second by the same name.

Judges 14:1 and 2 Chronicles 28:18 confirm the Danite by claiming that it was ruled by the Pelishtim (Philistines) at the time of Shimshon (Samson), which may be another way of saying Dan, since the tribe of Dan were almost certainly the Dana'an Phoenicians. Judges 15:6 refers to the Timni (תמני), presumably linked to Teyman (תימן) rather than Timna, a deduction made from the absent Ayin (ע).

Judges 2:9 mentions a Timnat-Cheres (תמנת חרס) which Gesenius translates as "portion of the sun". He also points out that it is a misreading of Timnat-Serah (תמנת סרח) in Joshua 19:50 and 24:30; both are described as a town in the hill country of Ephrayim, north of Mount Ga'ash, given as a portion to Yehoshu'a, and the place where he was buried. Which one is correct? See my notes at Joshua 19:50, and then follow them back to the Shimshon tale and my notes at Judges 14:1.

The root of Serach links to fountains and other forms of water pouring over falls or out of springs, which would certainly make a likely name for a town that grew up in the mountains. Cheres is a poetic term for the sun, found in Job 9:7 for example: "Ha omer la cheres ve lo yizrach - הָאֹמֵר לַחֶרֶס, וְלֹא יִזְרָח - he commands the sun, and it does not rise"; and in Judges 14:17 (14:18 in some versions), in the variant form of Charsa (חַרְסָה), when the men of Timnah come to Shimshon just before sunset and he offers his famous riddle about the honey and the lion; interesting coincidence that this use of Charsa should come up in relation - davka as they say in Ivrit - to Timnah.

The root of Teyman and Timnah is not clear; it has to be Tav-Mem-Nun (ת-מ-נ), but there is nothing in any of the ancient languages to explain this. As explained in the notes to Teyman, it is taken to mean the "right" or "south", but even this is probably an error for Yamin (ימין) (modern Yemen acquires its name from the same root and for the same reason: south and right).

References to Teyman appear throughout the Tanach: Jeremiah 49:7 and 20; Ezekiel 25:13; Habakkuk 3:3; Obadiah 9; Baruch 3:22; Job 2:11 and 22:1. Almost all of these are late, even apocryphal writings; perhaps the answer lies in Aramaic rather than Yehudit.

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