Genesis 11:29: Haran's daughter who married Nachor (נחור), her uncle; Av-Ram, Nachor's other brother, was also her uncle.
Genesis 22:20 tells us that her children were Uts (עוּץ), Buz (בּוּז), Kemu-El (קְמוּאֵל) the father of Aram (אֲרָם), Kesed (כֶּשֶׂד), Chazo (חֲזוֹ), Pildash (פִּלְדָּשׁ), Yidlaph (יִדְלָף) and, Betu-El (בְּתוּאֵל), all of which are Arabian tribes, and worth a comparison with the children of Av-Raham's second wife Keturah to see which parts of Arabia were regarded as Milkah's and which Keturah's; generally Milkah's are in the northern regions, towards Anatolia, and therefore identified with "Queen" Anat, Keturah's in the southern, towards the Yemen, and therefore identified with "Queen" Ishtar.
Betu-El will later father Rivkah (רִבְקָה - Rebecca), who would become the wife of Yitschak (Isaac).
Genesis 22:23 records how her husband's concubine Re'umah (רְאוּמָה) bore him Tevach (טֶבַח), Gacham (גַּחַם), Tachash (תַּחַשׁ) and Ma'achah (מַעֲכָה). Given the ancient laws that we hear about in relation to Sarah, Le'ah and Rachel, through which the woman seems to claim as her own children those fathered upon handmaidens and concubines, these can also be treated as Milkah's children, which just happens to bring the total up to the zodiacal twelve, and all of them sons, just like the offspring of Ya'akov, Yishma-El, Shim'on et al.
The name stems from the root Malach (מלך) = "king"; this is the feminine, "queen", though it is elsewhere pronounced Malkah (Esther 1:9), or written (Daniel 5:10), in Aramaic rather than Yehudit, as Malk'a (מלכא).
In Jeremiah 7:18 and 44:17 the alternate Chaldean form Melechet (מלכת) is used instead; probably not in the original however; much more likely this was the Redactor using Chaldean anachronistically, or perhaps to make a political point, as it was the Babylonian conquerors of Yeru-Shala'im who released the prophet from his imprisonment and allowed him to live out his last years in Mitspeh of Bin-Yamin.
The Queen was of course very different from the Pilgashim (פלגשים), the royal concubines, though all would have been of royal blood. The queen surrogated for the Queen of Heaven - the mother-goddess - on Earth, functioning as her high priestess, as the king surrogated for the sun-god, the King of Heaven. Hence the twelve constellatory children, each of whom was given a "tribal" portion to govern, a set of specific cultic duties, and a month in which that tribe took primary responsibility for all cultic matters through the rotational priesthood, known as the Mishmarot. Milkah is thus not a person's name but a description of her office or a royal title, in precisely that same way that Hadasah became Ester (Ishtar - Esther) when she was made queen for a year in Persia (Esther 2). Av-Raham's wife Sarah was Milkah in this sense, though actually Sarah means "princess" rather than queen.
Uts (עוצ): In Chaldean Malkah is also used to mean "counsel", presumably because the queen's advice was often sought. Uts, her firstborn according to Genesis 22, in Chaldean likewise means "to consult" (cf Judges 19:30). More relevantly, Uts means "soft and sandy earth" and refers to the northern Arabian desert. The Romans called it Ausitis.
Buz (בוז): is used to mean "contempt". The Buzim were another tribe of northern Arabia (cf Job 32:2 and 1 Chronicles 5:14).
Kemu-El (קמואל): taken to mean "congregation of El", but see the notes to Kemu-El, where this is disputed. Importantly he was the father of Aram, which is to say the Aramaean people; Ya'akov went to Padan Aram, to the house of Betu-El, to find a wife; as Av-Raham's servant Eli-Ezer had done before him. What we can thus say is that with Kemu-El we are in the geographical heartland of Biblical ancestry, and the fact that the god-name El is suffixed is not without significance.
Kesed (כשד): Chaldea, southern Arabia, also known as Mesopotamia. Av-Raham was said to have come originally from the city of Ur Kasdim, Ur of the Chaldeees in English, the capital and royal moon-city of Kesed, though this is in fact highly unlikely.
Chazo (חזו): literally "a seer", the augurer or soothsayer or fortune teller of the ancient world, though he worked almost exclusively by astrological readings.
Pildash (פלדש): the etymology is obscure; it may it be an error for Pilgash (פלגש) = concubine?
Yidlaph (ידלף): the name means "weeping", from the root Dalaph (דלף). There are no other references from which to deduce his territory or function; however the Book of Esther 9:7 refers to Dalphon (דלפון) as a son of Haman - but this link only takes you to the Haman of the Ester story; for the real significance in the context of Milkah you need to follow the link to Yidlaph. In brief, the Book of Esther is a Judaic corruption of the Babylonian Creation myth and New Year ceremonies, in which Haman (originally Chaman with a Chet not a Hey, from the root Chaman - חמן = a stone idol) was the statue of the sun-god (cf Leviticus 26:30), torn down to symbolise his death at the end of one year, re-established as the statue of his son to symbolise his rebirth in the new year. Dalphon thus is the sun-god in his resurrected aspect, akin to Jesus at the Epiphany; and given the geographical location of the tribe of Milkah, we may read Yidlaph in the same regard.
Betu-El (בתואל): the father of Lavan (Laban) and Rivkah (Rebecca); Lavan was the father of Ya'akov's wives, Le'ah and Rachel; Rivkah was the wife of Yitschak (Isaac) and the mother of Ya'akov and Esav. Thus out of Betu-El comes the entire patriarchal dynasty, even more strongly than it comes out of Av-Raham, who is both his uncle (through Nachor) and his great-uncle (through Milkah). Betu-El may originally have been a female, which would also have interesting implications for the Yisra-Eli patriarchy! Bat (בת) means "daughter"; Betulah (בתולה) means "virgin", and both of these are connected to the root. More significant is the dialect link to Beit-El (Bethel), of which many scholars believe Betu-El may be the original form, or at the very least a dialect variation, in the same way as English God and German Gott, or French Dieu and Spanish Dios. In Phoenician a baetylus was a standing stone, something in the manner of a menhir, a priapic symbol of the fertilising mother-goddess, and central to her worship. It is not insignificant that of all of Milkah's children, Betu-El should be the principal patriarchal parent.
This leaves the five children of the concubine Re'umah, and Re'umah herself:
Re'umah (ראומה): the name means "exalted", which is self-explanatory, and links her to Av-Ram ("exalted father"). However the root is Re'em (ראם), that so-significant beast the Reem or antelope-ox which in Psalm 29:6 gives YHVH the epithet Ben Re'eymim (בן ראמים) = "son of the horned ox", which is as clear an epithet of the Bull-God El as we could ask for.
Buz (בוז): is used to mean "contempt". The Buzim were another tribe of northern Arabia (cf Job 32:2 and 1 Chronicles 5:14).
Kemu-El (קמואל): taken to mean "congregation of El", but see the notes to Kemu-El, where this is disputed. Importantly he was the father of Aram, which is to say the Aramaean people; Ya'akov went to Padan Aram, to the house of Betu-El, to find a wife; as Av-Raham's servant Eli-Ezer had done before him. What we can thus say is that with Kemu-El we are in the geographical heartland of Biblical ancestry, and the fact that the god-name El is suffixed is not without significance.
Kesed (כשד): Chaldea, southern Arabia, also known as Mesopotamia. Av-Raham was said to have come originally from the city of Ur Kasdim, Ur of the Chaldeees in English, the capital and royal moon-city of Kesed, though this is in fact highly unlikely.
Chazo (חזו): literally "a seer", the augurer or soothsayer or fortune teller of the ancient world, though he worked almost exclusively by astrological readings.
Pildash (פלדש): the etymology is obscure; it may it be an error for Pilgash (פלגש) = concubine?
Yidlaph (ידלף): the name means "weeping", from the root Dalaph (דלף). There are no other references from which to deduce his territory or function; however the Book of Esther 9:7 refers to Dalphon (דלפון) as a son of Haman - but this link only takes you to the Haman of the Ester story; for the real significance in the context of Milkah you need to follow the link to Yidlaph. In brief, the Book of Esther is a Judaic corruption of the Babylonian Creation myth and New Year ceremonies, in which Haman (originally Chaman with a Chet not a Hey, from the root Chaman - חמן = a stone idol) was the statue of the sun-god (cf Leviticus 26:30), torn down to symbolise his death at the end of one year, re-established as the statue of his son to symbolise his rebirth in the new year. Dalphon thus is the sun-god in his resurrected aspect, akin to Jesus at the Epiphany; and given the geographical location of the tribe of Milkah, we may read Yidlaph in the same regard.
Betu-El (בתואל): the father of Lavan (Laban) and Rivkah (Rebecca); Lavan was the father of Ya'akov's wives, Le'ah and Rachel; Rivkah was the wife of Yitschak (Isaac) and the mother of Ya'akov and Esav. Thus out of Betu-El comes the entire patriarchal dynasty, even more strongly than it comes out of Av-Raham, who is both his uncle (through Nachor) and his great-uncle (through Milkah). Betu-El may originally have been a female, which would also have interesting implications for the Yisra-Eli patriarchy! Bat (בת) means "daughter"; Betulah (בתולה) means "virgin", and both of these are connected to the root. More significant is the dialect link to Beit-El (Bethel), of which many scholars believe Betu-El may be the original form, or at the very least a dialect variation, in the same way as English God and German Gott, or French Dieu and Spanish Dios. In Phoenician a baetylus was a standing stone, something in the manner of a menhir, a priapic symbol of the fertilising mother-goddess, and central to her worship. It is not insignificant that of all of Milkah's children, Betu-El should be the principal patriarchal parent.
This leaves the five children of the concubine Re'umah, and Re'umah herself:
Re'umah (ראומה): the name means "exalted", which is self-explanatory, and links her to Av-Ram ("exalted father"). However the root is Re'em (ראם), that so-significant beast the Reem or antelope-ox which in Psalm 29:6 gives YHVH the epithet Ben Re'eymim (בן ראמים) = "son of the horned ox", which is as clear an epithet of the Bull-God El as we could ask for.
The same root also gives Ramot (ראמות) = "high places" or mountain shrines, and various towns bear the name. Re'umah as concubine thus represents the moon-goddess as Cow (Hat-Hor, Io, Eshet, Le'ah), "married" to the sun-god as Bull (El, Zeus, Kayin). This is vital to our understanding the zodiacal inferences of this tribal list. It also allows us to see a union of two moon-cults (that of Milkah as Queen of Heaven, with that of Re'umah as Moon-Goddess) through the "marriage" to Nachor. Nachor himself means "the river-god", a Chaldean equivalent of Poseidon, who was Zeus's "brother" in the same way that Nachor was Av-Raham's. The river in question was the Perat (Euphrates), whose shores and plains all the peoples mentioned in this list inhabited.
Tevach (טבח) is the slayer of the cattle and connected with the Temple sacrifices. Modern Ivrit has taken the word Mitbach (מטבח) = "kitchen" from the root.
Gacham (גחם): literally "to flame". The Tevach killed the sacrificial beast; it was then roasted on the fire, and Gacham presumably tended that fire.
Tachash (תחש): literally "hide"; the skin of the animal removed for tanning before the beast was cooked. The word is used to mean both "seal" and "badger" at various points in the Tanach, because the hides of these two animals were often used to make clothing, and even, according to the Talmud, as a covering for the holy tabernacle.
Ma'achah (מעכה): another name that should be treated as feminine, or even as androgynous-hermaphroditic. In brief: her priestesshood, at the time of King David in particular, was elevated to become one of, if not the primary priestesshood, of the divine marriage. The root Ma'och (מעך) is used to mean "castration", which in the series of sacrificial acts pertaining to the four "sons" of Re'umah, would have come first. Her children should be listed in reverse order: Ma'achah (castration), Tachash (tanning), Tevach (slaying), Gacham (roasting). It may well be that the Redactor knew this, and deliberately reversed the order to conceal the truth at an epoch when eunuchisation was no longer acceptable, and the patriarchalisation of the cult was diminishing, though not yet eliminating, the roles of women.
What we appear to have then is an earlier or alternate version of the zodiacal calendar, and no doubt a deeper analysis, such as has been undertaken in the essay on the Number 12, would be most revealing. Is the order in which they are given correct, bearing in mind the four-wife interpolations of the Beney Yisra-El list? Is the geographical region significant of an earlier and larger El territory, divided on the same tribal principle? And is the Beney Yishma-El list an Edomite version of the same?
It may also be worth asking: does this alternate calendar reflect a calendric reformation at the time when the new year moved out of Taurus and into Aries, circa 2000 BCE, or is it simply a regional variation?
Given that Betu-El, like Terach, like Nachor, like several others of Av-Raham's elder family, disappear from the stories altogether once Av-Raham is on the scene, we can probably treat this as Greek mythologists treat Ouranos and Chronos in relation to Zeus - a more ancient Olympian order reformed and up-dated.
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