Omar

אומר

Genesis 36:11 names him as a son of Eli-Phaz (אֱלִיפַז) ben Esav. The name is usually taken to stem from the root Amar (אמר) = "to speak". However this does not work.

Eli-Phaz (see the notes) is linked to the story of Iyov (אִיּוֹב - Job), set in the Edomite territory of Uts (עוּץ - in English Uz). Esav, we know from Genesis 36:8, "is Edom" and Lamentations 4:21 reads: "Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwells in the land of Uts".

Thus we should look for the root of Omar in Edomite not Yehudit roots. This is confused however by the names of Eli-Phaz's other sons: Teyman (תֵּימָן), Tsepho (צְפוֹ), Ga'tam (גַעְתָּם) and Kenaz (קְנַז), all of them Chaldean names. This accords with the "War Scroll", one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which places Uts beyond the Perat (פְרָת - Euphrates), and states (Column 2 verse 11), "they shall fight against the rest of the sons of Aramea: Uts, Chul, Togar, and Mesha, who are beyond the Perat."

Omar, then, clearly links to the Emorim (Amorites), which name is taken to mean "mountaineers", an inverted definition due to their inhabiting a mountain region. "Your ancestor was an Emorite", the Beney Yisra-El are told (Ezekiel 16:3), which is likely a geographical rather than a tribal descrption.

Imar (אמר) means "a lamb" in Chaldean.

In Arabic, Omar has come to acquire meanings such as "first-born son" or "he who has a long life", but these are sentimentalities rather than etymologies, a consequence of the name having been given to several figures of importance in the Arab/Moslem world, most particularly the second Chaliph, 'umar Ibn al-Khaṭtāb , who was born in Mecca in 586 CE and died in Yatrib (Medina) in 634. The first Chaliph - another way of saying "the successor to Mohammed" - was Abu Bakr, a succession disputed with Ali, and the reason why Shi'a and Sunni Moslems remain divided to this day. It was under Omar, or Umar, or 'Umar, that the whole of Mesopotamia, including Syria, became part of the Moslem Chalipha; he also began the conquest of Iran (Persia) and Egypt, and was responsible for the final redaction of the Qu'ran in the form that remains standard.

The probability is that Omar, in the languages that became Arabic, originally meant "mountain-dweller", as in Emorim or Amorites, and then evolved into meaning "a shepherd", because that was the main occupation of those who inhabited the high mountains.

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