Genesis 46:13 names him as a son of Yisaschar; his siblings were Tol'a (תולע), Yov (יוֹב) and Shimron (שמרון). However some versions, including the Samaritan Pentateuch and several surviving manuscripts of the Septuagint, prefer Yashuv (ישוב) to Yov, a variation reinforced by Numbers 26:23 and 1 Chronicles 7:1, which link him to the otherwise unknown Punim (פּוּנִֽי).
Judges 10:1: "After the death of the Judge Avi-Melech, there arose another Judge in Yisra-El, namely Tol'a ben Pu'ah, the son of Dodo, a man of the tribe of Yisaschar; and his shrine was at Shamir in Mount Ephrayim."
Is this the same as the Pu'ah of Genesis 46:13? It shouldn't be, first because the spelling is different (Pu'ah here is in the Aramaic form, with an aleph - פּוּאָה); secondly because Genesis is supposed to record history several centuries before Judges; a claim that TheBibleNet strongly contests, with examples such as this one as evidence. Here he the father rather than the brother of Tol'a; and Shamir is his shrine rather this
an Shimron his brother; but the triplet is nevertheless symmetrical.
The name is generally thought to be from the root Peh (פה) = "mouth", so we have to ask if Pu'ah, or Puvah, was his name or his title: Tol'a the Oracle perhaps? The disagreement of spelling and pronunciation between Genesis and Judges is most likely another instance of spelling and pronunciation changing over time. We only need to compare contemporary American and British English to see how this takes place.
Tol'a, incidentally = "thread", and specifically the scarlet thread that the midwife put on Zerach's ankle, to denote him as a first-born in the story of Parets and Zerach (Genesis 38:28 and 30). The word used there is Shani (שני), but that only describes the scarlet, which was a dye made from the unhatched eggs of shield-lice living on oak bark. The Tol'a was the thread itself: click here for more detail.
Tol'a, incidentally = "thread", and specifically the scarlet thread that the midwife put on Zerach's ankle, to denote him as a first-born in the story of Parets and Zerach (Genesis 38:28 and 30). The word used there is Shani (שני), but that only describes the scarlet, which was a dye made from the unhatched eggs of shield-lice living on oak bark. The Tol'a was the thread itself: click here for more detail.
Tol'a is likewise the first-born of Yisaschar. The scarlet thread belonged mythologically to Yah. That the judge referred to above should have borne the names of both Tol'a and Puvah is noteworthy. Dodo (דודו), as Puvah's father, is still more interesting, for it is remarkably close - the closest we ever get, in fact - to the name and thereby the meaning of King David (דוד): "beloved". One of David's captains is named El-Azar ben Dodo (אֶלְעָזָר בֶּן-דּוֹדוֹ) according to 1 Chronicles 11:12,and there is a Doda-Vahu (דֹּדָוָהוּ) in 2 Chronicles 20:37 (where again the name Yah is rendered with a Vav, as it is in YHVH), and in 1 Chronicles 27:4 a Doday (דודי).
Dod (דוד) means "love" or "beloved", and mythologically refers to the goddess who in Rome was Venus, in Egypt Eshet (Isis), to the Greco-Phoenicians Io, and in Yisra-El Yah. King David's full name, like that of his son Shelomoh (Solomo), was Yedid-Yah = "beloved of Yah" - see 2 Samuel 12:24-25. King David's existence has never been proven, and is indeed doubted by many scholars. Melech David (מלך דוד) should not be read as the name of a human individual at all, but as the title of the sacred king who ruled on the Earth in the name of the mother-goddess. The various marriages of both David and Ya'akov bear this out.
All the Dod references noted above explicitly connect to the goddess. Doda-Vahu for example is the "father" of Eli-Ezer, who prophecies against King Yeho-Shaphat (Jehoshaphat). Father has been placed in quotation marks here, because most likely "father" should be replaced by "mother".
To return to the earlier question: is Puvah/Pu'ah his name or his title? The answer is clearly "title": the goddess' "mouth" being her oracle, or at least her oracular prophet or prophetess. Which was he then - male or female? The answer to that lies in his "tribal" identification. Although the meaning, and even the spelling and pronunciation of Yisaschar are much disputed, a goddess origin is widely accepted. While the goddess shrines had both male and female priests and Prophets/Judges could be of either sex, the kamats-hey (הַ) ending of Puvah/Pu'ah suggests in this case feminine.
And just to complete this complex picture...
Yashuv (ישוב), the third sibling, again contains the Yah prefix, but more importantly a Yashuv is a place for sitting, used specifically of thrones: for god (Psalm 80:2), and for judges (Psalm 122:5).
Shimron (שמרון), when not meaning the Samaritans, means "a watchtower", and we know from Mitspeh, Giv'ah and other sacred places that the hill-top shrines served many functions, of which a military look-out was not the only nor even the key one. The observance of the heavens was generally more important.
Once again we have an instance of the term "sons" requiring much deeper analysis. Here, as so often, the sons of a tribal ancestor actually refers to the proponents of the cult of a god or goddess, later absorbed and reformed by the Redactor to fit the orthodoxy.
All the Dod references noted above explicitly connect to the goddess. Doda-Vahu for example is the "father" of Eli-Ezer, who prophecies against King Yeho-Shaphat (Jehoshaphat). Father has been placed in quotation marks here, because most likely "father" should be replaced by "mother".
To return to the earlier question: is Puvah/Pu'ah his name or his title? The answer is clearly "title": the goddess' "mouth" being her oracle, or at least her oracular prophet or prophetess. Which was he then - male or female? The answer to that lies in his "tribal" identification. Although the meaning, and even the spelling and pronunciation of Yisaschar are much disputed, a goddess origin is widely accepted. While the goddess shrines had both male and female priests and Prophets/Judges could be of either sex, the kamats-hey (הַ) ending of Puvah/Pu'ah suggests in this case feminine.
And just to complete this complex picture...
Yashuv (ישוב), the third sibling, again contains the Yah prefix, but more importantly a Yashuv is a place for sitting, used specifically of thrones: for god (Psalm 80:2), and for judges (Psalm 122:5).
Shimron (שמרון), when not meaning the Samaritans, means "a watchtower", and we know from Mitspeh, Giv'ah and other sacred places that the hill-top shrines served many functions, of which a military look-out was not the only nor even the key one. The observance of the heavens was generally more important.
Once again we have an instance of the term "sons" requiring much deeper analysis. Here, as so often, the sons of a tribal ancestor actually refers to the proponents of the cult of a god or goddess, later absorbed and reformed by the Redactor to fit the orthodoxy.
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