Serach

שרח


Genesis 46:17 names her as the only daughter of Asher, her brothers were Yimnah (יִמְנָה), Yishvah (יִשְׁוָה), Yishvi (יִשְׁוִי) and Beri'ah (בְרִיעָה).

1 Chronicles 7:30 gives the identical information.

Serach is probably a corruption (less likely a dialect variation) of Sarah (שרה), where the feminine name in Yehudit ends with a Hey (ה) and not a Chet (ח); the two letters are very easy to confuse in their written forms. Given that Asher as Osher is closely linked to the goddess Asherah (see notes) it is perfectly logical, indeed entirely to be expected, that his "daughter" would be too - the royal prerogative would have made the priest-king's daughter almost automatically High Priestess of the local principal deity, and she would have borne the name as a dynastic title.

There is also Serug (שְׂרוּג), who begat Nachor, who begat Terach, who begat Av-Ram (Genesis 22), which the first chapter of the Book of Jubilees tells us was originally Sêrôh, and it is entirely possible that Sêrôh was spelled שרח, but unfortunately we cannot know, because the only surviving Yehudit texts are those fragments found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the relevant verses of chapter 11 are not among them; the text that we do have, in full, is Ethiopic, and from it the Latin and other translations have been made.

And with this the oft-noted variable between the Chaldean and the Yehudit, where Tav (ת) becomes Sheen (ש), the most noted example being the sun-god Tammuz, who becomes Shimshon in Yehudit. The same variable would transform Terach into Serach; and the grandson being named for the grandfather is of course entirely commonplace.

Gesenius treats Serach as meaning "abundance", but gives no explanation of this. "Abundance" is, of course, one of the epithets of Asherah in her role as fertility-goddess ("ashrey yoshvey beytecha…"), so it may be that Gesenius was making the same connection that I have made in the above paragraph.

Gesenius also suggests that Serach may be linked to Serach (סרח) with a Samech (ס) = "to pour out", with a secondary connotation of "superfluity" or "redundance". There is no logical reason for making this link.

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