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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