Tsochar

צחר


Not to be confused with Tso'ar (צער), Lot's city near the Dead Sea.

Genesis 23:8 names him as the father of Ephron of the Beney Chet (Hittites) who sold the Cave of Machpelah to Av-Raham - given that Ephron (Phoroneus) was himself the sun-god, can we see Tso'ar as the equivalent of Chronos to his Zeus?

Genesis 46:10 makes him a son of Shim'on, as does Exodus 6:15; but Numbers 26:13 renames him Zerach (זרח). This needs to be thought about, because Zerach is a significant name in the Yisra-Eli legends. Both texts give Tsochar five sons, and let us speculate, because this happens so often in the text of the Tanach, and we have just encountered a sun-connection, that this is the number of the planets, with mum and dad usually serving as son and moon when these tales turn cosmological; or possibly an attempt by the Redactor to hide the astronomical by leaving out some names and replacing others.

The Exodus text, for example, gives Yemu-El (יְמוּאֵל), Yamin (יָמִין), Ohad (אֹהַד), Yachin (יָכִין) - another significant name in Temple astrology - and Tsochar (צֹחַר), and then adds Sha'ul (שָׁאוּל) as "the son of a Kena'ani (Canaanitish) woman" - which, being the name for the Underworld as well, suggests the sixth planet Pluto, and therefore an explanation for the missing Ephron.

Numbers gives Nemu-El (נְמוּאֵל), Yamin (יָמִין), Yachin (יָכִין), Zerach (זֶרַח) and Sha'ul (שָׁאוּל).

Nemu-El is simply Yemu-El in the passive form; Yamin means "right" (as opposed to left), and is used to mean the east, where the sun rises; Zerach is likewise the east (Mizrach - מזרח). Yachin partners Bo'az as the welcome pillars of the Solomonic Temple, but its root meaning is not known. Sha'ul and She'ol are interchangeable, with She'ol as the Hebrew equivalent of Hades in the myths, the equivalent of the planet Pluto astronomically. 

The root of TSOCHAR is "whiteness"; used for sheep's wool (Ezekiel 27:18), and for asses (Judges 5:10) which are red with white spots.

But clearly this is only a part of the answer. The word is an alternative to Lavan (לבן), which means "white", but is also an epithet for the moon - Ha Lavanah/הלבנה); both thus suggesting a masculine moon-deity. Likewise etymologically it links to Tsohar (צהר) with a Hey (ה) = "brightness"; the one being the moon's radiance, the other the sun's. Given what we know about Ephron of the Beney Chet (Hittites), it is not surprising that his father should have been a moon-god. That Ya'akov should have made a treaty with Lavan in parallel with Av-Raham's treaty with the son of Tsochar is worth some further investigation.

And then there is the oddity that this isn't the first time that Zerach has been "replaced". In Genesis 38:29, the progeny of Yehudah's incestuous relationship with his daughter-in-law Tamar were, with the Masoretic pointing, Parets (פָּרֶץ) and Zarach (זָרַח). Zarach came out first, and the midwife put a scarlet thread on his ankle to denote him as first-born; but then he went back in, and out came Parets to claim the birthright. Is Zerach then a synonym for Tsochar, or an error?

See also 1 Chronicles 4:7, where the text is unclear, and much disputed. A woman named Chelah (חֶלְאָה), one of the two wives of Ash'chur (אַשְׁחוּר) has three sons, one of whom is either named Yitschar (יצחר) or Tsochar (צֹחַר).

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