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| Map of the biblical Land of Ausitis |
Usually, but incorrectly, rendered as Uz in English.
Genesis 10:23 names him as the eldest son of Aram; his siblings were Chul (חול), Geter (גתר) and Mash (מש).
Genesis 22:21 changes this, or perhaps gives it its antecedents, naming Uts as the first-born son of Nachor (נחור), Av-Ram's brother. In this version his siblings were Buz (בוז), Kemu-El (קמואל) the father of Aram (ארם), Kesed (כשד), Chazo (חזו), Pildash (פלדש), Yidlaph (ידלף) and Betu-El (בתואל), the father of Rivkah (Rebecca) who would later marry Yitschak (Isaac).
Genesis 36:28 gives the Edomite version of this genealogy, which is somewhat different again. Uts is now the first-born son of Dishan (previously one of his brothers); his only sibling is Aran (ארן), almost certainly a dialect spelling of Aram (ארם).
What is clear is that these are not people but tribes, and that the family relationships denote political hegemony.
Uts also appears as the land from which Iyov came (Job 1:1), which allows us to recognise that as a Babylonian rather than a Yisra-Eli tale.
He - or rather it - is also mentioned in Jeremiah 25:20 and Lamentations 4:21; both references seeming to confirm that Uts is Ausitis, a region and tribe in the northern Arabian desert between Kena'an, Edom and the Euphrates; they were almost certainly Edomites.
The name hardly reappears in history at all, unlike many biblical names; but cf a delightful little book by Bruce Chatwin bearing the name (though he spells it Utz). It has absolutely nothing to do with Job, or the Bible, or the land of Ausitis; I mention it only because of the coincidence of the name.
Uts means "soft and sandy earth", though Judges 19:30 and Isaiah 8:10 both use a verb Uts (עוץ) to mean "to consult", possibly a variant of Ya'ats (יעץ) - cf 2 Samuel 16:23 and 17:11, 1 Kings 1:12, Ezra 7:28 and many others, all of them suggesting that "the land of Uts" is rather more metaphorical than literal, in the same manner as Kayin (Cain) being exiled in "the land of Nod", from LENADNED = = "to wander". Uts is thus "the land of counselling", which is precisely what every character in the tale does, driving Iyov completely nuts with all of their wise, sound but ultimately useless advice.
At least one Catholic translations renders the name as Hus, for reasons that are not given, but deducible as being based on Saint Jerome's translation of the Greek Septuagint into the Vulgate. Error then vindicating error, it wrongly assumes that Uzah must also be a variation of Uts (Christian translations, as noted many times, regularly regard the Yieudit Tsade (צ) as though it were a Zayin (ז), and render "ts" as "z".
At least one Catholic translations renders the name as Hus, for reasons that are not given, but deducible as being based on Saint Jerome's translation of the Greek Septuagint into the Vulgate. Error then vindicating error, it wrongly assumes that Uzah must also be a variation of Uts (Christian translations, as noted many times, regularly regard the Yieudit Tsade (צ) as though it were a Zayin (ז), and render "ts" as "z".
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