CHAPTER 36
version (see above, 23: 2); and ibid. 955, where Mambre is both identified with Hebron and named as one of Abraham's friends.
CHAPTER 36 verse 4 Eliphaz is described in the Book of Job (2: rx) as a Temanite, here further identified as a descendant of Esau. Sekhel
Tov on this verse says that he prophesied in the days of Job, but does not identify him as a son of Ada. See further below on verse
22. verses 19-20 XX of verse 19 differs from the Hebrew, which Jerome appears to have translated here. The former read: 'These are the sons of Esau, and these are their leaders. These are the sons of Edom', while the latter has 'These are the sons of Esau, who is
Edom; and these are their chiefs'. See above on 25: 25, 30. verse 20 Jerome begins his quotation of LXX in mid-sentence.
'And these are the sons of Seir, of the Chorraean.
. .'. Chorraean is an attempt to reproduce Hebrew hori, 'the Horites', which Jerome understands here and at In Abdiam 1 as 'free' in the light of the Mishnaic Hebrew root brr, 'set free'. It is possible that he intends his explanation of the name to be understood as it is by R. Aha ben Jacob in b. Shabb. 85b, that they were 'set free from their property', since he tells how Esau dispossessed them according to Deut. 2: 21. He thus distances himself from his other attempts to explain the name in Lib. Heb. Nom. (pp.
64, 86) as 'irascible' (from root hrh, 'burn with anger'), or 'from the holes (ie. of the rocks)', Troglodites (from hér, 'a hole').
In the same way he shows no knowledge of PJ's interpretation of the name as 'nobles'. verse 22.
Eliphaz the Temanite had a concubine named Thimna, according to Gen. 36: 12. Jerome may be quoting that verse from memory, since he has reproduced neither the Hebrew nor LXX, which read: 'And Thimna was concubine to Eliphaz, son of Esau, and she bore Amalek to Eliphaz.' The preceding verse also refers to Theman and Kenaz who, with Amalek, once gave their names to lands subsumed into Idumaean territory in Jerome's day. verse 24 Jerome gives the names of the persons in this verse in forms closer to the Hebrew than LXX. The word which so puzzled him is vocalized in MT as hayyémim; but the consonants may
Commentary indeed be read as hayyamim, 'seas', which he has already confirmed (see 1: 10) as Hebrew idiom for pools of water. Jerome is careful to note that the same consonants can be taken as 'seas', perhaps to distance himself from a garbled Christian etymology of the word based on Hebrew hammayim, 'the water', extant in the Catenae (Petit, ii. 239). That Iamin means water was the view of 'the Syrian' quoted by Theodoret, OG 94, and of 'the Syrian and the Hebrew' quoted by Diodore (Petit, ii. 241); indeed, it is the reading of Pesh and Legah Tov on this verse.! 'Hot waters' is the sense Jerome prefers in Vg: there is no known Jewish precedent for this, and his invocation of Punic in support of the opinion must remain doubtful." Possibly the root fmm, 'be warm', has influenced his interpretation.
Two differing interpretations refer the word to animals. The first envisages the mating of male wild asses with female domesticated asses to produce swift-footed creatures: this partly corresponds with PJ of this verse, which says that Anah 'hybridized wild asses with she-asses'; but the Targum goes on to say that these produced mules. This cannot be the case, since mules are produced by crossing horses with asses. However, Jerome's final explanation of the word is that it means precisely 'mules', the offspring of female horses and male asses. This last compares with jer. Ber.
5, although there we read of she-asses crossed with stallions; a little later, however, in jer. Ber. 8: 8, there is extended discussion on how to recognize a mule whose dam is a horse and sire an ass, and vice versa. PJ, incidentally, seems to have conflated the two interpretations which Jerome has carefully kept separate.' In fact, 'mules' is the most common Rabbinic understanding of the word: see also
Gen. Rab. 82: 14; b. Hullin 7b, cited by Rashi on this verse. Aquila and Symmachus transliterated the word as a plural noun, LXX and Theodotion as a singular: these translators may not have known what the word meant or, being aware of different possible interpretations, opted to remain neutral.'
1 'Waters' is what the Syriac text actually reads. For discussion of conjectural emendations, see Rahmer, Die hebrdischen Traditionen, 45-6; and Grossfeld,
Targum Ongelos to Genesis, 125.
2 See Rahmer, Die hebréischen Traditionen, 46-7.
3 See also Rahmer, ibid. 47.
+ The witnesses to Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion differ among themselves in the way the transliterated word is spelled; and a number ascribe a singular form of the word to Symmachus: see Wevers, pp. 345-6, second apparatus.