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ā´na (×¢× ×”, 'anah, meaning uncertain; a Horite clan-name (Gen 36)):
(1) Mother of Aholibamah, one of the wives of Esau and daughter of Zibeon (compare , , , ). The Septuagint, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Peshitta read “son,†identifying this Anah with number 3 (see below); , read (החרי, ha-ḥōrı̄), for (החוּי, ha-ḥiwwı̄).
(2) Son of Seir, the Horite, and brother of Zibeon; one of the chiefs of the land of Edom (compare , = ). Seir is elsewhere the name of the land (compare ; ); but here the country is personified and becomes the mythical ancestor of the tribes inhabiting it.
(3) Son of Zibeon, “This is Anah who found the hot springs in the wilderness†(compare = , ) The word היּמי×, ha-yeÌ„mı̄m, occurs only in this passage and is probably corrupt. Ball (Sacred Books of the Old Testament, Genesis, critical note 93) suggests that it is a corruption of והימ×, we-heÌ„maÌ„m (compare ) in an earlier verse. Jerome, in his commentary on , assembles the following definitions of the word gathered from Jewish sources. (1) “seas†as though ימּי×, yammı̄m; (2) “hot springs†as though חמּי×, hÌ£ammı̄m; (3) a species of ass, ימין, yemı̄n; (4) “mules.†This last explanation was the one most frequently met with in Jewish lit; the tradition ran that Anah was the first to breed the mule, thus bringing into existence an unnatural species. As a punishment, God created the deadly water-snake, through the union of the common viper with the Libyan lizard (compare Gen Rabbah 82 15, Yer. Ber 1 12b; Babylonian Pes 54a, Ginzberg, Monatschrift, XLII, 538-39).
The descent of Anah is thus represented in the three ways pointed out above as the text stands. If, however, we accept the reading בּן, ben, for בּת, bath, in the first case, Aholibamah will then be an unnamed daughter of the Anah of , not the Aholibamah, daughter of Anah of (for the Anah of this verse is evidently the one of , not the Anah of ). Another view is that the words, “the daughter of Zibeon,†are a gloss, inserted by one who mistakenly identified the Anah of with the Anah of ; in this event, Aholibamah, the daughter of Anah, will be the one mentioned in .
The difference between (2) and (3) is to be explained on the basis of a twofold tradition. Anah was originally a sub-clan of the clan known as Zibeon, and both were “sons of Seir†- i.e. Horites.