THE SHEPHERD KINGS OP EGYPT. 161 



and slie bare to him Asclio, the father of Thekoe." Tn tlie fourth 

 chapter at the fifth verse also we read : "And to Asour, the father 

 of Thekoe, were two wives, Aoda and Thoada. And Aoda bore to 

 him Ochaia, and Ephal, and Thaiman, and Aasther; all these were 

 the sons of Aoda. And the sons of Thoada, Sereth, and Saar, and 

 Esthanam." 



Gesenius looks upon the word Ashchur as identical with Shachar, 

 to become black, with a prosthetic aleph. It is certainly strange that the 

 black Asshurites should be in such verbal opposition to the white 

 Horites. Tekoa, the region of which he is called the father, is not 

 mentioned in the earlier books of the Bible, but the name occurs in 

 2 Samuel, xiv. 4, and in later books, as well as in the first book of 

 Maccabees. It lies a few miles south of Bethlehem on the borders of 

 the desert. We need not be surprised to find a great name, that of 

 Ashchur, connected with a comparatively small place, since Shobal, 

 whom we have recognized as a chief divinity among many peoples, is 

 spoken of as the father of Kirjath Jearim. It is impossible to 

 reconcile the Hebrew and Greek names of the two wives of Ashchur, 

 nor can any reason be given for the apparent reversion of the order 

 in the mention of their children which appears in the -Hebrew. Helah 

 or Chelah is a word almost identical with the geographical names, 

 Halah, designating (2 Kings xvii. 6,) a province of Assyria, and 

 Hali (Joshua xix. 25,) a town in the tribe of Asher. Naarah 

 is plainly the original of the name Naarath or Naaran, by which 

 (Joshua xvi. 7 ; 1 Chron. vii. 28,) a town on the border of Ephraim 

 was called, and probably of tlie kindred form Maarath applied to a 

 place in the tribe of Judah (Joshua xv. 59).^ Achuzam, the eldest 

 son of Naarah, at once recalls the Philistine Achuzzath (Genesis xxvi. 

 26), the final letter being the sole distinction of the respective 

 names. ^ In Hepher we find the eponym of an important town and 

 region in Jiidah (Joshua xii. 17 ; 1 Kings iv. 10). He likewise 

 connects with the Philistine stock in the town of Zebulon called 

 (Joshua xix. 13; 2 Kings xiv. 25,) Gath Hepher. Temeni, the 

 third son of Naarah, may easily have been the father of the family 

 to which Husham, the king of Edom (Genesis xxxvi. 34), and 

 Eliphaz, the friend of Job (Job ii. 11), belonged, and from which the 



1 Mearah, beside the Sidonians (Joshua xiji. 4), is a name that may geographically as well as 

 philologically connect with that of the wife of Ashchur. 



2 Azem or Ezem (Joshua xv. 29 ; 1 Chron. iv. 29), and Azmon (Numbers xxxiv. 4, 5,) agre 

 in situation with the region which we shall find to contain reminiscences of Achuzam. 



