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1 Chronicles1:36

✦ Public-domain source — quoted & attributed⚙ AI synthesis — generated, verify

1 Chronicles 1:36 — . Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.

36

The sons of Eliphaz: Teman, Omar, Zepho, Gatam, and Kenaz; and by Timna, Amalek.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

bə·nê ’ĕ·lî·p̄āz tê·mān wə·’ō·w·mār ṣə·p̄î wə·ḡa‘·tām qə·naz wə·ṯim·nā‘ wa·‘ă·mā·lêq

Word by word9 · parsed
בְּנֵ֖יbə·nêThe sonsH1121
√ bên — a son (as a builder of the family name), in the widest sense (of literal and figurative relationship, including grandson, subject, nation, quality or condition, etcNounmasculine plural construct
bên: a son, in the widest sense, including grandson, subject, nation The construct that governs the whole verse. Its elasticity is the exegetical hinge: because bên can mean descendant, tribe or dependent population as readily as offspring, the Chronicler can list a place-race (Barnes) or a mother-and-son pair (K&D) under one heading without lying. Genealogy in Hebrew is a claim about belonging before it is a claim about biology.
אֱלִיפָ֑ז’ĕ·lî·p̄āzof EliphazH464
√ ʼĔlîyphaz — Eliphaz, the name of one of Job's friends, and of a son of EsauNounpropermasculine singular
ʼĔlîyphaz: Eliphaz, the name of one of Job's friends, and of a son of Esau Esau's firstborn by Adah, and the father of the six names that follow. The lexicon preserves the other Eliphaz, the Temanite of Job 4:1, and the coincidence is not idle: the very next word in this verse is Teman, the Edomite name that became a byword for wisdom (Jeremiah 49:7). Edom's line produced the friends who argued God's ways badly.
תֵּימָ֤ןtê·mānTemanH8487
√ Têymân — Teman, the name of two Edomites, and of the region and descendant of one of themNounpropermasculine singular
Têymân: Teman, the name of two Edomites, and of the region and descendant of one of them Cambridge: "The word means South, and is applied in the first passage to Edom itself, in the second to the wilderness of Edom, both being south of Canaan." A personal name here, a compass bearing and then a country in Amos 1:11-12 and Habakkuk 3:3. The genealogy is already turning into a map.
וְאוֹמָר֙wə·’ō·w·mārOmarH201
√ ʼÔwmâr — Omar, a grandson of EsauConjunctive wawNounpropermasculine singular
Conjunctive waw plus the proper name Omar (H201), a rare name: the Verifier finds it in only three verses of the whole canon, all of them this Esau list and its Genesis parallel.
צְפִ֣יṣə·p̄îZephoH6825
√ Tsᵉphôw — Tsepho or Tsephi, an IdumaeanNounpropermasculine singular
Tsᵉphôw: Tsepho or Tsephi, an Idumaean The one name in the verse whose consonants differ from Genesis 36:11. K&D treats the variation as orthographic rather than substantive. It is a small, honest witness that the Chronicler is copying a real written source and that copying leaves fingerprints.
וְגַעְתָּ֔םwə·ḡa‘·tāmGatamH1609
√ Gaʻtâm — Gatam, an EdomiteConjunctive wawNounpropermasculine singular
Conjunctive waw plus Gatam (H1609), "an Edomite," a name the Verifier finds in only three verses; it recurs in the chief list of Genesis 36:16.
קְנַ֖זqə·nazand KenazH7073
√ Qᵉnaz — Kenaz, the name of an Edomite and of two IsraelitesNounpropermasculine singular
Qᵉnaz: Kenaz, the name of an Edomite and of two Israelites The lexicon itself records that the name straddles the border: an Edomite here, Israelites elsewhere. Cambridge suggests this Kenaz is "perhaps the same person as the father of Othniel ( 1 Chronicles 4:13 )," which would make Israel's first judge (Judges 3:9-11) a Kenizzite by descent and Caleb's line partly Edomite. The lexeme is shared; the identification is a conjecture, and Cambridge says so with "perhaps."
וְתִמְנָ֥עwə·ṯim·nā‘and by TimnaH8555
√ Timnâʻ — Timna, the name of two EdomitesConjunctive wawNounpropermasculine singular
Timnâʻ: Timna, the name of two Edomites The crux of the verse. Genesis 36:12 makes Timna the concubine of Eliphaz and the mother of Amalek; here she stands in a row of sons. Four solutions sit side by side in the sources: Benson and Poole posit a second, male Timna, since "there being some names common both to men and women in the Hebrew and in other languages"; Barnes reads the row as tribes and territories, not children; K&D calls the Chronicler's line "merely an abbreviation, which the author might well allow himself, as the posterity of Esau were known to his readers from Genesis," and adds that the feminine form of the name itself should have prevented the misreading; Gill and Geneva simply restore Genesis and report that the Arabic version and the Alexandrian Septuagint read it that way. The verse as it stands is genuinely compressed, and the sources disagree about how.
וַעֲמָלֵֽק׃סwa·‘ă·mā·lêqAmalekH6002
√ ʻĂmâlêq — Amalek, a descendant of EsauConjunctive wawNounpropermasculine singular
ʻĂmâlêq: Amalek, a descendant of Esau The last word of a quiet list, and the first enemy Israel meets after the sea (Exodus 17:8). The Verifier counts the lexeme in 37 verses across the canon, and the passages that shaped Israel's memory of it are war: Rephidim, the standing charge of Deuteronomy 25:17-19, and Saul's commission in 1 Samuel 15. That this name comes out of Esau's own household by way of a concubine is the single most consequential datum in the genealogy, and the Chronicler records it without a word of comment.

The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.

⚙

Grand Commentary — the unit, read whole

synthesis · verify

AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.

i. Six names, copied — 1 Chronicles 1:36

⚙ The verse has no verb. It is a construct chain and seven conjunctions: בְּנֵי אֱלִיפָז, then Teman, and-Omar, Zephi, and-Gatam, Kenaz, and-Timna, and-Amalek. K&D names the structure exactly: "In 1 Chronicles 1:36 there are first enumerated five sons of his son Eliphaz, as in Genesis 36:11 , for צפי is only another form of צפו (Gen.). Next to these five names are ranged in addition ועמלק ותמנע." Five, then two ranged alongside. The Verifier confirms the copying at the level of vocabulary: Genesis 36:11 and 36:15 share H464 ʼĔlîyphaz, H7073 Qᵉnaz, and H201 ʼÔwmâr, and H201 occurs in only three verses of the entire canon. This is a scribe with a document in front of him, not a memory.

ii. The seam: Timna — 1 Chronicles 1:36

⚙ Then the copy shows a seam. Genesis 36:12 makes Timna the concubine of Eliphaz and the mother of Amalek; here the two names stand in one row with the sons, joined by nothing but waw. The sources do not agree, and each disagreement is worth more than a smoothed translation. Benson and Poole posit a homonym, in words they share almost verbatim: "there being some names common both to men and women in the Hebrew and in other languages." Barnes widens the category instead, holding that the writer "has in his mind rather the tribes descended from Eliphaz than his actual children," and points to the place Timna of 1 Chronicles 1:51. K&D calls the row "merely an abbreviation, which the author might well allow himself, as the posterity of Esau were known to his readers from Genesis," and adds the grammatical point that the feminine form of the name should have guarded against reading Timna as a son. Gill and the Geneva note simply reassert Genesis; Gill adds that "the Arabic version" and "the Alexandrian copy of the Septuagint" read it so, a claim we pass on as his, unverified here. BSB's "and by Timna, Amalek" quietly adopts Gill's answer by inserting a preposition the Hebrew does not have.

iii. Names that became nations — 1 Chronicles 1:36

⚙ Every name in the row outgrew its man. Cambridge takes Teman first: "The word means South, and is applied in the first passage to Edom itself, in the second to the wilderness of Edom, both being south of Canaan," citing Amos 1:11-12 and Habakkuk 3:3; and it reads Amalek as "Perhaps the eponymous ancestor of the Amalekites." JFB goes much further, matching each name to a living Arab tribe: "Teman—gave rise to the land of Teman, near the head of the Red Sea," Omar to "the tribe Beni-Amma," Kenaz to "the tribe Aenezes." That is nineteenth century travelers' ethnography, offered without sources in our brief, and we mark it as unverified rather than repeat it as fact. What the text itself supports is smaller and surer: Edom's household names are already the names of places on a map south of Judah, and Matthew Henry's use of such lists still stands over them, that they teach us "to think of the multitudes that have gone through this world, have done their parts in it, and then quitted it."

Read under Sola Scriptura — this tool’s own fallible reading (⚙)

⚙ Our own fallible reading, offered to be tested. The Chronicler is writing for a small returned community that needs to know who it is, and he begins not with Israel but with Adam, and gets to Israel only after finishing Esau. He does not scrub the family record. He keeps the variant spelling of Zephi, he keeps a compressed line about Timna that any careless reader will misconstrue, and he keeps Amalek, whose descendants attacked Israel at Rephidim and whom Saul was told to devote to destruction. A genealogy that were propaganda would have lost that last name. This one ends the verse with it and moves on. We take that as evidence about the kind of book this is: the record is kept because it is the record, not because it flatters. And we notice what the list does to the doctrine of election. Nothing in these six names is inferior. Teman gave Edom its wise men, Kenaz may well stand behind Othniel, and Israel's own line in the next chapters is thick with scandal. The difference between the line that is counted here and the line that is counted next is not merit and is not shown in the text; it is only the promise. The line set apart below is our synthesis, not Scripture, and should be weighed as such.

Edom is counted first, and counted honestly, because grace has nothing to fear from an accurate list.

⚙

Canonical Threads — out to the whole of Scripture

cross-refs · verify

AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.

The Chronicler's source, open on the desk verbal / quotation: confirmed

⚙ This verse is a near copy of the Esau register in Genesis 36. K&D states the relation plainly: the five sons are enumerated "as in Genesis 36:11 , for צפי is only another form of צפו (Gen.)." The Verifier supplies the mechanical proof: the two verses hold three Strong's lexemes in common, and one of them, H201 ʼÔwmâr, appears in only three verses of the whole canon. A shared name that rare is not coincidence of subject matter; it is textual dependence. Genesis 36:15 repeats the same cluster in its list of chiefs.

Genesis 36:11 · Genesis 36:15

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H201 ʼÔwmâr (in 3 vv, rare), H7073 Qᵉnaz (in 11 vv), H464 ʼĔlîyphaz (in 14 vv) with both Genesis 36:11 and Genesis 36:15. The rarity of H201 carries the verbal tier; the link is copying of a register, not a formal quotation formula.

Timna, in Genesis a concubine verbal / quotation: confirmed

⚙ The single hardest word in the verse has a computed link to the passage that explains it. Genesis 36:12 names Timna as Eliphaz's concubine and Amalek's mother; 1 Chronicles 1:39 and Genesis 36:22 name a Timna who is Lotan's sister, which Barnes reports as a conjectured identification ("conjectured to be Lotan's sister"); 1 Chronicles 1:51 names Timna as an Edomite chief, and Barnes builds his solution on the place so named. The lexeme is shared and rare. What is disputed is not the link but what the Chronicler meant by placing the name where he did.

Genesis 36:12 · 1 Chronicles 1:39 · 1 Chronicles 1:51 · Genesis 36:22

basis: Verifier: shared H8555 Timnâʻ (in 6 vv, rare) with Genesis 36:12, 1 Chronicles 1:39, 1 Chronicles 1:51 and Genesis 36:22; Genesis 36:12 additionally shares H464 ʼĔlîyphaz (14 vv) and H6002 ʻĂmâlêq (37 vv). Verbal on lexeme rarity only; no quotation is claimed.

Kenaz, and a judge who may have come from Edom structural / thematic: confirmed

⚙ The lexicon itself says Qᵉnaz is "the name of an Edomite and of two Israelites," and the Verifier finds the lexeme in eleven verses, straddling the border: here and 1 Chronicles 1:53 and Genesis 36:42 on the Edomite side; Joshua 15:17, Judges 1:13, Judges 3:9, Judges 3:11, 1 Chronicles 4:13 and 1 Chronicles 4:15 on the Israelite, all of them clustered around Othniel son of Kenaz and Caleb's household. Cambridge raises the obvious question and refuses to settle it: Kenaz is "perhaps the same person as the father of Othniel ( 1 Chronicles 4:13 )." We keep the tier structural for that reason. A shared name is a real link between texts; it is not by itself a shared person.

Judges 1:13 · Judges 3:9 · Judges 3:11 · Joshua 15:17 · 1 Chronicles 4:13 · 1 Chronicles 4:15

basis: Verifier: shared H7073 Qᵉnaz (in 11 vv) with Joshua 15:17, Judges 1:13, Judges 3:9, Judges 3:11, 1 Chronicles 4:13 and 1 Chronicles 4:15. The lexeme link is computed; the personal identification with Othniel's father is Cambridge's conjecture and is deliberately not claimed here, so the tier stays structural rather than verbal.

Teman: a man, a direction, a country structural / thematic: confirmed

⚙ Teman travels from personal name to region within the canon. The Verifier ties this verse to Genesis 36:42 and 1 Chronicles 1:53 by the shared lexeme H8487, both of them chief lists where Teman heads a clan. Cambridge carries it further into the prophets: "Amos 1:11-12 ; Habakkuk 3:3 . The word means South, and is applied in the first passage to Edom itself, in the second to the wilderness of Edom, both being south of Canaan." By Jeremiah's day Teman stands for Edomite wisdom, which is the world Job's Temanite friend comes from.

Genesis 36:42 · 1 Chronicles 1:53 · Amos 1:11 · Habakkuk 3:3

basis: Verifier: shared H8487 Têymân (in 11 vv) with Genesis 36:42 and 1 Chronicles 1:53. The Amos and Habakkuk references are Cambridge's, not Verifier-computed for this verse, and are carried on his authority as a motif link from the name to the region.

The last name on the list becomes Israel's first enemy structural / thematic: confirmed

⚙ Amalek enters Scripture here as a grandson of Esau by a concubine and meets Israel next at Rephidim, where the war is declared to be "from generation to generation" (Exodus 17:16), then in the command of Deuteronomy 25:17-19 to remember what Amalek did, then in the charge that broke Saul's kingship in 1 Samuel 15. Cambridge reads the name here as "Perhaps the eponymous ancestor of the Amalekites." We tier this structural and not verbal on purpose: the Verifier's candidate list for this verse returns H6002 in Genesis 36:16 and Genesis 36:12 only, so the Exodus and Deuteronomy links are ours by shared proper name and motif, not by a computed basis in this unit.

Exodus 17:8 · Exodus 17:16 · Deuteronomy 25:17 · 1 Samuel 15:3

basis: Shared proper name H6002 ʻĂmâlêq (in 37 vv canon-wide); the Verifier's computed bases for this verse cover only Genesis 36:16 and Genesis 36:12, so the Exodus, Deuteronomy and 1 Samuel refs are motif-level continuity of the same named people, not a computed verbal link.

JFB's Arab tribes: a claim we cannot check flagged: verify source

⚙ JFB converts nearly every name in this verse into a contemporary Arab tribe: the sons of Eliphaz are "the tribe Adites, in the center country of the Saracens," Omar is "the tribe Beni-Amma, settled at the northern point of Djebel Shera (Mount Seir)," Zephi "the tribe Dzaf," Gatam "Katam, inhabited by the tribe Al Saruat," Kenaz "the tribe Aenezes," Amalek "the Beni Malak of Zohran." These equations rest on nineteenth century travel literature that our sources do not name, and several depend on consonantal resemblance alone. The computed link that does exist for this verse runs to Genesis 36:16, where the chief list shares H464, H6002 and the rare H1609. We flag the tribal identifications and keep the register link.

Genesis 36:16

basis: Computed part: Verifier gives shared H464 ʼĔlîyphaz (14 vv), H6002 ʻĂmâlêq (37 vv) and H1609 Gaʻtâm (in 3 vv, rare) with Genesis 36:16. Flagged part: JFB's equation of each Edomite name with a named nineteenth century Arab tribe has no source cited in this unit and cannot be verified from the materials here.

⚙Christ in the Unittypology · verify

AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.

Esau counted first, and Paul's use of it ancient/widely-held

⚙ The Chronicler gives Esau's descendants a full and careful register before he turns to Israel, and he gives it without insult. Paul later builds his hardest argument on precisely this pair of lines, quoting Malachi's "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated" and insisting that the choice was made before either had done good or evil, so that God's purpose "in election might stand" (Romans 9:10-13). The genealogy is the raw material of that argument: two households, one promise, and no stated difference in the men themselves. Read this way, the honesty of the Edomite list is not a digression before the real story; it is what makes the real story grace rather than merit. This is the standard apostolic reading of the Esau registers.

Romans 9:10-13 · Malachi 1:2-3 · Genesis 36:11

Amalek, and the war carried to its end ancient/widely-held

⚙ The last word of this verse names the people whose enmity Scripture treats as more than politics: "the LORD will have war with Amalek from generation to generation" (Exodus 17:16), and Israel is commanded to remember it (Deuteronomy 25:17-19). The Church has long read that unending war as one strand of the longer enmity announced in Genesis 3:15, an enmity ended not by Saul's sword but at the cross, where the powers are disarmed and led in triumph (Colossians 2:15). We mark the typology honestly: the identification of Amalek with the seed-enmity is an ancient and widely held figural reading, not a claim made by this verse, which says only that Amalek was born into Eliphaz's household.

Exodus 17:16 · Genesis 3:15 · Colossians 2:15

Lists of the dead, and one genealogy that does not end novel

⚙ Matthew Henry reads these chapters as a memento mori: they teach us "to think of the multitudes that have gone through this world, have done their parts in it, and then quitted it," and "Short is our passage through time into eternity." Every name in 1 Chronicles 1 is the name of someone dead. The one genealogy in Scripture that does not terminate in a grave is the one Luke runs back through David and Abraham to Adam and to God (Luke 3:38), and it ends in a man who was raised. Henry's application, that we should desire to "be distinguished as the Lord's people," points toward the book of life in which names are kept rather than merely counted (Revelation 20:12). We mark this as our own construction: Henry supplies the devotional reading of the lists, but the contrast with Luke's genealogy is ours and is offered to be tested.

Luke 3:38 · Revelation 20:12

Apparatus & Provenance

The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.

Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:

  • Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible (1834)
  • Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, — (1880s)
  • John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible (1746–63)
  • Keil & Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1860s)

⚙ Honesty notes for this unit. (1) The unit is a single verse, a name row with no finite verb; the literal rendering above supplies no words the Hebrew lacks, which is why it reads as a bare list. (2) BSB's "and by Timna, Amalek" adds a preposition that is not in the consonantal text; the Hebrew has only waw plus the two names. We have not corrected BSB, only marked the addition. (3) The spelling צְפִי here against צְפוֹ in Genesis 36:11 is a real difference of consonants; we follow K&D in treating it as an orthographic variant, which is a judgment, not a certainty. (4) On Timna the sources genuinely conflict: Benson and Poole posit a male homonym, Barnes reads the row as tribes and places, K&D calls it an authorial abbreviation, Gill and Geneva simply restore Genesis 36:12. We have not chosen among them. (5) Gill's appeal to "the Arabic version" and "the Alexandrian copy of the Septuagint" is reported as his citation; no manuscript evidence or collation is present in this unit's sources and we have not verified it. (6) JFB's identification of each name with a modern Arab tribe is tiered flagged for that reason. (7) Cambridge's suggestion that this Kenaz is Othniel's father is a "perhaps" and is kept as a conjecture, so the Kenaz thread is tiered structural on the shared lexeme alone. (8) No New Testament passage cites this verse; the Romans 9 and Genesis 3:15 connections in the christ section are readings of the Esau line and of the name Amalek, not quotations of 1 Chronicles 1:36, and are labeled accordingly. (9) The final samek in the surface form of Amalek is a scribal section marker, not part of the name.

✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)