Timna - In Genesis 36:11, Eliphaz has no son Timna; but he has a concubine of the name, who is the mother of Amalek, and conjectured to be Lotan's sister 1 Chronicles 1:39. The best explanation is, that the writer has in his mind rather the tribes descended from Eliphaz than his actual children, and as there was a place, Timna, inhabited by his "dukes" (1 Chronicles 1:51; compare Genesis 35:40), he puts the race which lived there among his "sons."

The grandchildren of Esau. 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, "Timna and Amalek," while we learn from Genesis 36:12 that Timna was a concubine of Eliphaz, who bore to him Amalek. The addition of the two names Timna and Amalek in the Chronicle thus appears to be merely an abbreviation, which the author might well allow himself, as the posterity of Esau were known to his readers from Genesis. The name Timna, too, by its form (a feminine formation), must have guarded against the idea of some modern exegetes that Timna was also a son of Eliphaz. Thus, then, Esau had through Eliphaz six grandchildren, who in Genesis 36:12 are all set down as sons of Adah, the wife of Esau and the mother of Eliphaz. (Vide com. to Genesis 36:12, where the change of Timna into a son of Eliphaz is rejected as a misinterpretation.)

The sons of Eliphaz; Teman, and Omar, Zephi, and Gatam, Kenaz, and {k} Timna, and Amalek.

(k) Which was Eliphaz's concubine, read Ge 36:12.

1:36 Timna - There is another Timna, the concubine of Eliphaz, Gen 36:12, but this was one of his sons, though called by the same name; there being some names common both to men and women in the Hebrew and in other languages.

Zephi: or, Zepho

36. sons of Eliphaz-the tribe Adites, in the center country of the Saracens, so called from his mother, Adah (Ge 36:10).

Teman-gave rise to the land of Teman, near the head of the Red Sea.

Omar-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, or "people of Sarah."

Kenaz-the tribe Aenezes, a tribe whose settlement lies in the neighborhood of Syria.

Amalek-the Beni Malak of Zohran, and the Beni Maledj of the Shat el Arab.

28-54 The genealogy is from hence confined to the posterity of Abraham. Let us take occasion from reading these lists of names, to think of the multitudes that have gone through this world, have done their parts in it, and then quitted it. As one generation, even of sinful men, passes away, another comes. Ec 1:4; Nu 32:14, and will do so while the earth remains. Short is our passage through time into eternity. May we be distinguished as the Lord's people.