Uz

From Bible Exegesis

Fertile land.

(1.) The son of Aram, and grandson of Shem (Gen_10:23; 1Ch_1:17).

(2.) One of the Horite “dukes” in the land of Edom (Gen_36:28).

(3.) The eldest son of Nahor, Abraham's brother (Gen_22:21, R.V.).

Uz (1)

uz (עוּץ, ‛ūc, עוּץ ארץ, 'erec ‛ūc; Ὤς, Ṓs, Ὤξ, Ṓx, Αὐσῖτις, Ausítis):

Biblical Data:

(1) In Gen_10:23 Uz is the oldest son of Aram and grandson of Shem, while in 1Ch_1:17 Uz is the son of Shem. Septuagint inserts a passage which supplies this lacking name. As the tables of the nations in Gen 10 are chiefly geographical and ethnographical, Uz seems to have been the name of a district or nation colonized by or descended from Semites of the Aramean tribe or family.

(2) The son of Nahor by Milcah, and older brother of Buz (Gen_2:21). Here the name is doubtless personal and refers to an individual who was head of a clan or tribe kindred to that of Abraham. (3) A son of Dishan, son of Seir the Horite (Gen_36:28), and personal name of a Horite or perhaps of mixed Horite and Aramean blood.

(4) The native land and home of Job (Job_1:1), and so situated as to be in more or less proximity to the tribe of the Temanites (Job_2:11), the Shuhites (Job_2:11), the Naamathites (Job_2:11), the Buzites (Job_32:2), and open to the inroads of the Chaldeans (Job_1:17), and the Sabeans (Job_1:15 the Revised Version (British and American)), as well as exposed to the great Arabian Desert (Job_1:19). See the next article.

(5) A kingdom of some importance somewhere in Southern Syria and not far from Judea, having a number of kings (Jer_25:20).

(6) A kingdom, doubtless the same as that of Jer_25:20 and inhabited by or in subjection to the Edomites (Lam_4:21), and hence not far from Edom.

Uz (2)

(עוּץ, ‛ūc; Septuagint Αὐσῖτις, Ausítis; Vulgate (Jerome's Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) Ausitis):

The home of the patriarch Job (Job_1:1; Jer_25:20, “all the kings of the land of Uz”; Lam_4:21, “daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz”). The land of Uz was, no doubt, the pasturing-ground inhabited by one of the tribes of that name, if indeed there be more than one tribe intended. The following are the determining data occurring in the Book of Job. The country was subject to raids by Chaldeans and Sabeans (Job_1:15, Job_1:17); Job's three friends were a Temanite, a Naamathite and a Shuhite (Job_2:11); Elihu was a Buzite (Job_32:2); and Job himself is called one of the children of the East (Ḳedhem). The Chaldeans (kasdīm, descendants of Chesed, son of Nahor, Gen_22:22) inhabited Mesopotamia; a branch of the Sabeans also appears to have taken up its abode in Northern Arabia (see Sheba). Teman (Gen_36:11) is often synonymous with Edom. The meaning of the designation amathite is unknown, but Shuah was a son of Keturah the wife of Abraham (Gen_25:2), and so connected with Nahor. Shuah is identified with Suhu, mentioned by Tiglath-pileser I as lying one day's journey from Carchemish; and a “land of Uzza” is named by Shalmaneser II as being in the same neighborhood. Buz is a brother of Uz (“Huz,” Gen_22:21) and son of Nahor. Esar-haddon, in an expedition toward the West, passed through Bazu and Hazu, no doubt the same tribes. Abraham sent his children, other than Isaac (so including Shuah), “eastward to the land of Ḳedhem” (Gen_25:6). These factors point to the land of Uz as lying somewhere to the Northeast of Palestine. Tradition supports such a site. Josephus says “Uz founded Trachonitis and Damascus” (Ant., I, vi, 4). Arabian tradition places the scene of Job s sufferings in the Hauran at Deir Eiyūb (Job's monastery) near Nawa. There is a spring there, which. he made to flow by striking the rock with his foot (Korān 38 41), and his tomb. The passage in the Korān is, however, also made to refer to Job's Well. Compare Jerusalem.

Literature.

Talmud of Jerusalem (French translation by M. Schwab, VII, 289) contains a discussion of the date of Job; Le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems, 220-23, 427, 515.