Job's Daughters

[Job’s daughters - William Blake]

After Job’s encounter with God, the long suffering man was restored. He received sheep, oxen, camels and donkeys. These were double the amount he had before the trial. And he had seven sons and three daughters, the same number as before.

Job 42 v 14

The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah, and the third Keren-Happuch.

It is interesting the daughters are named but the sons aren’t. There must be a reason.

Names are very important in the Bible as they can reveal more about the text than is immediately clear at the first reading.

Jemimah has an uncertain root and can be translated as ‘day by day’, though it could also be translated as a female dove. This word doesn’t appear anywhere else in the Bible.

The second daughter, Keziah comes from the word cassia which is a fragrant powered bark. And again, the word doesn’t appear anywhere else in the Bible.

The last daughter has an unusual name, Keren-Happuch. It means a horn of antimony. This phrase is again unique in the Bible. Keren means horn and traditionally caused a translation issue. It is similar to a word which is used to describe Moses’s shining face after he came down from Mount Sinai in Exodus 34. In fact, early Christian depictions of this event show Moses with horns, rather than a shining face.

Happuch is a metallic element known as antinomy. It was ground down by the ancients and used as a cosmetic, particularly as an eyeliner.

Could Keren-Happuch be an attempt to try to represent a horn which is also shining and arcs like an eyeliner? Could this be a way of describing a rainbow?

In summary, the three daughters are, Jemimah (dove), Kezia (wood) and Keren-Happuch (rainbow).

These three elements, dove, wood and rainbow, also appear in the story of Noah.

Is Job’s story linked to the Flood narrative?

There is a sense that while Job was suffering, he was like Noah in the bowels of the Ark.

We do see that Noah was with his three sons and we see Job had his three friends.

And as Noah exits the Ark, he sees the World has been renewed, a new creation. Similarly, after Job’s experience, his personal world is renewed and abundantly restored to him.

How many other Bible stories are linked to the Flood narrative?

Probably more than we realise.