Uz

fertile land.

counsel; words

UZ (1)

uz (uts 'erets uts; Os, Ox, Ausitis):

Biblical Data:

(1) In Genesis 10:23 Uz is the oldest son of Aram and grandson of Shem, while in 1 Chronicles 1:17 Uz is the son of Shem. Septuagint inserts a passage which supplies this lacking name. As the tables of the nations in Genesis 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 (Genesis 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 (Genesis 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 (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 (Jeremiah 25:20).

(6) A kingdom, doubtless the same as that of Jeremiah 25:20 and inhabited by or in subjection to the Edomites (Lamentations 4:21), and hence not far from Edom.

James Josiah Reeve

UZ (2)

('uts; Septuagint Ausitis; Vulgate (Jerome's Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) Ausitis):

The home of the patriarch Job (Job 1:1; Jeremiah 25:20, "all the kings of the land of Uz"; La 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 (1:15,17); Job's three friends were a Temanite, a Naamathite and a Shuhite (2:11); Elihu was a Buzite (32:2); and Job himself is called one of the children of the East (Qedhem). The Chaldeans (kasdim, descendants of Chesed, son of Nahor, Genesis 22:22) inhabited Mesopotamia; a branch of the Sabeans also appears to have taken up its abode in Northern Arabia (see SHEBA). Teman (Genesis 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 (Genesis 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," Genesis 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 Qedhem" (Genesis 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 Eiyub (Job's monastery) near Nawa. There is a spring there, which. he made to flow by striking the rock with his foot (Koran 38 41), and his tomb. The passage in the Koran 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.

Thomas Hunter Weir