Lives of Scripture

Anah appears in the genealogical record of Esau's Edomite descendants in Genesis 36. He is identified as a son of Zibeon the Hivite (36:20, 24), and Genesis preserves one specific, memorable detail about him: "he is the Anah who found the hot springs in the wilderness while he was pasturing the donkeys of his father Zibeon" (36:24). This brief note singles him out from the surrounding list of Seir's descendants, most of whom receive nothing but a name. Anah's daughter Oholibamah married Esau (36:2, 25), becoming one of Esau's three wives along with Adah and Basemath, and her sons became chiefs among the Edomites (36:18). Genesis 26:34 also records a Hittite wife of Esau named Judith, daughter of "Beeri the Hittite" -- a name many interpreters connect to Anah, since Genesis 26 and 36 give overlapping but differently-worded lists of Esau's wives and in-laws, a harmonization tradition rather than a stated identification. Anah himself performs no further action in Scripture; his significance lies in linking the Hivite inhabitants of Seir to Esau's family and, through Oholibamah, to the Edomite nation that descended from Esau alongside Israel's twelve tribes descending from Jacob.