🔼The name Eshban: Summary
- Meaning
- Unclear but perhaps Fire Son
- Etymology
- From (1) the noun אש ('esh), fire, and (2) the noun בן (ben), son.
🔼The name Eshban in the Bible
There's only one Eshban in the Bible, and he's the son of Dishon, the son of Anah, the son of Zibeon the Horite (Genesis 36:26, 1 Chronicles 1:41).
🔼Etymology and meaning of the name Eshban
The etymology and origin of the name Eshban is unclear, or "dubious" even according to BDB Theological Dictionary, which doesn't try to translate or interpret our name. Alfred Jones (Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names) is slightly more daring and notes kinship with an Arabic name or phrase, which means Very Red (and remember that Esau's other name, Edom, means "Red"). NOBSE Study Bible Name List draws from unknown sources and declares our name to mean Wise Man in some undisclosed language.
To a Hebrew audience, however, our name looks strikingly like a combination of two obvious elements. The first part of our name looks like the noun אש ('esh), meaning fire:
אש
The noun אש ('esh) means fire. Noun אשה ('ishsheh) describes a fire offering.
The second part of our name looks like the familiar noun בן (ben), meaning son:
בן
The noun בן (ben) means son, or more general: a member of one particular social or economic node — called a "house", which is built upon the instructions of one אב ('ab), or "father" — within in a larger economy (hence: the "sons of the prophet" are the members of the prophet-class; the prophets). This noun obviously resembles the verb בנה (bana), to build, and the noun אבן ('eben), stone.
Our noun's feminine version, namely בת (bat), means daughter, which resembles the noun בית (bayit), meaning house. Sometimes our noun is contracted into a single letter ב, whose name beth comes from בית (bayit) and means "house" as well. As a prefix, the letter ב (be) means "in." The word for mother, אם ('em), is highly similar to that of tribe or people, אמה ('umma).
Altogether, the name Eshban looks like Fire Son or Son Of Fire in Hebrew.