ContradictionsReading order 225Bible context 2 min read
Who was Timnah?
Genesis identifies Timna as Eliphaz's concubine and Amalek's mother, but Chronicles places Timna in a list headed as Eliphaz's sons.
- Textual conflict
- Interpretive tension
- The passages pull in different directions, but the conflict depends on how their wording, scope, or narrative context is read.
- Importance
- Minor
- A local detail in a story, chronology, or inventory.
Corresponding Eliphaz lists identify Timna as concubine and mother in one account but include the name under sons in the other.
An editorial assessment of the quoted passages. Importance describes the stakes; it does not increase certainty. Reading order weighs both.
Timna is Eliphaz's concubine and Amalek's mother
These are the names of Esau’s sons; Eliphaz the son of Adah the wife of Esau, Reuel the son of Bashemath the wife of Esau. And the sons of Eliphaz were Teman, Omar, Zepho, and Gatam, and Kenaz. And Timna was concubine to Eliphaz Esau’s son; and she bare to Eliphaz Amalek: these were the sons of Adah Esau’s wife.
Genesis 36:10-12
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)
Read the full chapter:Genesis 36
Timna appears among the sons of Eliphaz
The sons of Esau; Eliphaz, Reuel, and Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah. The sons of Eliphaz; Teman, and Omar, Zephi, and Gatam, Kenaz, and Timna, and Amalek.
1 Chronicles 1:35-36
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)