He is described in the text in three ways: namely, as to name, tribe, and house. 1. His name was threefold: Achan, Achar, Achor — of which the first is here always [used] in the Hebrew; the second [at] 1 Chron. 2:3; the third is here intimated (vv. 25 and 27). The Greek, on the contrary, uses rather the middle name. For it here always writes ἄχαρ [Achar] for Achan — which those generally do who follow the Seventy [LXX], as (bk. 7) Salvian, [and] Prudentius in the Psychomachia, [and] Rupert (ch. 21); and it twice keeps the other, ἄχωρ [Achōr], and Josephus follows it in his own way, as does St. Jerome in ch. 4 of Micah. Whence is sufficiently refuted what Abulensis says (after questions 54 and 77, at the end of this chapter): that “Achor” is not the name of a man, but the name of a valley. But the origin of all the names is the same, which Joshua indicates (v. 26). For what there the Latin renders “to trouble” and “to drive out,” and the Greek renders ὀλοθρεύειν and ἐξολοθρεύειν [olothreuein & exolothreuein, “to destroy” & “to destroy utterly”], in Hebrew is always one word, עכר hacar [ʿakhar, “to trouble”]. So that “Achan” signifies not “a lurking serpent” (as in the book of [Hebrew] Questions on Chronicles [ps.-Jerome] — for so it would be nachas [נחש]) — but “a troubler, a disturber,” and “a destroyer,” as will be said below from Sanhedrin ch. 6, fol. 44b, and others (q. 40). And so, alluding to this name, Joshua says: “Because thou hast troubled us, may the Lord drive thee out.” As if he said what is commonly wont to be said: “Names often fit their things.” And 1 Chron. 2:7 [reads] hachar, hocher, that is, “Achar the troubler,” in Greek ὁ ἐμποδοστάτης Ἰσραήλ [ho empodostatēs Israēl, “the hinderer of Israel”]. For — “to compose a name that comes true is to divine,” says Ausonius (Epist. 21) — [it is] “a token of one’s fortune and character, or of one’s death.” But on account of that root, from which this name springs up, [the name] is written by some with an aspiration, Hacan. II. His tribe was Judah — that tribe, I say, from which [came] the Saviour, who has His name also from “salvation,” as was set forth [in] bk. 1, ch. 2. [But] no one is to glory in a lineage, however lofty and noble — since [that lineage] sometimes produces [men] unworthy of that stock; and no one should swell greatly over any lineage, since from it [too] some degenerate [offspring] arise. These are human [things]. The same garden brings forth both wholesome herbs and poisonous aconites. III. His father was Charmi; his [grandfather] Zabdi, who was grandfather to him; his [forefather] Zara, who by some is called Zare, [and] from the Hebrew is called Zarach [זרח]. And he [Zerah] was a son of the patriarch Judah (Genesis 38). But here there are difficulties. First: [there] are enumerated (1 Chron. 2:6)
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five sons of Zerah himself, and among them no Zabdi. Secondly: in the same place, at verse seven, “Achar the son of Charmi” is indeed said, but in such a way that Charmi seems [to be] one of Zerah’s nearest sons. For the manner of writing there is such, that when someone’s sons are recounted, the sons of these [sons] also, if there be anything notable in them for the memory, are recounted. But neither is Charmi placed there among the sons of Zerah, nor is it indicated of which of Zerah’s sons he is the son. Thirdly: [is it not strange] that from the patriarch Judah — that is, from the time before the descent into Egypt down to this arrival in the promised Land — only four generations are enumerated, [a span] of more than 260 years indeed? For the Israelites came into the promised Land in the year of the world 2490, as was said above (ch. 5); into Egypt they had gone in the year 2238. — As for the first [difficulty]: he who is here called Zabdi is there [1 Chron. 2:6] Zamri, or, as the Hebrew points prefer today, Zimri. For the Seventy [LXX] also read here, for Zabdi, Ζαμβεί [Zambei], with a b interposed for euphony’s sake — as also [in the book] of Numbers, ch. 25, v. 14. And so either this [man] had two names (as pleases Abulensis), or, from the likeness of the letters resh [ר] and mem [מ] — as the Masorah notes was done elsewhere, and [as with] Bethamara for Bethabara (Epiphanius, Against Heresy 51 [of the Anoetorum], fol. 189) — the two [letters] resh and mem were here [confused]; and so from Zamri was made Zabdi, called by Josephus “Zebedias,” [and] by his translator Rufinus “Zebedaeus.” As for the second, that text [1 Chron. 2:6–7] seems, if not to be read, at least to be understood, thus: “the sons of Zimri: Charmi; the sons of Charmi: Achar.” As for the third, those generations are four; but a fifth is also signified here, since mention is made of Achan’s children (v. 24) — although it is not established how grown-up they were. But you will note that Achan is sometimes called by his father’s name, Charmi, as in St. Chrysostom (homily 6 on Ephesians).