Almodad

From BibleWiki

Meaning: immeasurable

The first-named son of Joktan, Gen 10:26, 1Chr 1:20. The context seems to imply that some tribe or district of S. Arabia is meant, but the name has not hitherto been identified with certainty. The first element has been variously explained as the Arab. article (this is perhaps intended by the Massoretic punctuation; so Dillmann on Gen 10:26), as the Sem. El ('God'; so Halevy), and as the Arab. al ('family'; so Glaser, Skizze, ii. 425). The second element seems clearly to be a derivative of the verb wadd (to love), of the same stem as the name Wadd, a god of the Minaeans and other Arabian races. As a word that can be read Maudad is applied in inscriptions to the Gebanites in their relation to the kings of Main, Glaser suggests that the name should be rendered 'the family to whom the office of Maudad,' i.e. some priesthood of Wadd, 'was assigned,' and that the tribe should be identified with the Gebanites, whom he places in the S.W. corner of Arabia. Others have supposed the word to be corrupt, and have corrected it Al-Afurad, the well-known name of a tribe of Yemen.