Chenaanah

Two men named Chenaanah appear in the UPDV. The better known is the father of Zedekiah, the false prophet who confronted Micaiah at Ahab's court before the disastrous campaign against Ramoth-gilead. The other is a Benjaminite, a son of Bilhan, listed in the Chronicler's genealogy of Jediael.

Father of the False Prophet Zedekiah

When Ahab king of Israel and Jehoshaphat king of Judah gathered four hundred prophets to sanction the Ramoth-gilead campaign, one of those prophets staged the most theatrical sign-act of the assembly. "And Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah made himself horns of iron, and said, Thus says Yahweh, With these you will push the Syrians, until they are consumed" (1Ki 22:11). The Chronicler repeats the scene almost verbatim: "And Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah made for himself horns of iron, and said, Thus says Yahweh, With these you will push the Syrians, until they are consumed" (2Ch 18:10).

When Micaiah son of Imlah arrived and contradicted the four hundred — reporting Yahweh's vision of Israel scattered like sheep without a shepherd — it was Chenaanah's son who answered with violence. "Then Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah came near, and struck Micaiah on the cheek, and said, Which way did the Spirit of Yahweh go from me to speak to you?" (1Ki 22:24; cf. 2Ch 18:23). In each of the four scenes where Zedekiah acts, the UPDV identifies him by his father's name. Chenaanah himself never speaks; he is named only as the patronym attached to a prophet whose oracle was answered by Ahab's death at Ramoth-gilead.

Brother of Ehud

A second Chenaanah belongs to the tribe of Benjamin. In the Chronicler's genealogy of Jediael, "the sons of Bilhan: Jeush, and Benjamin, and Ehud, and Chenaanah, and Zethan, and Tarshish, and Ahishahar" (1Ch 7:10). This is a different Ehud from the judge of Judges 3 — here the name belongs to one of seven brothers among Bilhan's house, listed without further narrative. Chenaanah appears only in the genealogical roll.