Heth

Heth is one of the sons of Canaan in the Table of Nations and the eponymous ancestor of the Hittite people who later live around Hebron. Heth himself never speaks or acts in the UPDV; he appears only as a name in the genealogies of Genesis and 1 Chronicles, and his memory is carried forward in two recurring formulas — the "sons of Heth" who deal with Abraham and Jacob, and the "daughters of Heth" whose marriages distress Rebekah.

Heth in the Genealogies

Heth is registered twice as a son of Canaan, in the Genesis Table of Nations and in the parallel Chronicler list. Both verses give the same wording: "And Canaan begot Sidon his firstborn, and Heth," (Gen 10:15; 1Ch 1:13). The two notices place Heth among the founding population of the land that Israel will later enter, alongside Sidon and the rest of Canaan's posterity.

The Sons of Heth at Hebron

The bulk of Heth's name in Scripture comes from his descendants — the "sons of Heth" — who hold Hebron when Sarah dies and from whom Abraham buys the cave of Machpelah. The transaction is framed by the formula at every stage. Abraham opens the negotiation: "And Abraham rose up from before his dead, and spoke to the sons of Heth, saying," (Gen 23:3). Their reply is named the same way: "And the sons of Heth answered Abraham, saying," (Gen 23:5). Abraham's answering gesture closes the first round: "And Abraham rose up, and bowed himself to the people of the land, even to the sons of Heth" (Gen 23:7).

When Ephron emerges from the gathering to make the sale, the narrator keeps the patriarchal frame in view: "Now Ephron was sitting in the midst of the sons of Heth. And Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the audience of the sons of Heth, even of all who went in at the gate of his city, saying," (Gen 23:10). The weighing of the silver is also performed publicly before them: "And Abraham listened to Ephron. And Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver [based on the weight that was] current with the merchant" (Gen 23:16). The transfer of the field is sealed with the same witnesses: "to Abraham for a possession in the presence of the sons of Heth, before all who went in at the gate of his city" (Gen 23:18).

Two generations later, Jacob's deathbed instructions to his sons identify the burial-cave by the same purchase: "the field and the cave that is in it, which was purchased from the sons of Heth" (Gen 49:32). The patrimony of Israel's ancestral tomb is, in the patriarchal narrative, traceable through Heth's descendants.

The Daughters of Heth

Where the "sons of Heth" frame the Machpelah purchase, the "daughters of Heth" frame Rebekah's anxiety over Jacob's marriage. Esau has already taken wives from Hethite stock, and Rebekah brings the matter to Isaac in unrelieved terms: "And Rebekah said to Isaac, I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth. If Jacob takes a wife of the daughters of Heth, such as these, of the daughters of the land, what good will my life be to me?" (Gen 27:46). The complaint sets up the next chapter's command that Jacob go to Paddan-aram for a wife, and it shows the same descendants of Heth who had been honorable sellers at Hebron functioning, a generation later, as a marriage problem for the chosen line.

Heth and the Hittites

The descendants of Heth carry his name into the broader designation "Hittite," and the people-group has a long career in Scripture in its own right. For Israel's later dealings with the Hittites — their place among the seven nations of Canaan, the Hittite landowners around Hebron and in the hill country, and individual Hittites like Ephron, Uriah, and Ahimelech — see the Hittites article.