KENAZ (Tp, perhaps 'hunting ; Kevgr; Alex., in Citron. i. 36, Kqn'; Cenez), a grandson of Esau (Gen. xxxvi. It), and the founder of a family or tribe among the Edomites. Kenaz is styled one of the Dukes (+0;,s, literally 'leaders,' probably equivalent to the modern Arabic Shiekhs) of Edom (Gen. xxxvi. 15, 42). The descendants of Esau did not all settle within the limits of Edoni. The I tureans migrated northward to the borders of Damascus ; Amalek settled in the desert between Egypt and Palestine ; Teman went eastward into Arabia. We are justified, therefore, in inferring that Kenaz also may have led his family and fol lowers to a distance from Mount Seir. Dr. Wells suggests that the Kenezzitcs mentioned in Gen. xv. 19 were the descendants of Kenaz (Geogr. i. 169). Mr. Forster adopts this view but it is clearly at variance with the scope of th'e Mosaic narrative. The words of the covenant made with Abraham were : Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates, the Kcnitcs, and the Kenizzites,' etc., plainly implying that these tribes then occupied the land, whereas Kenaz, the grandson of Esau, was not born for a century and a half after the Kenizzites were thus noticed. Forster's idea that
the promise to Abraham was proleptical cannot be entertained.
Forstcr maintains that the tribe of Kenaz, or Al Kenaz with the Arabic article prefixed, are identi cal with the Laekeni or Laeeni of Ptolemy, a tribe dwelling near the shores of the Persian Gulf (Geog. vi. 7); and these he would further identify with the Aenezes (properly Anezeh, tbe largest and most powerful tribe of Bedawin in Ambia. It is possible that the Hebrew Qoph (p) may have been changed into the Arabic Ain (e.); in other re spects the names are identical. The Aenezes cover the desert from the Euphrates to Syria, and from Aleppo on the north to the mountains of Nejd on the south. It is said that they can bring into the field to,000 horsemen, and go,000 caincl-riders, and they are lords of a district some 40,000 square miles in area (Forster, Geography of Arabia, 43 ; Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys, 1, sq.; Handbook for S. and P., pp. 536, sq).— J. L. P.