I. Name
Heb. ʾāḥ, ‘brother’, represents a primitive Semitic noun, of unknown etymology. The term refers to a biological brother or half-brother, a male member of comparable standing in a kinship group, or a male member of a larger community, such as Israel. In the ancient Near East, ‘brother’ also occurs as a theophoric element in personal names (Fowler 1988:46–48, 280–281, 301–302).