Keturah
Is Keturah and Hagar the same person or two different individuals
Gen 25:1 Then again Abraham took a wife, and her name was Keturah.
Gen 25:2 And she bare him Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah.
1Ch 1:32 Now the sons of Keturah, Abraham's concubine: she bare Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah. And the sons of Jokshan; Sheba, and Dedan.
Keturah (Hebrew: קְטוּרָה, Ktura, possibly meaning "incense") was a concubine[2] and wife[3] of the Biblical patriarch Abraham. According to the Book of Genesis, Abraham married Keturah after the death of his first wife, Sarah. Abraham and Keturah had six sons.
One modern commentator on the Hebrew Bible has called Keturah "the most ignored significant person in the Torah". The medieval Jewish commentator Rashi, and some previous rabbinical commentators, related a traditional belief that Keturah was the same person as Hagar, although this idea cannot be found in the biblical text.
Keturah is mentioned in two passages of the Hebrew Bible: in the Book of Genesis,[3] and also in the First Book of Chronicles. Additionally, she is mentioned in Antiquities of the Jews by the 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian Josephus, in the Talmud, the Midrash, the Targum on the Torah, the Genesis Rabbah, and various other writings of Jewish theologians and philosophers.
Keturah is referred to in Genesis as "another wife" of Abraham[3] (Hebrew: אִשָּה Translit.: 'išāh Translated: woman, wife[9]). In First Chronicles, she is called Abraham's "concubine"[2] (Hebrew: פִּילֶגֶשׁ Translit.: pilegeš Translated: concubine).
There is disagreement amongst Jewish scholars as to whether Keturah was, or was not, the same person as Hagar (known in Islam as Hājar)—a handmaid of Abraham's wife Sarah, and Abraham's concubine (or, in Islamic tradition, his second wife)—who, together with her son Ishmael, was sent away by Abraham at the insistence of Sarah.[7][11]
The discussion of Genesis 25:1–6 in the Genesis Rabbah includes statements by Rabbi Judah the Prince arguing that Hagar returned to Abraham and was renamed Keturah. Her new name (Keturah means incense in Hebrew) is said to refer to the pleasant aroma of incense—symbolic of her having turned from misdeeds committed during her time away from Abraham.[12] Since Keturah is referred to in First Chronicles as Abraham's concubine (in the singular), some scholars concluded that this was why Keturah was identified with Hagar in the Midrash and the Palestinian Targumim.[13] An alternative interpretation of the name Keturah (based on an Aramaic root meaning "to tie" or "to adorn") is also cited in the Genesis Rabbah to suggest that Hagar did not have sexual relations with anyone else from the time she left Abraham until her return.[14] The theory that Keturah was Hagar was also supported by the 11th-century scholar Rashi.[4][15]
Biblical scholar Richard Elliott Friedman dismisses the identification of Keturah with Hagar as "an old rabbinic idea" for which "there is no basis ... in the text", and also notes that the idea was rejected by traditional commentators such as Ibn Ezra, Nahmanides, and Rashbam.[4] The Book of Jubilees also supports the conclusion that Keturah and Hagar were two different people, by stating that Abraham waited until after Hagar's death before marrying Keturah.[16]
Keturah bore Abraham six sons: Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah. Genesis and First Chronicles also list seven of her grandsons (Sheba, Dedan, Ephah, Epher, Enoch, Abida, and Eldaah). Keturah's sons were said to have represented the Arab tribes who lived south and east of Israel (Genesis 25:1-6)