Keren-Happuch Meaning in the Bible

Keren-happuch (Hebrew קֶרֶן הַפּוּךְ) is literally 'horn of puk' — puk being the dark antimony powder women ground and applied around the eyes, and keren the horn-shaped container it was kept in. It is a cosmetics jar. English translations usually leave it untranslated because 'Horn of Eye-Paint' reads oddly, but that is exactly what it says.

She appears once, in the last chapter of Job: 'And he called the name of the first, Jemima; and the name of the second, Kezia; and the name of the third, Keren-happuch' (Job 42:14). All three daughters are named; none of Job's seven sons are. The text adds that 'in all the land were no women found so fair as the daughters of Job,' and that their father gave them inheritance among their brethren — unusual enough in that world to be worth recording.

The name belongs to the restoration, not the suffering. Job names his last child after a vessel of beauty after chapters of ash and boils, and the three names together — dove, cassia, and horn of eye-paint — read as a deliberate turn toward loveliness.

It is effectively unused as a modern given name in English, though Keren stands alone well and is a distinct name from Karen. Anyone choosing it is choosing the end of Job.