IESCHA. - Under this name, which occurs nowhere else in the Bible, a daughter of Aran, brother of Abramo, sister of Lot and Melcha, is mentioned in Gen. 11, 29.
Since I. is no longer mentioned, whereas in the cited verse ARA (v.), wife of Abramo, is spoken of, whose genealogy evidently interests the sacred Author, many are of the opinion—already attested in antiquity (Targum Ier., Flavio Giuseppe, Efrem, Girolamo, etc.)—that one and the same person is meant here: I. = Sara (cf. Gen. 20, 12, where Abramo asserts that Sara is his sister, daughter, that is, granddaughter, of his father). It is probable that the difference in names arose through an interchange of similar letters in the ancient script, or that the same person, as in other cases, had a double name. But the identity is denied by other exegetes (H. Gunkel, Holzinger, G. Dillmann, M. Hetzenauer, etc.).