Jabez was more honorable than his brothers: and his mother named him Jabez, saying, Because I bore him with sorrow.
or he might be a man of great wealth and riches, or of great strength and courage, all which make a man honourable; or he may be so called, because a praying man, as follows, a man of devotion and religion, a man of God, see 1 Samuel 9:6, but who he was is not easy to say, probably a son or brother of Harum, or however that belonged to one of the families of Aharhel, mentioned in the preceding verse; for that he was Othniel, as say the Targumist and other Jewish writers z, is not probable, and besides is after spoken of distinct from him, 1 Chronicles 4:13