🔼The name Biziothiah: Summary
- Meaning
- Contempt Of Yah
- Etymology
- From (1) the verb בזה (baza), to disdain or despise, and (2) יה (yah), the shortened name of the Lord.
🔼The name Biziothiah in the Bible
The town of Biziothiah is mentioned only once in the Bible. In Joshua 15:28 it appears to be listed among the southernmost cities of Judah.
Some scholars, however, find it suspicious that this town isn't mentioned anywhere else and although it's not unusual for a settlement to be named only once in the Bible (or not at all for that matter), the name Biziothiah is first of all a rather odd name; an odd form and has a rather peculiar meaning. But secondly, it looks strikingly similar to the word בנתיה. This word literally means "her daughters" but it's also the common word for the satellite villages around a central city.
Nehemiah uses this word in Nehemiah 11:27 in a verse that is nearly identical to Joshua 15:28, save for the בזיותיה / בנתיה controversy:
Joshua 15:28
Nehemiah 11:27
Still, this discrepancy can hardly be ascribed to a scribal error because no scribe would accidentally write down זיו where a נ is required. Here at Abarim Publications we like to believe that unexplained Biblical mysteries such as the Biziothiah phenomenon shows that we haven't at all figured the Bible out and there's still much treasure to be unearthed.
🔼Etymology of the name Biziothiah
Assuming that Biziothiah is a deliberate phrase and not an abstract mistake, it pretty safe to say that it consists of two elements, the final one being יה (Yah), which is an abbreviated form of the Tetragrammaton יהוה, YHWH, or Yahweh.
The first part of our name could probably be associated to the verb בזה (baza), meaning to disdain or despise:
בזז
The verb בזז (bazaz) means to make light, that is: to lift in the sense of taking something up and away; to plunder or take as spoil. Nouns בז (baz) and בזה (bizza) mean spoil or booty.
Verb בוז (buz) means to make light in the sense of to despise or hold as insignificant. Nouns בוז (buz) and בוזה (buza) mean contempt.
Likewise, verb בזה (baza) means to make light of, to despise, to disdain. Noun בזיון (bizzayon) means contempt.
🔼Biziothiah meaning
For a meaning of the name Biziothiah, NOBSE Study Bible Name List reads Contempt Of Yahweh and Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names has the similar Contempt Of The Lord. BDB Theological Dictionary does not offer an interpretation of our name and refers to the phrase ובנתיה, meaning And Her Daughters.