Azekah meaning

Meaning

Dug Around, Fenced Around, Newly Tilled Field

Etymology

From the verb עזק ('azaq), to dig around or to fence around.

The name Azekah belongs to a town that was originally Canaanite and later incorporated in the territory in Judah (Joshua 15:35). It is first mentioned during the First Battle of Beth-horon, during which YHWH himself pursued the Amorites as far as Azekah, and threw hailstones as far as Azekah (Joshua 10:10-11). Azekah is also linked to another famous battle, namely between Israel and the Philistines in the Valley of Elah, during which David killed Goliath (1 Samuel 17:1).

The Chronicler lists Azekah among the cities fortified by Rehoboam (2 Chronicles 11:9), and when Nebuchadnezzar had attacked Jerusalem, Jeremiah reports Azekah together with Lachish as the last standing cities of Judah (Jeremiah 34:7). After the exile, Nehemiah mentions Azekah among the cities that were repeopled by the returnees from Judah (Nehemiah 11:30).

The name Azekah comes from the sparsely used verb עזק ('azaq), to dig around. This verb occurs in the Bible only in Isaiah 5:2, in the magnificent Song of the Beloved: "My well-beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill. He dug it all around, removed its stones, and planted it with the choicest vine. He built a tower in the middle of it and also hewed out a wine vat in it..."

Jesus rather obviously referred to Isaiah's Song of the Beloved when he told his parable of the landowner: "There was a landowner who planted a vineyard and put a wall around it and dug a wine press in it, and built a tower..." (Matthew 21:33).

Our verb עזק ('azaq) also appears in Aramaic with the same meaning. The Aramaic noun עזקה ('azeqa), which is identical to our name, means newly broken field. A story (recorded in Yevamot 122a) tells of a gentile who praised his fruit by stating that they were from a newly broken field, not realizing that this would make them forbidden to Jewish consumers (probably to do with Leviticus 19:23). Fortunately, the Jewish consumer knew that the gentile was only saying it as a pitch, to raise the price, so the Jew could safely disregard the man's boast. Whether the latter bought the fruit or paid the full price isn't told. But it does tell us that the town called Azekah was named after a newly broken field from which the produce could not safely be eaten.

Another noun derived from this verb is עזקא ('izaqa'), which described any sort of presumably engraved ring or clasp, but specifically a signet ring with the name YHWH written on it.

For a meaning of the name Azekah, NOBSE Study Bible Name List reads a rather underwhelming Tilled.

Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names offers Hedged Ground and explains that both the Septuagint (which evidently Jesus quoted) and the Vulgate translate our verb in Isaiah 5:2 as to hedge around rather than to dig around. Modern scholarship evidently decided that our verb has to do with digging rather than with fencing.

BDB Theological Dictionary does not offer an interpretation of this name.