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Discover the meanings of thousands of Biblical names in Abarim Publications' Biblical Name Vault: En-hazor

En-hazor meaning

עין חצור

Source: https://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/En-hazor.html

🔼The name En-hazor: Summary

Meaning
Fountain Village
Etymology
From (1) the noun עין ('ayin), which means both eye and fountain, and (2) the noun חצר (haser), village.

🔼The name En-hazor in the Bible

The name En-hazor occurs only once in the Bible. It's the name of a town that came to be situated in the territory allotted to the tribe of Naphtali (Joshua 19:37).

🔼Etymology of the name En-hazor

The name En-hazor obviously consists of two elements. The first part comes from the noun עין (ayin), meaning either spring/fountain or eye:

Excerpted from: Abarim Publications' Biblical Dictionary
עין

The noun עין ('ayin) means both eye and fountain, well or spring. This might be explained by noting that the eye produces water in the form of tears, but perhaps more so in that water and light were considered deeply akin (see our article on the verb נהר, nahar, both meaning to shine and to flow). In that sense, the eye was considered a fountain that watered the outward face with water and the internal mind with light. Verb עין ('in) means to eye or regard. Noun מעין (ma'yan) describes a place with a spring.

The second part of our name comes from any of the roots חצר:

Excerpted from: Abarim Publications' Biblical Dictionary
חצר

The verb חצר (hasar) relates to the first visual manifestations of a gathering or emergence of some sort: to begin to cluster or gather or emerge.

The noun חציר (hasir) means grass, which is the first plant to sprout after, say, a fire. Noun חציר (hasir) means leek (a bigger version of grass) and חצצרה (hasosra) means trumpet, i.e. the perhaps leek-like instrument with which a gathering of humans is instigated.

The noun חצר (haser) denotes a hamlet or settlement or loose, rudimentary federation; the initial beginning of what some day might become a village or even a city. Noun חצר (haser) refers to an enclosure in the architectural sense, or even a court in the sense of it being a place where people loosely gather.

🔼En-hazor meaning

For a meaning of the name En-hazor, NOBSE Study Bible Name List reads the curious Fountain Of A Village. Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names appears to treat Hazor as a personal name and reads Fountain of Hazor, but nevertheless adds that Hazor means village. BDB Theological Dictionary does not translate or interpret this name.