🔼The name Mozah: Summary
- Meaning
- Drained, Unleavened Bread
- Law
- A Place Of Going Forth
- Etymology
- From the noun מצה (massa), unleavened bread.
- From the noun מצוה (miswa), commandment or law.
- From the noun מוצא (mosa'), a place of going out.
🔼The name Mozah in the Bible
The name Mozah occurs only once in the Bible. It belongs to one of the cities of Benjamin, according to the territories that were awarded to the tribes right after the conquest (Joshua 18:26). The boundaries of the tribes weren't fixed (or marked, for that matter) but fluently followed the natural expansion or contraction of the tribal population. Benjamin obviously took quite a hit at the end of the era of the judges, and Benjamin's territory waned and moved accordingly. What happened to Mozah isn't known but the most famous city Benjamin lost was Jerusalem (Joshua 18:28, Judges 1:21).
🔼Etymology of the name Mozah
It's not clear where the name Mozah comes from, but that not for lack of candidates. Our name is spelled the same as the word מצה (massa), which describes unleavened bread and derives from a similar verb that means to drain:
מצה
The verb מצה (masa) means to drain out (of liquid from a fleece or cup or carcass). Its sole derivative is the noun מצה (massa), unleavened bread, which is bread without bubbles. This bread is strongly associated with Passover and appears to signify a resistance to a host culture's beliefs and fashions.
Our name may also remind of the noun מצוה (miswa), commandment or law:
צוה ציה צי
Across several separate roots, the Bible sports an obvious connection between dry land to stand on and an established wisdom tradition to stand on. Adversely, new applications of wisdom or even new insights require new rain, which is why the word for teacher is the same as that for rain: מורה (moreh).
Verb צוה (sawa) either means to command or be dry. Noun ציון (siyun) either means signpost or dry place. Noun מצוה (miswa) means commandment but also applies to the full code of the law. Noun ציון (sayon) means dryness or parched land, and also points toward an time-honored wisdom tradition that has stopped growing because of an extended drought.
Noun צו (saw) means command. Noun צי (si) means either ship or refers to a kind of desert creature.
The power of ships, of course, is that they keep going around on their same trade routes and do everything the same each time. A desert dweller is of course also a creature that leans wholly on the "rocks" of a massively stagnant intellectual ecosystem, where very little life sprouts and grows (and please note that radically rejecting rocks won't bring back rains).
And our name Mozah may even be a corruption of the name Moza, which comes from the noun מוצא (mosa'), a place of going out:
יצא
The verb יצא (yasa') describes a divergent motion: to go out or go forth. Noun צאצא (se'esa) means offspring or produce. Noun מוצא (mosa') denotes a place, agent or act of going out: a going forth, an utterance, a source or spring of water, a place of departure, a mine. It's also the word for sunrise. The similar noun מוצאה (mosa'a) means latrine. Noun תוצאה (tosa'a) denotes a full collection of whatever goings-out.
צנן
The unused verb צנן (sanan) probably meant something as vague as to be something that extends out, since all extant nouns describe items that go out or have gone out. Nouns צן (sen), צנה (sinna) and צנין (sanin) describe thorns, hooks or barbs. Noun צנה (sinna) means coolness. Noun צנה (sinna) denotes a large shield. Noun צנצנת (sinsenet) denotes a kind of jar (with a wide mouth and narrow neck?).
צאן
The noun צאן (so'n) describes a flock of small animals like sheep or goats, which proverbially wanders about and disperses during times of carefree ease.
🔼Mozah meaning
For a meaning of the name Mozah, NOBSE Study Bible Name List reads Drained. Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names sees Mozah as a corruption of Moza and reads Fountain. BDB Theological Dictionary does not make an attempt to explain this name.