🔼The name Ziphah: Summary
- Meaning
- Unknown but perhaps Pitch Wells
- Etymology
- From the noun זפת (zepet), pitch.
🔼The name Ziphah in the Bible
The name Ziphah occurs only once in the Bible. He is mentioned as a son of Jehallelel of Judah, and a brother of Ziph (1 Chronicles 4:16), and that's all we know about him.
🔼Etymology of the name Ziphah
The origin and meaning of the name Ziphah is unknown; there is nearly nothing in the Hebrew of the Bible that looks anything like it, except the name Ziph, which belonged to Ziphah's brother, and the noun זפת (zepet), meaning pitch:
זפת
The noun זפת (zepet) means pitch; the proverbial black fuel. Its origins are unclear and it probably stems from a foreign language.
🔼Ziphah meaning
For a meaning of the name Ziphah, NOBSE Study Bible Name List proposes Lent, which is curious because for the nearly identical name Ziph NOBSE reads Refining Place. Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names assumes that both names Ziph and Ziphah derived from an unused verb זוף (zup), meaning to borrow, and reads Borrowed for both. BDB Theological Dictionary gives no hint to the meaning or etymology of either name.