🔼The name Col-hozeh: Summary
- Meaning
- All-Seeing, Seeing The Whole
- Etymology
- From (1) the noun כל (kol), all or the whole, and (2) the verb חזה (haza), to see or have [a] vision.
🔼The name Col-hozeh in the Bible
There are one or two men named Col-hozeh in the Bible:
- The father of Shallum, who was the post-exilic official of the district of Mizpah, and in charge of the repairs made to Jerusalem's Fountain Gate and the wall of the Pool of Shelah (Nehemiah 3:15).
- The father of Baruch (not the famous one) and grandfather of Maaseiah of Judah, who was one of the people who went to live in Jerusalem after the return from Babylon (Nehemiah 11:5).
It's not clear whether Shallum and Baruch were brothers or that there were two men named Col-hozeh living at approximately the same time.
🔼Etymology of the name Col-hozeh
The name Col-hozeh obviously consists of two elements. The first part of our name is the noun כל (kol), meaning all or the whole, from the verb כלל (kalal), meaning to complete or make perfect:
כלל
The root כלל (kll) deals with limits, and particularly the limit on growth or progression. This limit may be incurred by interment or incarceration, but it may also mark the asymptotic quality of perfection or completion.
Verb כלא (kala') means to shut in or shut up. Nouns כלא (kele'), כלוא (klw') and כליא (keli) mean imprisonment. Noun מכלה (mikla), means enclosure or fold. Verb כול (kul) means to contain or cause to contain.
Verb כלה (kala) denotes the bringing to a completion of some process, and that usually but not always in a negative sense. Noun כלה (kala) mostly describes complete destruction or complete annihilation. Adjective כלה (kaleh) describes a failing with desire and noun כליון (killayon) means either a failing or pining of the eyes or annihilation. Noun מכלה (mikla) means completeness (and is identical to the word meaning enclosure or fold). The noun תכלה (tikla) means perfection. Noun תכלית (taklit) means end or completeness. The very common noun כלי (keli) describes any kind of article that (possibly) took a while to make but is now finished, or a vessel that was designed to hold some finished product; a holding pot.
Verb כלל (kalal) means to complete or make perfect. The very common noun כל (kol) means all or the whole. Adjective כליל (kalil) means entire or whole. Nouns מכלול (miklol) and מכלל (miklal) mean perfection. Noun מכלל (maklul) describes something made perfect.
The noun כלה (kalla) means bride or daughter-in-law, and noun כלולה (kelula) means espousal, which obviously reflects the Bible's expectation that humanity's ultimate perfection makes her a Bride to the Creator.
The second part of our name comes from the verb חזה (haza I), meaning to look or see:
חזה
The verb חזה (haza) means to see or behold. Noun חזה (hozeh) means seer or visionary. Nouns חזות (hazot), חזות (hazut), חזיון (hizzayon) and מחזה (mahazeh) mean vision, anything between the mere act of seeing to experiencing a prophetic apparition. The noun מחזה (meheza) literally describes a place or instrument of vision and is the word for window.
It may be that the verb חזה (haza) originated in the idea of being or looking forward, which would explain the noun חזה (hazeh), which describes the breast of an animal. It may also be that this noun derives from a second verb חזה (haza), to be in front.
🔼Col-hozeh meaning
For a meaning of the name Col-hozeh, NOBSE Study Bible Name List reads All-Seeing and Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names has the similar All-Seer.
BDB Theological Dictionary does not interpret our name and doesn't even list it under the verb כלל but alphabetically after כלח, which is the name Calah. It's not clear whether this means that BDB rejects this name's obvious explanation, but whatever BDB's arguments would be, a Hebrew audience would probably disagree with them and readily read All-seeing, or something similar, into our name.
Note that the phrase כל־חזה occurs in 2 Kings 17:13 with the meaning of "every seer".