🔼The name Hazaroth: Summary
- Meaning
- Villages, Courts
- Etymology
- From the noun חצר (haser), village.
🔼The name Hazaroth in the Bible
There's only one Hazaroth (or Hazeroth) in the Bible (as far as we can tell). It's the name of a settlement close to Mount Sinai and close to or in the wilderness of Paran (Numbers 11:35, 33:17, Deuteronomy 1:1). We know that because Israel left Paran (Numbers 10:12), travelled three days (Numbers 10:33), settled in Hazaroth (Numbers 11:35), and journeyed back to Paran (Numbers 12:16).
And during that time they complained about their food to the extent that YHWH called for a meeting with Moses and seventy elders (Numbers 11:16-30), which resulted in him sending quails (Numbers 11:31) and a plague (Numbers 11:33). After that, and before Israel travelled back to Paran, Aaron and Miriam had their little insurrection (Numbers 12:1-16).
In Hebrew the name Hazaroth is spelled חצרות in Numbers 11 and 12, and חצרת in Numbers 33 and Deuteronomy 1:1.
🔼Etymology of the name Hazaroth
The name Hazaroth is a plural form of the noun חצר (haser), which means courts or villages:
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.
🔼Hazaroth meaning
For a meaning of the name Hazaroth, NOBSE Study Bible Name List reads Courts, and Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names has Villages. BDB Theological Dictionary does not interpret Hazaroth but does list it under the noun חצר (haser), meaning villages.