🔼The name Hezro: Summary
- Meaning
- His Village, Clusterly
- Etymology
- From the verb חצר (hasar), to begin to cluster.
🔼The name Hezro in the Bible
There's only one man named Hezro (in some manuscripts spelled חצרי; Hezrai) in the Bible. He was a Carmelite and one of David's mighty-men, but he plays no further role in the Bible (2 Samuel 23:35, 1 Chronicles 11:37).
🔼Etymology of the name Hezro
The name Hezro appears to be derived from the verb חצר (hasar), to begin to cluster or gather or emerge:
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.
The function of the final ו (waw) is unclear. It might denote the masculine pronominal suffix, meaning his. It could also be that this name originated in a foreign language and our name isn't supposed to mean anything in Hebrew. But it could also be a variant of the version that appears in some manuscripts, namely חצרי, with a final yod instead of a waw. In that case our name may be an adjective (village-like, clusterly), a possessive form (my village). A final yod could also be regarded as a remnant of יה (Yah) = יהו (Yahu) = יו (Yu), which in turn are abbreviated forms of the Tetragrammaton יהוה, YHWH, or Yahweh.
🔼Hezro meaning
Neither NOBSE Study Bible Name List nor BDB Theological Dictionary dares to interpret this name. Alfred Jones (Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names) takes the final waw/yod as a mark of the divine Name, and derives the core of the name from the root group חצר. Yet Jones reads the peculiar Bulwark Of The Lord or His Defence Is Of The Lord, which seems a misappropriation of the roots חצר.
The name Hezro could mean My Village, His Village, Grassy or Court Of Yah. We don't know.