🔼The name Ezri: Summary
- Meaning
- My Help, Yah Helps
- Etymology
- From (1) the verb עזר (azar), to help or support, and possibly (2) the divine name יה (yah).
🔼The name Ezri in the Bible
The name Ezri is a rare variant of the very popular name-group that all have to do with the Hebrew verb עזר (azar), meaning to help or support. The name Ezri is mentioned only once in the Bible, in 1 Chronicles 27:26. He is a son of Chelub and one of King David's overseers. Ezri's job is to manage the farmers. In effect, he was King David's minister of agriculture.
🔼Etymology of the name Ezri
The core of it consists of the verb עזר ('azar), meaning to supply someone or some body of people with essential help or support:
עזר
The verb עזר ('azar), means to help or support, and is often used in military contexts, or to describe God's proverbial help. The nouns עזר ('azar) and עזרה ('ezra) both mean help. A much rarer but identically spelled noun עזרה ('azara) means enclosure and comes probably from an other root.
🔼Ezri meaning
The difference between the name Ezri and the other names of the "help"-stock is the post-fixed letter yod. And there are two ways of looking at this yod:
The yod of Ezri can be seen as a possessive yod, giving to the name Ezri the meaning My Help, as is preferred by the learned body of scholars who gave us the NOBSE Study Bible Name List.
The post-fixed yod can also be a remnant of the Divine name יהוה (YHWH), or Yahweh. That way the name Ezri means Yah Helps, or Help Of The Lord, as is proposed by Alfred Jones, who gave us the Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names.