🔼The name Hazar-addar: Summary
- Meaning
- Majestic Village
- Etymology
- From (1) חצר (haser), village, and (2) the verb אדר ('adar), to be majestic or wide.
🔼The name Hazar-addar in the Bible
The name Hazar-addar (or Hazaraddar, as some translations have it) occurs only once in the Bible. It's the name of a settlement on the southern border of Israel, as laid out by YHWH and declared to Moses (Numbers 34:4). Most scholars assume that Hazar-addar is the same as Addar, which was situated somewhere on the southern border of the territory allotted to the tribe of Judah (Joshua 15:3).
🔼Etymology of the name Hazar-addar
The name Hazar-addar consists of two elements. The first part is the same as the noun חצר (haser), meaning village:
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 second part of our name comes from the verb אדר ('adar), meaning to be great:
אדר
The verb אדר ('adar) means to be superior or majestic (or literally: wide). Noun אדר ('eder) means glory or magnificence, or may refer to a wide cloak. Adjective אדיר ('addir) means majestic. Noun אדרת ('aderet) means glory.
🔼Hazar-addar meaning
For a meaning of the name Hazar-addar, NOBSE Study Bible Name List reads Village Of Adar. Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names translates both elements and reads Village Of Greatness. BDB Theological Dictionary does not interpret our name but does list it under the noun חצר (haser).