🔼The name Uzzen-sheerah: Summary
- Meaning
- Tuned To The Remnant (or Flesh, or Leaven)
- Etymology
- From (1) the verb אזן (azen), to balance or listen to, and (2) the noun שאר (she'ar), rest or remnant, שאר (she'er), flesh, or שאר (she'or), leaven.
🔼The name Uzzen-sheerah in the Bible
The name Uzzen-sheerah occurs once in the Bible. It's the name of a village built by the valiant Sheerah, daughter of either Ephraim of Joseph, or else Ephraim's son Beriah (1 Chronicles 7:24). Sheerah also built lower and upper Beth-horon.
🔼Etymology of the name Uzzen-sheerah
The name Uzzen-sheerah obviously consists of two elements. The first part comes from either of the verbs אזן ('azan):
אזן
The verb אזן ('azan) means to balance or equalize. Noun מאזן (m'zn) describes a merchant's scale or balance and noun אזן ('ozen) means ear. The denominative verb אזן ('azan) means to harken or hear and obviously describes the turning of one's face to where sound comes from.
The second part of our name is identical to the name Sheerah, and that name comes from the verb שאר (sha'ar), meaning to be a remnant:
שאר
The verb שאר (sha'ar) means to remain, be a remnant, to be a small but perpetually surviving portion of a much larger original mass that was eliminated. Nouns שאר (she'ar) and שארית (she'erit) mean rest, residue, remnant, remainder and so on.
Noun שאר (she'er) means flesh (i.e. living muscle mass rather than butchered meat). It's often assumed that this noun comes from an identical second verb שאר (sha'ar) of unknown meaning, but flesh is obviously that what remains from food, when excrement and labor are subtracted. This word for flesh also signified family relations (one's flesh and blood), which too demonstrates this word's attachment to a perpetually maintained minority within a huge society of irrelevant strangers.
Noun שאר (se'or) means leaven. In the modern Middle Ages this word became punctuated as שׂאר (dot to the left), whereas the previous words were pointed שׁאר (dot to the right). But this difference didn't exist until many centuries after Christ. Properly domesticated leaven is valuable. Bakers and brewers would never use up all their leavened dough and beer but keep a remnant of the old to mix in with the new, so that the original leaven could proliferate and permeate the fresh batch.
🔼Uzzen-sheerah meaning
The meaning of the name Uzzen-sheerah lies in any combination of the above words: Listen To The Rest / Body / Leaven.
For a meaning of the name Uzzen-sheerah, NOBSE Study Bible Name List takes אזן to denote some sharp pinnacle and reads Top Of Sheerah. Alfred Jones (Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names) maintains his signature neglect of relevance and reads Ear Of Sheerah. BDB Theological Dictionary proposes the elegant Portion (weighed and measured) Of She'erah.