Hebrew word · H1225

בִּצָּרוֹן

levitzaron

stronghold

It appears only here in the Bible. It is formed from b-ts-r, 'to cut off, make inaccessible, fortify'. That root gives 'ir betsurah/mivtsar, 'fortified city' (Num 13:28; Isa 25:2). So the word means a fortified place, a stronghold that cannot be reached.

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

stronghold

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of Zechariah 9:12

Range of meaning

It appears only here in the Bible. It is formed from b-ts-r, 'to cut off, make inaccessible, fortify'. That root gives 'ir betsurah/mivtsar, 'fortified city' (Num 13:28; Isa 25:2). So the word means a fortified place, a stronghold that cannot be reached.

Against the English

BSB, ESV and NIV add 'your' ('your stronghold/fortress'). KJV and WEB add 'the'. YLT's 'a fenced place' is the most literal. NLT's 'place of safety' gives the function of the place rather than the military picture. Adding 'your' quietly settles which stronghold is meant, and the Hebrew leaves that open.

How it drifted

In much modern popular teaching, 'strongholds' are spiritual footholds of evil that must be 'pulled down', taken from 2 Corinthians 10:4. A reader used to that will get this verse backwards. Here the stronghold is the refuge you run to, not the thing to be torn down.

Used elsewhere in the period

The same chapter has a pointed contrast. In 9:3 'Tyre built herself a fortress (matsor)', a pun on Tyre's own name (Tsor), and God strips it away (9:4). Over against that self-made fortress, Zion is protected because God says 'I will encamp at my house as a guard' (9:8). Elsewhere God himself is called a 'stronghold' with related words (Ps 18:2 metsudah; Nah 1:7 ma'oz). David's Jerusalem was first 'the stronghold of Zion' (2 Sam 5:7).

Where it appears

Zechariah · 1

  1. Zechariah 9:12 לְבִצָּר֔וֹן to [the] stronghold

    Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; even today I declare that I will restore to you double.

    Here: 'To a stronghold.' The word appears nowhere else in the Bible. It comes from the root for 'fortified, cut off, inaccessible'. Here it means a place of safety, most likely Zion under God's guard (9:8), as opposed to the waterless pit of 9:11. The Hebrew has no 'the' and no 'your'.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.