Hebrew word · H2674

חָצוֹר

chatzor

Hazor

Three ancient Canaanite cities, each controlling a key route. Hazor: the northern road toward Damascus. Megiddo: the pass of the coastal highway into the Jezreel Valley. Gezer: the road from the coast up to Jerusalem.

Appears 18 times in 17 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

Hazor = "castle"

a royal city of northern Palestine allotted to Naphtali

Also named: chets.ron (חֶצְרוֹן "Hezron" H2696J)

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 1 Kings 9:15

Range of meaning

Three ancient Canaanite cities, each controlling a key route. Hazor: the northern road toward Damascus. Megiddo: the pass of the coastal highway into the Jezreel Valley. Gezer: the road from the coast up to Jerusalem.

Against the English

All translations transliterate the names. BSB's 'as well as' helpfully marks the shift from the Jerusalem projects to the provinces.

Used elsewhere in the period

All three appear in Egyptian records: Thutmose III's battle at Megiddo, Hazor and Gezer in the Amarna letters, and Gezer on the Merneptah Stele. Archaeologists have found similar six-chambered gates at all three sites. Yigael Yadin linked them to this verse, but their dating is debated (see debates).

From the study of Joshua 11:1

Range of meaning

A place name probably related to chatser, 'enclosure, settlement'. In the Bible it nearly always means the great city in the Huleh basin north of the Sea of Galilee (Tell el-Qedah / Tel Hazor). Several smaller places in Judah and Benjamin share the name.

Against the English

English versions all simply print 'Hazor', so nothing goes wrong in translation. What gets lost is scale: a modern reader has no idea that this city was several times bigger than any other Canaanite town Joshua had faced.

Used elsewhere in the period

Hazor is the Canaanite city named most often in texts from outside the Bible. The 18th-century BC archives of Mari on the Euphrates mention Hazor and its king (Ibni-Addu) in connection with diplomacy and the tin trade. Egyptian Execration Texts and Thutmose III's city list name it. In the 14th-century Amarna letters, a king of Hazor (Abdi-Tirshi) writes to Pharaoh, and the king of Tyre complains about Hazor's ruler (EA 148, 227–228). Unusually, Hazor's ruler is called 'king' in these letters rather than merely 'mayor'. Excavations by Yigael Yadin and later Amnon Ben-Tor found a city of roughly 80 hectares (about 200 acres), counting its huge lower city. Its Late Bronze Age phase ended in a violent fire, probably in the 13th century BC.

From the study of Joshua 11:10

Range of meaning

A place name, probably related to ḥāṣēr, 'enclosure, settlement, courtyard'. The name suits a fortified or enclosed town, though the derivation is not certain. Several towns in the Bible share the name. This one is the northern Hazor in upper Galilee, today's Tel Hazor (Tell el-Qedah).

Against the English

English readers meet 'Hazor' as one more name in a list of conquered towns. To an ancient hearer it was the most famous city in Canaan, which is why the narrator stops to explain it.

Used elsewhere in the period

Hazor is unusually well attested outside the Bible:

  • Egyptian execration texts (19th–18th c. BCE), which are ritual curse lists naming foreign enemies.
  • The Mari archives on the Euphrates (18th c. BCE). They record diplomatic contacts and tin shipments to Hazor, and a ruler named Ibni-Addu. Hazor is the Canaanite city those archives mention most.
  • Egyptian topographical lists of Thutmose III and later pharaohs, and the satirical Papyrus Anastasi I.
  • The Amarna letters (14th c. BCE). The king of Tyre complains that the ruler of Hazor has 'left his house' and sided with the Habiru (EA 148). The ruler of Hazor is called king, a title most Canaanite rulers in these letters do not get (EA 148, 227–228).
  • Excavation. Yadin in the 1950s–60s and Ben-Tor from 1990 found a site of roughly 80 hectares (about 200 acres): an upper city plus a vast lower city. That makes it by far the largest Bronze Age site in the southern Levant.

Similar words

Where it appears

Joshua · 9

  1. Joshua 11:1 חָצ֑וֹר Hazor

    Now when Jabin king of Hazor heard about these things, he sent word to Jobab king of Madon; to the kings of Shimron and Achshaph;

    Here: The great city north of the Sea of Galilee, by far the largest city in Bronze Age Canaan. Naming Hazor tells the hearer straight away that this is the heavyweight of the north (compare 11:10, 'the head of all these kingdoms').

  2. Joshua 11:10 חָצ֔וֹר חָצ֣וֹר Hazor

    At that time Joshua turned back and captured Hazor and put its king to the sword, because Hazor was formerly the head of all these kingdoms.

    Here: The great Canaanite city north of the Sea of Galilee, home of King Jabin, who had called the northern coalition together (11:1).

  3. Joshua 11:11 חָצ֖וֹר Hazor

    The Israelites put everyone in Hazor to the sword, devoting them to destruction. Nothing that breathed remained, and Joshua burned down Hazor itself.

  4. Joshua 11:13 חָצ֥וֹר Hazor

    Yet Israel did not burn any of the cities built on their mounds, except Hazor, which Joshua burned.

  5. Joshua 12:19 חָצ֖וֹר Hazor

    the king of Madon, one; the king of Hazor, one;

  6. Joshua 15:23 וְחָצ֖וֹר and Hazor

    Kedesh, Hazor, Ithnan,

    Here: A southern Hazor, not the great Canaanite city of the north that Joshua burned (Josh 11:10–13). The name is related to ḥatser, 'enclosure, unwalled settlement'. Such names were common in the Negev, so several places shared it. It may be one name together with the next word ('Hazor-Ithnan').

  7. Joshua 15:25 חָצֽוֹר׃ [is] Hazor

    Hazor-hadattah, Kerioth-hezron (that is, Hazor),

  8. Joshua 19:36 וְחָצֽוֹר׃ and Hazor

    Adamah, Ramah, Hazor,

Judges · 2

  1. Judges 4:2 בְּחָצ֑וֹר in Hazor

    So the LORD sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. The commander of his forces was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-hagoyim.

    Here: The great fortified city north of the Sea of Galilee, which Joshua 11:10 calls 'the head of all those kingdoms'. An Israelite listener would recognise it as the city Joshua burned, and here it is again ruling over Israel.

  2. Judges 4:17 חָצ֔וֹר Hazor

    Meanwhile, Sisera had fled on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, because there was peace between Jabin king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite.

1 Samuel · 1

  1. 1 Samuel 12:9 חָצ֜וֹר Hazor

    But they forgot the LORD their God, and He sold them into the hand of Sisera the commander of the army of Hazor, and into the hands of the Philistines and the king of Moab, who fought against them.

    Here: The great Canaanite city north of the Sea of Galilee, remembered as the leading power of the region (Joshua 11:10). Naming it evokes a foe far stronger than Israel's scattered tribes.

1 Kings · 1

  1. 1 Kings 9:15 חָצֹ֥ר Hazor

    This is the account of the forced labor that King Solomon imposed to build the house of the LORD, his own palace, the supporting terraces, and the wall of Jerusalem, as well as Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.

    Here: Great city north of the Sea of Galilee. It guarded the northern approach from Syria and Mesopotamia.

2 Kings · 1

  1. 2 Kings 15:29 חָצ֤וֹר Hazor

    In the days of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria came and captured Ijon, Abel-beth-maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee, including all the land of Naphtali, and he took the people as captives to Assyria.

    Here: The great fortified city above the Huleh valley, rebuilt by Solomon (1 Kings 9:15). Excavators found its 8th-century level (Stratum V) destroyed by fire, a destruction widely linked to this campaign.

Nehemiah · 1

  1. Nehemiah 11:33 חָצ֥וֹר׀ Hazor

    Hazor, Ramah, Gittaim,

Jeremiah · 3

  1. Jeremiah 49:28 חָצ֗וֹר Hazor

    Concerning Kedar and the kingdoms of Hazor, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon defeated, this is what the LORD says: “Rise up, advance against Kedar, and destroy the people of the east!

  2. Jeremiah 49:30 חָצ֖וֹר Hazor

    Run! Escape quickly! Lie low, O residents of Hazor,” declares the LORD, “for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has drawn up a plan against you; he has devised a strategy against you.

  3. Jeremiah 49:33 חָצ֜וֹר Hazor

    “Hazor will become a haunt for jackals, a desolation forever. No one will dwell there; no man will abide there.”

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