Hebrew word · H3579

כָּזְבִי

kazebi

Cozbi

A personal name found only here and in Numbers 25:18.

Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. · Updated November 14, 2026

What it means

A woman living at the time of Egypt and Wilderness, first mentioned at Num.25.15;

daughter of: Zur (H6698)

§ Cozbi = "my lie"

a daughter of Zur, a chief of the Midianites, who was slain by Phinehas because of her adultery

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

Range of meaning: A personal name found only here and in Numbers 25:18. Two derivations are proposed: (1) from the Hebrew root k-z-b, 'to lie, deceive, fail' (kazav, 'lie'), giving something like 'my lie' or 'deceitful'; (2) from a Semitic root shared with Akkadian (the language of ancient Babylon and Assyria) kuzbu, 'luxuriance, sexual attractiveness, voluptuousness', a word used of goddesses such as Ishtar and found in personal names.
Against the English: English versions simply transliterate the name: Cozbi (KJV, BSB, ESV) or Kozbi (NIV). No English reader can hear what it might suggest.
Used elsewhere in the period: The Akkadian noun kuzbu is well attested (Chicago Assyrian Dictionary s.v. kuzbu), and names built on k-z-b are known from the wider Semitic world. That makes a real foreign name likely. The Hebrew root k-z-b ('lie, deceive') is common, e.g. Numbers 23:19, 'God is not a man, that he should lie (yekhazzev)', in Balaam's oracle just two chapters earlier. The Septuagint spells the name Chasbi.

Range of meaning: A personal name, found only in Num 25:15, 18. In Hebrew it resembles the root k-z-b, "to lie, deceive, fail" (e.g. kazav, "lie," Ps 4:3). An Akkadian word kuzbu, "sexual allure, luxuriance, voluptuousness," also exists and is associated with the goddess Ishtar. Place names from the Hebrew root also exist (Chezib, Gen 38:5; Achzib, Josh 15:44).
Against the English: English versions simply transliterate (Cozbi/Kozbi), so any meaning the name carried is lost.
Used elsewhere in the period: Rabbinic tradition (e.g. Sifre Numbers; Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 82b) plays on the name, in part through the idea of deception. Modern commentators (e.g. Milgrom, Levine) note the possible Akkadian link but differ on how much to make of it.

Numbers · 2

Numbers 25:15 כָּזְבִּ֣י [was] Cozbi

And the name of the slain Midianite woman was Cozbi, the daughter of Zur, a tribal chief of a Midianite family.

Here: Her personal name. To a Hebrew ear it sounds like kazav, 'lie, deceive'. It may really come from a Semitic word for sexual allure or luxuriance (Akkadian kuzbu). Either way, in this story the name sounds pointed.
Numbers 25:18 כָּזְבִּ֨י Cozbi

For they assailed you deceitfully when they seduced you in the matter of Peor and their sister Cozbi, the daughter of the Midianite leader, the woman who was killed on the day the plague came because of Peor.”

Here: The Midianite woman Phinehas killed along with the Simeonite chief Zimri. Her name may sound to Hebrew ears like the root for "lie, deceive" (k-z-b), which fits a verse about deception. An Akkadian link to a word for sexual allure has also been proposed.

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