Dictionaries :: Mizar, the Hill

International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia

Mizar, the Hill:

mi'-zar, (har mits‘ar; oros mikros): The name of a mountain found only in Ps 42:6; "I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and the Hermons, from the hill Mizar." The term may be taken as an appellative meaning "littleness" and the phrase mehar mits‘ar would then mean "from the little mountain," i.e. the little mountain of Zion. Some scholars think that the "m" in mehar may have arisen from dittography, and that we should read, "from the land of Jordan, and the Hermons, O thou little mountain (of Zion)." G.A. Smith discusses the question in a note (HGHL, 477). He suggests that certain names found in the district (za‘ura, wady za‘arah, and Khirbet Mazara) may be a reminiscence of the name of a hill in the district called Mits‘ar; and surly none other would have been put by the Psalmist in apposition to the Hermons. Cheyne says: "To me this appendage to Hermonim seems a poetic loss. Unless the little mountain has a symbolic meaning I could wish it away." I cannot see this: the symbolic meanings suggested for Hermonim and Mits‘ar are all forced, and even if we got a natural one, it would be out of place after the literal land of Jordan. To employ all as proper names is suitable to a lyric. No identification is at present possible.

Written by W. Ewing