Bible Dictionaries

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

Mizar

MIZAR. Psalms 42:6 b runs: ‘I remember thee from the land of Jordan and the Hermons, from the hill Mizar.’ It is a question whether Mizar is a proper name or an appellative ‘the little’ (?). If the former, Mizar must be a peak of the Hermons, and is otherwise unknown. If the latter, the text must in some way be corrected. The simplest and most satisfactory expedient is to remove the initial m from mçhar in the phrase mçhar mizar , and render ‘O, thou little hill.’ The reference will then be to Zion. As the whole Psalm reads like the cry of an exile from Zion, expressive of his home-sickness, this rendering makes admirable sense. ‘O, my God, my soul is cast down within me; for I remember thee from the land of Jordan and of the Hermons, O, thou little hill (of Zion).’ The initial m in mçhar might well have crept in from the final m of the preceding word, Hermonim .

W. F. Cobb.