the Week of Proper 2 / Ordinary 7
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Bible Lexicons
Old Testament Hebrew Lexical Dictionary Hebrew Lexicon
Strong's #1223 - בָּצְרָה
- Brown-Driver-Briggs
- Strong
1) enclosure, fold, sheepfold (AV — Bozrah)
- Book
- Word
בָּצְרָה f.
(1) a fold, sheep-fold, so called from its keeping in, restraining, see the root No. 2, comp. מִכְלָא from כָּלָא. Chald. בִּצּוּרְתָּא a parted place, a chamber. Micah 2:12.
(2) a fortified place, i.q. מִבְצָר, hence pr.n. Bozra, a chief city of the Edomites, Isaiah 34:6, 63:1 Jeremiah 49:13, 22 Jeremiah 49:22; Amos 1:12 comp. Genesis 36:33. As it can hardly be doubted [see note below] that this is the same as Βόστρα, Bostra Arabiœ of the Romans, it is worthy of remark that it was situated not in the ancient and proper region of the Edomites, of which Petra, or Sela, was the metropolis, but in Auranitis, to which the Edomites appear to have extended their borders (compare Lamentations 4:21). Once (Jeremiah 48:24) בָּצְרָה is attributed to the Moabites, and the same city may for a while have been in the power of Moab. See my Comment. on Isaiah 34:7 Burckhardt’s Travels, p. 364-388, and von Richter, Wallfahrten im Morgenlande, p. 181.
[Note. “There can scarcely be a doubt that it was the same with el-Busaireh (البصَيره dimin, from بُصره Busrah), a village and castle in Arabia Petræa, south east of the Dead Sea; See Robinson’s Palest. ii. p. 570. I formerly held that Bozrah of the Edomites was identical with Bozrah of Auranitis or Haurân; see Comment. on Isa. loc. cit., Burckhardt’s Travels in Syria, Germ. edit. p. 364, seq. Yet I cannot but assent to the reasons urged to the contrary by Raumer, Hitzig, and Robinson, loc. cit.” Ges. add.]
