Azzur

Two men bear the name Azzur. One is an Israelite who sets his seal on the covenant Nehemiah's community renewed in Jerusalem; the other is a Gibeonite, the father of the prophet Hananiah who confronted Jeremiah in the temple.

The Sealer of Nehemiah's Covenant

Azzur appears in the list of those who put their names to the binding agreement after the rebuilding of Jerusalem, embedded among other community heads: "Ater, Hezekiah, Azzur," (Neh 10:17). The umbrella places him on the seal-list of the post-exilic covenant — one name in a longer roll of those committing themselves and their households to the law.

The Father of Hananiah of Gibeon

The other Azzur is the father of Hananiah, the prophet who challenges Jeremiah in the fourth year of Zedekiah: "And it came to pass in the fourth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fifth month, that Hananiah the son of Azzur, the prophet, who was of Gibeon, spoke to me in the house of Yahweh, in the presence of the priests and of all the people, saying," (Jer 28:1). The notice is genealogical only — Azzur himself does not act in the narrative, but his name fixes Hananiah's family at Gibeon and names the household out of which the rival oracle came.