Hezir

The name Hezir attaches to two figures from the post-exilic and Davidic records: a Levite assigned to a priestly course in David's organization of temple service, and a layman among the heads of the people who sealed Nehemiah's covenant.

The Seventeenth Priestly Course

In David's allotment of the priestly divisions, Hezir draws the seventeenth lot. The verse places him in the sequence of twenty-four priestly courses: "the seventeenth to Hezir, the eighteenth to Happizzez" (1 Chr 24:15). The umbrella here is functional rather than biographical — Hezir names a course, a rotation of temple duty assigned by lot.

A Sealer of the Covenant

A second Hezir appears among the chiefs of the people who set their seal to the covenant under Nehemiah. He is named in a list of laymen — not priests, not Levites — who bound themselves to walk in God's law: "Magpiash, Meshullam, Hezir" (Neh 10:20). The two men share a name but not a station; one belongs to the priestly rotation, the other to the lay leadership of restored Judah.