SHAZER

SHAZER

Lehite GN		One of Lehi’s camps in Arabia, ca. 600 BC (1 Nephi 16:13–14)

Hebrew *shazer, “to spin, to twist” (Sperry, Book of Mormon Testifies, p. 59) seems like the best possible derivation.

*Check to see if the Hiltons have made any suggestions for this place, perhaps to confirm Nibley, LID, 90, “This last takes in western Palestine the form Sozura, suggesting the 
name of a famous water hole in South Arabia, called Shisur by Thomas and Shisar by Philby.”

Unlikely are the the suggestions for an etymology from either Arabic šajir (Egyptian šažer) “trees,” commonly found in Palestinian placenames (confer especially the GN toǵret 
ʾaš-šajûr, “the pass of trees,” ancient šaǵur, written Segor in the sixth c.”), or Arabic šagur, “seepage” (held to be identical with šihôr, the “black water” of Joshua 19:26) 
(LID, 90).

Other unlikely etymologies include Hebrew shazeh, “gladness,” and chazer, “green herbs” (Sjodahl, Autheniticity of the Book of Mormon, p. 11); Hebrew, shazeh, “gladness” 
(Reynolds, Story of the Book of Mormon, p. 299); and Hebrew chazer, “grass” ḥṣyr (Psalms 104:14) (Reynolds, Dictionary of the Book of Mormon, p. 248).