MEZUZOTH (mez-n-zOth'), (Heb. r'77."71, mez-zu r.oth'). This word is found in Exod. xii :7, 22 ; Deut. vi :9; and in other places, in all of which it signifies 'doorposts.' It has no other meaning in Scripture. In the texts now referred to, the word occurs in the injunction, 'Thou shalt never forget the laws of the Lord thy God ; but shalt write them on the the posts of thy house. and on thy gates."rhis, contrary to most Christian inter preters, the Jews understand in the literal sense; r:d in this sense it might have been followed in the East, where it is at this day not unusual for the Moslems to inscribe on or over the gates, and on other parts of buildings, passages from their sacred book, the Koran. If therefore the Jews, before their dispersion, internreted this precept literally, they probably applied it in the same man ner. But when they came into western countries, %yhere .such was not the custom. and where oft
tunes it might have proved inconvenient thus to point out their houses as those belonging to Jews, they adopted the custom of writing the precepts on scrolls of parchment, which they inclosed in a case and attached to the doors of their houses and chambers. To the scrolls thus inclosed the name of mezuzoth is, not very properly, given. Buxtorf, Synag. Jud. p 482 ; Leo Modena, Rites and Customs, pt. I, chapter ii, sec. 3; Allen's Modern Judaism, pp. 327-329. (See DOORPOST.) (nira-Min), (Heb. 1";:7; , me-yaw mcen', from the right hand).
1. A chief priest who returned from Babylon with Zerubbabel (Neh. xii :5), B. C. 536. Proba bly identical with Miniamin (Neh. xii :17), and perhaps with the one who sealed the covenant with Nehemiah (Neh. x :7).
2. "Son" of Parosh who put away his foreign wife after the exile (Ezra x:25), B. C. 459.