CHEZIB (ye ; Sept. according to the Masoretic text and the LXX., is the name of the place where Judah's Canaanite wife Shuah (verse 2), or Bathshuali (verse t2), gave birth to his third son Shelah. It occurs in this form but once ; in Gen. xxxviii. 5. In Josh. xv. 44, the LXX. mentions a as one of the western cities of the tribe of Judah. This is Achzib in the Hebrew ext and A. V. Hence the identity of Chezib and Achzib has been inferred by Grotius and others. [AcHns.] The place CHOZEBA in I Chron. iv. 22 is probably the same. It is mentioned in close connection with Shelah, the son of Judah. But ac cording to the fragment of Aquila, preserved by St. Jerome (in Qua's/. Heir.; See also Montfaucon's Origen's Hexapla, Orig. Opp., de la Rue, v. 287), Chezib is not a proper name at all. Jerome's rendering of Aquila's version of this passage is— `Et vocavit nomen ejus Selom, et factzinz est ref mentiretur in partu, postquanz genuit cum.' Simi larly the Vulgate translates—' quo nato parere ultra cessavit;' as much as to say, that after the birth of this son the mother ceased bearing ; which seems a more intelligible statement than—` He [Judah] was at Chezib when she bare him.' This sense of Aquila and the Vulgate is also supported by the Peschito Syriac version. Nor is there any objec tion to rendering z1= rom byfircetrin est ut men tiretur, etc. The root ZIZ, to lie or deceive, is in Is. lviii. II, applied to the failing' or drying up of a spring of water. See Gesenius and Furst (Lexicon), s. v., and Drusius on Gen. xxxviii. 5. In Micah i. 14, the proper name and the appellative, derived from MI.n, are brought together in a strik ing paronomasia.—P. H.
CHIDON (1'n ; Sept. [Alex.] XeLSuiv ; [The word is omitted in the usual (Vat.) text] ; Vulg. Chidon) is the name given, in 1 Chron. xiii. 9, to the threshing-floor where Uzza met his sudden death when he rashly' touched the ark on its way from Kirjath-Jearim to Jerusalem [UzzA]. The locality is not identified. St. Jerome indeed says (Qztast. Ifebr. Opp. [ed. Ben.] iii. 870), Chidon means shield (clypeus). For there is a tradition that it was on this spot that Joshua was standing when it was said to him, Raise they shield towards the city Alzi ;' in reference to Josh. viii. 18.
But this is obviously too vague to help us ; the site of Ai is itself unknown. Moreover, it is not cer tain that Chidon is the name of a place at all ; according to some it is the name of the proprietor of the threshing-floor (comp. 1 Chron. xxi. 15, etc., and see Poli Synops. on 2 Sam. vi. 6). In deed, among the extreme variations of the versions, this threshing-floor has been identified with that of Araunah or Oman, the Jebusite. In one of the fragments of the Hexapla (Origen's Works, by De la Rue, Migne. vi. I. 42) a portion of 2 Sam. vi. 6 is preserved ; and one of the variations of the LXX., as known to Origen, expressly assigns this threshing-floor to Oman or Ernan ; t'cor rip lace 'Epva roii'lEgovo-atov. Nor is this improbable ; for the cortege which brought the Ark seems to have approached near the end of their appointed journey when the calamity which befel Uzza suspended for three months their progress. The house of Obede dom was probably not far from Perez-Uzza' (see I Chron. xiii. 1-13) while it was undoubtedly near to the city of David' (xv. 1, 3). The word l'"n is defined by J. C. Ortlob (De Smitis et Clypeis Heir.) as an offensive weapon, hasta brevius, longum tamen satis, et exitiale ;' like Bochart (after R. Salomon), he derives it from 14: (exitium), and conjectures that the threshing-floor was called Chidon because Uzza met his death in it, quasi cream cladis atque exitii ' (Hieroz. p. 14o). So Fiirst (Lex. 589) renders, Tenne des Todes. ius sees no such allusion in the name, and lates, area jamtli. The ?I'D, according to him, was a weapon like that of the Polish lancers (Uhlanen) see Thes. 683. According to R. ham Ben David (De Templo) it resembled the Italian alabarda (halberd). The noun, as an pellative, is translated spear in Josh. viii. IS, 26 ; target, I Sam. xvii. 6 ; shield, Job xxxix. 23 ; and lance, Jer. 1. 42. The Peschito-Syriac has the , explicable reading ...103 (Ramin), in which it = is followed by the Arabic version, J (Ramer), for the name Chidon. Josephus, like the Alex. Sept., writes XecSuiv (Antzli. vii. 4. a). For the other designation of this threshing-floor in the parallel passage, see NACHON.-P. II.