StrongerBible

nazir

נָזִיר

HebrewH5139“Nazirite, separate, ...”

Appears 16 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Gen 49:26Lev 25:5Lev 25:11Num 6:2Num 6:13Num 6:18Num 6:19Num 6:20Num 6:21Deu 33:16Jdg 13:5Jdg 13:7Jdg 16:17Lam 4:7Amo 2:11Amo 2:12
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradenaw-ZEERnoun

What nazir means

1

a Nazirite: a person consecrated to God by a vow of abstinence, marked by uncut hair and by staying away from wine and from the dead

TranslatabilityUntranslatableCertaintyStrong

A Nazirite is someone set apart to God by a special dedication. Three things mark the state: no wine or anything from the grapevine, no razor on the head, and no contact with a dead body. The unshorn hair is the visible badge of the dedication, and the closely related word for the "consecration" or the "crown" worn on the head (נזר) is even used of that long hair, so the growing hair works like a crown of dedication on an ordinary person's head.

The word covers more than one form of the practice. Numbers describes a vow that any man or woman may take on for a set time and then complete at the sanctuary. But the older stories show a different shape: a person dedicated for life, marked out by God (or by a parent) from before birth rather than by a personal, time-limited vow. Samson is the famous example, and the prophet Amos speaks of Nazirites whom God "raised up" alongside prophets. The single word stretches across both the voluntary short-term vow and the lifelong, God-given calling.

The common thread is consecration by self-restriction: a life fenced in on purpose, so that abstaining from ordinary things becomes a sign of belonging wholly to God.

Nuances

1athe voluntary, time-limited Nazirite: a man or woman who takes on the vow for a set period and completes it at the sanctuary
Num 6:2Num 6:13Num 6:18Num 6:19Num 6:20Num 6:21
1bthe lifelong, God-designated Nazirite: a person set apart for life, dedicated by God or a parent rather than by a personal short-term vow
Jdg 13:5Jdg 13:7Jdg 16:17Amo 2:11Amo 2:12

Disputed

Whether the voluntary, temporary Nazirite vow of Numbers 6 is a late Priestly reworking of an older, lifelong, divinely imposed figure (the Samson type), or the codification of an already ancient and unified institution.

  • majorityNumbers 6 is a post-exilic Priestly reform that tamed an earlier charismatic, lifelong, divinely designated Nazirite into a bounded, voluntary, sanctuary-supervised lay vow.; Wellhausen, Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (2nd ed. 1883); G. B. Gray, Numbers (ICC, 1903); 'The Nazirite,' JTS 1 (1899-1900): 201-11; Baruch Levine, Numbers 1-20 (Anchor Bible 4A, 1993), 229-35; Susan Niditch, 'My Brother Esau Is a Hairy Man' (Oxford, 2008), chs. 3-4
  • minorityNumbers 6 codifies a genuinely ancient institution; Samson and Samuel are particular narrative applications of it, not a separate earlier stage.; Jacob Milgrom, Numbers (JPS Torah Commentary, 1990), Excursus 11, 355-58; Mary Douglas, In the Wilderness (JSOTSup 158, 1993)
2

a distinguished one: a person singled out and set above his fellows, a prince or elect one

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyContested

In a few very old poems the word is not the ritual Nazirite at all but a title of honor. Joseph is called the one "set apart" from among his brothers, meaning the one singled out and lifted above them. The sense leans on the same root idea of being set apart, and on the neighboring word for a crown or diadem (נזר), so the person is pictured almost as one wearing a crown of distinction.

Because the word floats between "consecrated" and "crowned," translators render it "prince," "distinguished one," or "consecrated one," and the ancient versions already disagreed. The same reach appears in a lament over Jerusalem's shining elite, though there many readers take the plainer meaning "nobles."

Gen 49:26Deu 33:16Lam 4:7
Lam 4:7

Whether the word in Lamentations 4:7 refers to Jerusalem's princes and nobles or to its consecrated ones (Nazirites).

  • majorityThe visible physical splendor described fits the social and political elite, so it means "princes" or "nobles."; Adele Berlin, Lamentations (OTL, 2002); Iain Provan, Lamentations (NCBC, 1991)
  • minorityIt keeps the literal sense "her Nazirites," the consecrated elite of pre-catastrophe Jerusalem.; F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp, Lamentations (Interpretation, 2002)
  • contestedThe word's range genuinely covers both, and the poet need not have chosen; "princes / consecrated ones" together.; Delbert Hillers, Lamentations (Anchor Bible, 2nd ed. 1992)
3

an unpruned vine: a grapevine left untended and uncut during the fallow year

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

In the sabbath-year and jubilee laws the word names a grapevine that is deliberately left alone in the year the land rests: not pruned, not harvested for profit. The vine is pictured as "consecrated" the way a Nazirite is, its growth left uncut just as the Nazirite's hair is left uncut, and so withdrawn from ordinary human use.

This is the clearest case where the root idea shows through plainly as "set apart, left untouched," with no vow in view at all.

Lev 25:5Lev 25:11

What scholars say about nazir

The standard lexicons agree on the semantic field but not its center of gravity. BDB, HALOT, TDOT (Mayer), and TLOT (Kuhlewein) read the root נזר as fundamentally "consecrate, dedicate (by vow)," connecting it with Arabic naḏara "to vow" (with Sabean and Aramaic parallels), and Mayer argues the zayin/daleth alternation between נזר and נדר is phonological. TWOT (McComiskey, entry 1340) is the outlier, keeping the older Gesenius gloss "separate, hold aloof" as basic; DCH (Clines) brackets etymology and lists the senses side by side. The proposed Akkadian cognate nazaru "to curse" is now generally rejected (CAD, AHw, Mayer, Milgrom, Levine) as too distant, while Syriac nzr "abstain" and Ugaritic ndr support the vow/consecration reading. The noun sits tightly beside נֵזֶר ("consecration; diadem; the unshorn hair"), which is what lets it swing in poetry to "prince, distinguished one" (Gen 49:26; Deut 33:16; Lam 4:7), where the versions split between "leader/prince" and "consecrated one." Lev 25:5, 11 preserves a plainly non-votive "set apart, left uncut" sense in the image of the unpruned vine. On the institution, the classical developmental line (Wellhausen, Gray, Jastrow, Levine, Niditch, Mobley) reconstructs a move from an archaic, lifelong, divinely designated charismatic figure (Samson; Samuel in the LXX and 4QSama plus; the Nazirites of Amos 2:11-12) to the voluntary, temporary, priest-supervised, democratized vow of Numbers 6, which several read as a post-exilic domestication of charisma; the integrationist counter-view (Milgrom, Douglas, Wenham, Ashley) dates P earlier and treats Numbers 6 as codifying a genuinely ancient practice, with Milgrom casting the Nazirite as a lay analogue of the high priest (the hair as the layman's diadem) and Olyan arguing the reverse, that the vow's very temporariness reinforces priestly rank. Cartledge situates the vow within the broader ancient vow-institution and argues it is conditional. The date of Amos 2:11-12 (Amosian per Andersen-Freedman and Mays; a later Deuteronomistic addition per Wolff and Jeremias) makes the cleanest evidence for a pre-Priestly charismatic Nazirite itself contested. Distinct from all of this, the title Nazoraios applied to Jesus is a gentilic from Nazareth, whose Hebrew name is spelled with tsade (נצר, "guard/branch"), not zayin, and is philologically unrelated to נזיר (Schaeder, TDNT IV).

Where scholars disagree about nazir

Whether the root behind נָזִיר basically means "to consecrate (by a vow)," so that the word means "one under a vow," or basically means "to separate, hold aloof," with consecration as a derived sense.

  • majorityConsecration by vow is basic; the root is cognate with the Arabic term for a religious vow.; HALOT, s.v. נזר I; G. Mayer, 'נזר,' TDOT IX, 301ff.; BDB, s.v. נזר
  • minoritySeparation is the basic idea and consecration is derived from it.; T. E. McComiskey, TWOT (1980), entry 1340
  • contestedThe evidence does not settle the question; the votive and separative senses stand side by side.; DCH (Clines), vol. V, s.v. נזר
In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • BDB, s.v. נזר / נזיר / נזרlexicon
  • HALOT, s.v. נזר I, נזיר, נזרlexicon
  • DCH (Clines), vol. V, s.v. נזרlexicon
  • G. Mayer, 'נזר / נזיר / נזר,' TDOT IX, 301ff.theological-dictionary
  • T. E. McComiskey, TWOT (1980), entry 1340theological-dictionary
  • Jacob Milgrom, Numbers (JPS Torah Commentary, 1990), Excursus 11, 355-58commentary
  • Baruch Levine, Numbers 1-20 (Anchor Bible 4A, 1993), 215-35commentary
  • G. B. Gray, Numbers (ICC, 1903); 'The Nazirite,' JTS 1 (1899-1900): 201-11commentary
  • Susan Niditch, 'My Brother Esau Is a Hairy Man': Hair and Identity in Ancient Israel (Oxford, 2008)monograph
  • Gregory Mobley, Samson and the Liminal Hero in the Ancient Near East (LHB/OTS 453, 2006)monograph
  • Mary Douglas, In the Wilderness (JSOTSup 158, 1993)monograph
  • Tony W. Cartledge, Vows in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East (JSOTSup 147, 1992)monograph
  • Stuart Chepey, Nazirites in Late Second Temple Judaism (AJEC 60, Brill, 2005)monograph
  • Saul Olyan, Rites and Rank: Hierarchy in Biblical Representations of Cult (Princeton, 2000)monograph
  • Anneli Aejmelaeus, 'Was Samuel Meant to Be a Nazirite?' Textus 28.1 (2019): 1-20article
  • H. H. Schaeder, 'Ναζαρηνός, Ναζωραῖος,' TDNT IV, 874-84theological-dictionary

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of נָזִיר

m s absolute

נָּזִיר, נָזִיר

Num 6:13, Num 6:18, Num 6:19, Num 6:20, Num 6:21, Num 6:2

m s construct

נְזִיר

Gen 49:26, Deu 33:16, Jdg 13:5, Jdg 13:7, Jdg 16:17

m p absolute

נְזִרִים, נְּזִרִים

Amo 2:11, Amo 2:12

m p construct

נְזִירֶיהָ, נְזִרֶיהָ

Lam 4:7, Lev 25:11

m s construct

נְזִירֶךָ

Lev 25:5