Huz
Huz (Ge 22:21). SEE UZ. Huzoth. SEE KIRJATH-HUZOTH. Huz'zab (Hebrew Hutstsab', הֻצִּב), rendered as a proper name in the Auth. Version of Na 2:7, is either Hoph. praet. of נָצִב, to place firmly; and so the clause may be translated, "And it is fixed! she is led away captive," i.e. the decree is confirmed for the overthrow of Nineveh (so the margin, and most interpreters; see Lud. de Dieu; the Sept. and Vulg. both confound with מִצָּב, καὶ ἡ ὑπόστασις [military station] ἀπεκαλύφθη, et miles captivus
abductus est; the Talmud and Hebrew interpreters, confounding with הִצִּב, render "the queen sitting on her couch"); or, rather, of צָבִב, to flow, by Chaldaism, and the meaning will then be (with Gesenius, Thes. Heb. p. 1147, who joins the word to the last of the preced. verse), "the palace shall be dissolved and made to flow down," i.e. the palaces of Nineveh, inundated and undermined by the waters of the Tigris, shall dissolve and fall in ruins (comp. Diodorus, 2, 26). Mr. Rawlinson supposes (Herod. i, 570, note) that Huzzab may mean "the Zab country," or the fertile tract east of the Tigris, watered by the Upper and Lower Zab rivers (Zab Ala and Zab Asfal.), the A-diab-ene of the geographers. This province-the most valuable part of Assyria-might well stand for Assyria itself, with which it is identified by Pliny (Hist. Nat. 5, 12) and Ammianus (23:6). The name Zab, as applied to the rivers, is certainly very ancient, being found in the great inscription of Tiglath Pileser I, which belongs to the middle of the 12th century B.C.; but in that case the name would hardly be written in Heb. with צ.
