Hozai

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

Hozai is given as a prop. name in RV [Note: Revised Version.] of   2 Chronicles 33:19 , where AV [Note: Authorized Version.] and RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] give ‘the seers.’ AVm [Note: Authorized Version margin.] has Hosai . If we retain the MT [Note: Massoretic Text.] , the tr. [Note: translate or translation.] of RV [Note: Revised Version.] seems the only defensible one, but perhaps the original reading was ‘his seers.’

Holman Bible Dictionary

 1 Chronicles 33:19

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

hō´zā̇ - ı̄ ( חוזי , ḥōzay , or as it stands at the close of the verse in question,   2 Chronicles 33:19 , חוזי , ḥōzāy  ; Septuagint τῶν ὁρώντων , tō̇n horō̇ntōn  ; Vulgate (Jerome's Latin Bible , 390-405 ad) "Hozai"; the King James Version the seers; the King James Version margin "Hosai"; the American Standard Revised Version "Hozia," the American Revised Version margin "the seers." Septuagint not improbably reads החזים , ha - ḥōzı̄m , as in  2 Chronicles 33:18; an easy error, since there we find ודברי החזים , we - dhibherē ha - ḥōzı̄m , "the words of the seers," and here דּברי חוזי , dibherē ḥōzāy , "the words of Hozai." Kittel, following Budde, conjectures as the original reading חוזיו , ḥōzāyw , "his (Manasseh's) seers"): A historiographer of Manasseh, king of Judah. Thought by many of the Jews, incorrectly, to be the prophet Isaiah, who, as we learn from  2 Chronicles 26:22 , was historiographer of a preceding king, Uzziah. This "History of Hozai" has not come down to us. The prayer of Manasseh, mentioned in  2 Chronicles 33:12 f,   2 Chronicles 33:18 f and included in this history, suggested the apocryphal book, "The Prayer of Manasses," written, probably, in the 1st century bc. See Apocrypha .

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

(Heb. Chozay', חוֹזִי , Seer; Sept. Οἱ Ὁρῶντες , Vulg. Hozai, Auth. Vers. the seers," marg. "Hosai"), a prophet or seer, the historiographer of Manasseh, king of Judah (2 Chronicles 33, 19). B.C. p. 642. The Jews are of opinion that Hosai and Isaiah are the same person; the Sept. takes Hosai in a general sense for prophets and seers: the Syriac calls him Hanan, the Arabic Sapcha. — Calmet, s.v. Bertheau (Chronik. Einleit. p. 35) conjectures that חוזי is here a corrupt rendering for חוזים , as in  2 Chronicles 33:19;  2 Chronicles 33:18; but for this there is only the authority of a single Codex and the Sept. (Davidson, Revision Of Heb. Text, p. 221, b). (See Chronicles).