Chazo

חזו


Genesis 22:22 names him as a son of Nachor, Av-Ram's brother, by Milkah.

The root is Chazah (חזה); "to see" or "behold", whence Chozeh (חוזה) = "a seer", from what Gesenius calls the "silver age" of the Yehudit (Hebrew) language, without dating such (it's generally reckoned to be between 50 and 60 BCE). 1 Samuel 9:9 gives its more ancient use:

"Beforetime in Yisra-El, when a man went to inquire of his gods, thus he spoke, 'Come and let us go to the seer', for he that is now called a prophet was beforetime called a seer".

This, however, is more complicated than it sounds, for what by then was called a prophet, though not yet a Prophet, not only had a very different role, but also a very different name; by Shemu-El's time he was a Navi - נביא - with a status that was part shaman, part "Chief Rabbi", part Personal Spiritual Fitness Trainer to the King, part "YHVH's senior representative on Earth, more important than the King"; which was not at all the same role that Yesha-Yahu (Isaiah) or Yirme-Yahu (Jeremiah) or Yechezke-El (Ezekiel) would have two hundred years later, though they too would be called Navi.

And, at the same time, both in Shemu-El's time, and that of the later Prophets, what had previously been accepted as the valid and legitimate predictions of a seer (much like the Tarot and psychic and palm and horoscope readings of today), were dismissed as superstition, bunkum and mystical hocus-pocus, and formally prohibited, the word chozeh no longer used, and their practitioners dismissed, as we can see in Leviticus 19:31, which tells us: "Do not turn to mediums or necromancers; do not seek them out, and so make yourselves unclean by them", and even more so in Deuteronomy 28:9-22, which also makes a very clear distinction between these "old" concepts, and the "new" concept of a Prophet (and thereby, also, but don't tell the orthodox, helping us to date Leviticus somewhat later than Moses!).

The Yehudit terms for "medium" and "necromancer", elsewhere translated as "hunters after ghosts and familiar spirits", are Ovot (אֹבֹת) and Yidonim (יִּדְּעֹנִים) in the Leviticus text, though the former is more often rendered in full as Ba'alat ov (בַּעֲלַת אוֹב), the most famous of whom, at precisely the time of Shemu-El, was the "witch" of Ein Dor (Endor) whom Sha'ul consulted in 1 Samuel 28.

And then one more level, for one of the key roles of the Levitical priesthood in Yeru-Shala'im, inaugurated by King David from the tower atop Mount Tsi'on even before Shelomoh built the Temple, was the nightly watching of the movements of the stars and planets in the heavens, in what was not exactly astronomy or weather-forecasting, though it was both, but not entirely astrology either. The god of those times was very much YHVH Tseva'ot, the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens, and the stars were Mal'achim (messengers or "angels") as well as Mazalim (the constellations as horoscopal predictables), so to watch the heavens enabled the priests to declare when Shabbat or a festival was about to start, when the new or full moon was due, that a supernova had occurred, that YHVH was angry or contented, and that the king's next marriage was propitious because Oreph (Orpheus, King David's star, which is not the same thing as the Star of David¹) was in perfect line with Venus, or Ishtar, as they would have called it.


[1] The Star of David was a Magen David, not a Mazal or a Kochav David, "a shield", not "a star"; it was originally the Magen Yehonatan (Jonathan), created by Sha'ul's son  when he was given charge of establishing a royal bodyguard, the later-called Giborim. When these thirty-six formed their six groups, with their swords interlocked on each side, it created a moveable iron fence around the king.

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