A son of Uzi-El in Exodus 6:22, his brothers were Misha-El and Sitri.
The root, TSAPHAN (צפן) means "to hide" or "to conceal", usually in the sense of guarding someone, of keeping them safe; so we can translate the name as "god the protector". It is a precise equivalent of the Prophet Tsephan-Yah (Zephaniah), the god in the latter case being the goddess Yah rather than the male god El (the same reversal that we find with certain Greek names, e.g. Theodor and Dorothea). The same name appears as that of a priest in Jeremiah 21:1, 29:25-29 and 37:3. A Yoshi-Yah ben Tsephan-Yah (יֹאשִׁיָּה בֶן-צְפַנְיָה) is mentioned in Zechariah 6:10 and 14.
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