Hozai

HOZAI hō’ zī (חוֹזָֽי). The name of a chronicle or history, referred to in 2 Chronicles 33:19, in which the prayer of Manasseh, his sinfulness, and certain of his impious acts was recorded. It is not certain whether the word should be tr. as a proper noun, “Hozai,” perhaps a prophet who recorded deeds of Manasseh as Isaiah apparently did for Hezekiah (2 Chron 32:32), or a common noun, perhaps to be tr. “seers,” with one Heb. MS and the LXX (חֹזִ֖ים). Some scholars have suggested reading “his (i.e. Manasseh’s) seers” (חוֹזָיו).

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915)

(chozay, or as it stands at the close of the verse in question, 2Ch 33:19, chozay; Septuagint ton horonton; Vulgate (Jerome’s Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) "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 ha-chozim, as in 2Ch 33:18; an easy error, since there we find we-dhibhere ha-chozim, "the words of the seers," and here dibhere chozay, "the words of Hozai." Kittel, following Budde, conjectures as the original reading chozayw, "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 2Ch 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 33:12 f,18 f and included in this history, suggested the apocryphal book, "The Prayer of Manasses," written, probably, in the 1st century BC.

See Apocrypha.

J. Gray McAllister