Jaazaniah

“May God hear”) or Jezaniah is a biblical Hebrew personal name that appears in the Bible for several different individuals, and has been found on an onyx seal dating from the 6th century BC.

He joined the Babylonian-appointed ruler Gedaliah at Mizpah after the exile of Judah (2 Kings 25:23 and Jeremiah 40:8).

[1] Jaazaniah son of Azzur was a leader of Israel and a false prophet whom the prophet Ezekiel sees in a vision of iniquitous elders standing at a gate of the Temple, falsely telling the people that Jerusalem will not be destroyed (Ezekiel 11:1).

[1] The name Jaazaniah appears on a sixth-century BC onyx seal discovered during the excavation of the Tell en-Nasbeh site, likely the biblical city of Mizpah in Benjamin, near Jerusalem,[4] conducted between 1926 and 1935 by William Frederic Badè of the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA.

[5] The seal carries the inscription “(belonging) to Jaazaniah the servant of the king.” The seal may have belonged to an officer named Jaazaniah who, according to II Kings 25:23 and Jeremiah 40:8, came to the Babylonian-appointed ruler Gedaliah at Mizpah after the fall of Jerusalem.

Drawing of the impression made by the onyx seal of Jaazaniah
Photograph of the face of the seal, and drawing illustrating its construction from black and white onyx.