IEZONIA (Hebrew: fà'àzànjàh and fèzànjàh[tì] «Jah-weh ode»). — Name of several figures in the Old Testament.
1. One of the military commanders who, dispersed after the Babylonian conquest of 587–86, presented themselves to Gedaliah (q.v.) to collaborate in the material and moral recovery of the region. He was the son of a man of Menaheth, perhaps so called after the name of his village or that of a famous ancestor (cf. 1 Chron. 2:48; 4:19). IEZONIA had to go to Egypt with the fugitive group after the assassination of Gedaliah (2 Kgs. 25:23–26; Jer. 40:8); but in Jer. 42:1, where IEZONIA appears as the chief promoter of this resolution, the reading should rather be “Azariah.”
2. The leader of the Rechabite group, whom Jeremiah introduced into the Temple (Jer. 35:3).
3. A figure well known to the Jews exiled in Babylon, but unknown to us. Ezekiel (8:11) describes him as the leading exponent of idolatrous worship. It does not seem that his father Shaphan should be identified with the secretary of King Josiah (2 Kgs. 22:3, 4; Jer. 29:3; etc.).
4. One of the most prominent figures in the anti-Babylonian political faction (Ezek. 11:1).