JESHURUN:
Poetical name for Israel, occurring four times in the Bible (Deut. xxxii. 15, xxxiii. 5, 26; Isa. xliv. 2; in the last-cited place the A. V. has "Jesurun"). All the commentators agree in applying this term to Israel. The Peshiṭta and the Targumim render it by "Israel"; only the Targum Yerushalmi has in the first instance "Jeshurun." The Septuagint invariably renders the word by ἠγαπήμενος, and Jerome once by "dilectus," probably taking 
as a diminutive of endearment. But in three other places Jerome renders it by "rectissimus," in which he seems to have followed the opinion of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion (comp. Jerome on Isa. xliv. 2). Thus they derive this word from 
= "to be upright"; and the same etymology is given by Ḳimḥi and Ibn Ezra. Obadiah Sforno derives it from 
= "to behold," meaning a clear-sighted people.
Some modern scholars accept the etymology from 
, the word being formed similarly to "Zebulun," from "zabal" (see W. Stärk, "Studien zur Religions- und Sprachgeschichte des Alt. Test." part ii., p. 74, Berlin, 1899; see also Duhm, "Das Buch Jesaiah," p. 304, Göttingen, 1892; Hummelauer, "Deuteronomium," 1901, p. 522; W. Bacher, "Jeschurun," in Stade's "Zeitschrift," v. 161 et seq.).
