The Hebrew verb meaning “to inherit” is ירשׁ which would be transliterated yrsh or jrsh.
ון (-on) at the end of a word denotes “place of.” Jershon or Yershon would mean “place of inheritance.”
On its own, Book of Mormon “Jershon” has a valid Hebrew etymology, meaning “place of inheritance.” However, there is more.
Now, I am no Hebraist by any means, more of a hobbyist, and a rather poor one, and that may show here. But I am all for being educated properly, but I have a question about this assertion. The claim is "-on at the end of a word denotes "place of."
There is no reference given for this information. It is asserted. I would actually enjoy seeing some valid evidence for this assertion. I used the Strongest Strong's Concordance (the BEST updated Concordance in print now) and Gesenius's Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon and the maps section in the LDS Bible, in the back, where there are several.
Here is what I did. I looked up every single area, land, city I could find that ended in -on. Then I looked them up in
Strongest Strong's Concordance for the Strong's Hebrew number of each entry. Then I used Gesenius's Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to find the meaning of each entry. Here are my results. I include the Strong's Hebrew #
1. Hermon - 2768 - Consecrated place.
2. Madon - 4066 - Contention, tallness.
3. Hebron - 2275 - association.
4. Arnon - 769 - rushing, roaring (it is, after all, a river
5. Ammon - 5983 - Son of my relative, kindred (possibly incest)
6. Amnon - 550 - faithful
7. Heshbon - 2809 - reason, understanding
8. Heshmon - 2810 - war engines
9. Hethlon - 2855 - a hiding place, wrapped up
10. Ashkelon - 831 - migration
11. punon - 6325 - darkness, obscurity
12. Dibon - 1769 - pining
13. Sidon - 6721 - fishing
14. Zephon - 6827 - gaze, lookout (tower)
15. Zion - 6726 - sunny place, sunny mountain
16. Ziphlon - 6837 - expectation, longing
17. Ziphron - 2202 - sweet smell
18. Gibeon - 1391 - built on a hill, pertaining to a hill
19. Madon - 4068 - a royal city - extension, tallness
20. Aijalon - 357 - belonging to a stag
21. Beth-horon - 1032 - place of the hollow
22. Shimron - 8110 - watch, a mountain
23. Kishon - 7191, 7028 - hardness, twisted, tortuous
24. Ijon - 5859 - ruin
25. Ekron - 6138 - eradication
26. Babylon - 894 - confusion
27. Lebanon - 3844 - white, whiteness
28. Sirion - 8303 - Mt Hermon, because it resembles a breastplate
29. Simeon - 8095 - hearing with acceptance
30. AND MY FAVORITE - Imagination.........
Now why all this bother? Because of the majority, and I mean vast majority of place names (and some personal names), found on Bible maps, there is literally none of them that end in -on that means "land of." Now, I may be off base, but the lexicons give the meanings of the names, and I just don't see this assertion have any evidence. What am I missing? I am more than willing to be educated and shown how and where in Hebrew the -on ending means "place of" or "land of" but it won't be the place names in the Bible that show this, because they don't.