Based on the Judeo-Arabic translation of the word in the works of Rabbi Saadia Gaon (in his Tafsir, a translation of the Pentateuch, Exo. 12:22); David ben Abraham al-Fasi|Al-Fasi, D. (1936), vol. 1, s.v. אזוב; Jonah ibn Janah|Ibn Ǧanāḥ, Yonah (1896), s.v. אזב - aleph, zayn, bet; Maimonides (1967), s.v. Nega'im 14:6; and Nathan ben Abraham I (1955), s.v. Uktzin 2:2. The problems with identification arise from Jewish oral tradition where it expressly prohibits Greek hyssop, and where the biblical plant is said to have been identical to the Arabic word, zaatar (Origanum syriacum), and which word is not to be associated with other ezobs that often bear an additional epithet, such as zaatar farsi = Persian-hyssop (Thymbra capitata) and zaatar rumi = Roman-hyssop (Satureja thymbra). See: The Mishnah (ed. Herbert Danby), Oxford University Press: Oxford 1977, s.v. Negai'im 14:6 (p. 696); Parah 11:7 [10:7] (p. 711).
