Ḥāzôn derives from the verb ḥāzāh (H2372), 'to see, behold,' particularly of visionary sight. It refers to prophetic revelation in which God shows his messenger a vision — sometimes in a trance, dream, or wakeful ecstasy. The word appears 35 times, heavily concentrated in the prophetic books. Isaiah's entire book begins: 'The vision [ḥāzôn] concerning Judah and Jerusalem' (Isaiah 1:1). Daniel's most dramatic revelations are consistently called ḥāzôn. The prophets were known as 'seers' (ḥōzeh) because they saw what others could not.
The prophetic ḥāzôn was not merely imagination — it was divine disclosure, an unveiling of heavenly reality and future events. Proverbs 29:18 famously says 'Where there is no vision [ḥāzôn], the people perish (or cast off restraint)' — meaning that prophetic revelation is essential for community life and moral direction. False prophets were condemned precisely for claiming ḥāzôn they had not received (Jeremiah 23:16; Ezekiel 13:16). The NT equivalent, horama and apokalypsis, appear in Acts (visions of Peter, Paul, Cornelius) and supremely in the Apocalypse of John.