4. A person apparently mentioned as one of the "sons" of Pharosh (i.e. Farosh). and father or progeni- tor of a Zechariah who returned from the exile in the time of Artaxerxes (Ezra viii, 3). B.C. ante 459. As the phraseology, however, is here peculiar, many con- nect the clause containing this name with the preceding verse (as in the Sept. and 1 Esdr. ; but contrary to the Masoretic punctuation), so as to read, " Hattush of the sons of Shechaniah;" thus identifying this person with No. 9. The clause containing this name is perhaps an interpolation from ver. 5. See Hattush.
5. Another person similarly mentioned in the same list (Ezra viii, 5) as progenitor of " the son of Jaliaziel," who likewise returned from Babylon with Ezra; but as the name Shechaniah itself is not found in the parallel list of Ezra li, and as the mere patronymic ben-.Iahaziel is scarcely a sufficient designation, we may conjecture (comp. ver. 10) that a name (actually supplied in the Zdthoe of the Sept. and 1 Esdr.; evidently the Zattu of Ezra ii. 8) has dropped out of the Heb. text before " She- chaniah" (BeTtheau, Kurzyef. llandb. ad loc). This in- dividual, i.e. Shechaniah, will then appear (in conform- ity vvith the phraseology of tlu adjoining enumerations) as the son of the Zechariah in question, and himself one of the returned exiles. B.C. 459. See Zattu.
6.' A son of Jehiel, of the "sonsof Elam," and the one who proposed to Ezra the repudiation of the Gentile wives taken after the return from Babvlon (Ezra x, 2). B.C. 458.
7. The father of Shemaiab, which latter was " keeper of the east gate," and repaired part of the wall of Jeru- salem under Nehemiah (Neh. iii, 29). B.C. ante 446. He was perhaps i<lentical with No. 9.
8. The son of Arab and father-in-law of Tohiah, the Jews' enemy during the restoration of Jerusalem (Neh. vi, 18). B.C. cir. 434.
9. A descendant of the Davidic line, father of Shc- maiah, and apparently the son of Obadiah (1 Chron. lii, 21, 22). B.C. cir. 410. He may also have been the Eliakim (Matt, i, 13) or Joseph (Luke iii, 26) of our Saviour's ancestry (Strong, Harm, and Expos, p. 16, 17); See Nos. 4 and 7.
She'chem (Heb. Shekem', 030 ["in pause" ^^f'- kem, CZ w, both as a common noun (Psa. xxi, 13) and as a proper name (Numb, xxvi, 31; .Josh, xvii, 2; 1 Chron. vii, 19)], a shoulder; Sept. 'Svxffi), the name of three men and one jilace in the Bible.
1. The son of Hamor. prince of the coiuitry or dis- trict of Shechem in which Jacob formed his camp on
SHECHEM
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SHECHEM
his return from Mesopotamia. B.C. 190G. This young man. having seen Jacob's daughter Dinah, was smitten with her beauty, and detloured her. This wrong was terribly and cruelly avenged by the damsel's uterine brothers, Simeon and Levi. See Dinah. It seems likely that the town of Shechem, even if of recent or- igin, must have existed before the birth of a man so young as Ilamor's son appears to have been; and we may therefore suppose it a name preserved in the fam- ily, and which both the town and the princes inherited. See No. 4 below. Shechera's name is always connected with that of his father, Hamor (^Gen. xxxiii, 19 : xxxiv ; Josh, xxiv, 32 ; Judg. ix, 28 ; Acts vii, 16). See Jacob.
2. A son of Gilead, of the tribe of Manasseh, and head of the family of the Shechemites (Nimib. xxvi, 31). B.C. post 1856. His family are again mentioned as the Beni-Shechem (Josh, xvii, 2).
3. In the lists of 1 Chron. another Shechem is named among the (lileadites as a son of Shemidah, a younger member of the family of the foregoing (vii. 19). B.C. post 1856. It must have been the recollection of one of these two Gileadites which led Cyril of Alexandria into his strange fancy (quoted by Keland, Pulcesf. p. 1007, from his Comm. on //osea) of placing the city of She- chem on the eastern side of the Jordan.
4. An ancient and important city of Central Pales- tine, which still subsists, although under a later desig- nation. (In our account of it we chietly follow those found in the Dictionaries of Smith and Fairbairn.)
I. T/ie Xame. — The Hebrew word, as above seen, means a " shoulder," or, more correctly, the upper part of the back, just below the neck, like the Larin dorsum, a ridge ((iesenius, s. v.). The origin of this name is doubtful. Some have supposed it was given to the town from its position on the water-shed lying between the valley of the Jordan, on the east, and the Mediterra- nean, on the west. But this is not altogether correct, for the water-shed is more than half-way from the city to the entrance of the valley; and, had it been other- wise, the elevation at that point is so slight that it would neither suggest nor justify this as a distinctive title. It has also been made a question wliether the ])lace was so called from Shechem, the son of Hamor, head of their tribe in the time of Jacob ((ien. xxxiii, 18 sq.), or whether he received his name from the city. The import of the name favors, certainly, the latter sup- position, since its evident signification as an appellative, in whatever application, would naturally originate such a name; and the name, having been thus introduced, would be likely to appear again and again in the family of the hereditary rulers of the city f>r region. The name, too, if first given to the city in the time of Ha- mor, would have been taken, according to historical analogy, from the father rather than the son. Some interpret (ien. xxxiii, 18, 19 as showing that Shechem in that passage may have been called also Shalem. But this opinion has no support except from that passage; and the meaning even there more naturally is that Ja- cob came in saj'efi/ to Shechem (D5'd, as an adjective, safe; comp. (Jen. xxvui, 21); or (as recognised in the English Bil>le) that Shalem belongc<l to Shechem as a dependent tributary village. See Siiai.k.m. The name is also given in the A. V. in the form of Siciikm (Gen. xii, 6) and Svchkm (Acts vii, 16), to which, as well as Sychau (John iv, 5), the reader is referred. In the Sept., as above stated, it is (as in the New Test, above) usually designated by Sii^f^, but also »/ ^iKifia in 1 Kings xii, 25; and rd Siici/tn, as in Josh, xxiv, 32, which is the form generally used by Josephus and Eu- sebius (ill the Oiiomiisf.). But the place has also been known by very different names from these variations of the ancient Shechem. To say nothing of Mabor/kd (Mai3op3o or Ma/?a^pa), which Josephus says {\V(n; iv, 8, 1) it was called by the people of the country (SP."]Z"''a, fhe Ihorouyhfare or (joi-(/e), and which also appears, with a slight variation {M amoithii) in I'liny