(3.) About half-way between Jacob's Well and the city, and nestling in a bend of Mount Gerizim, is the mosque Sheik el-Amvd (the Saint of the Pillar), so called from a Mussulman saint. This saint, however, is only a modern invention of the INIohammedans. By the Samaritans the place is simply called El-Amud. the Pillar, their tradition identifying it with the pillar of stone set up by Joshua, as noticed above. They also believe that the celebrated oak of Moreh stood on the same spot. The Mohammedans come here occasionally to pray, but no great honor is paid to the place if we may judge from its present dilapidated state.
(4.) About one third of the way up the side of Mount Ebal, in front of the town, is a bold perpendicular rock, some sixtj' feet high, called, after a Jlohammedan female saint, Sit es-Sulamiyeh. In front of the rock stands a small building, consisting of two chambers and a Vflii for prayer, but all in a dilapidated state. This part of the mountain is called by the samt's name.
(5.) A little farther westward, and about midway to the suinmit, stands the only edifice now remaining on Moinit Ebal. This is called Tmad ed-Din — the Col- umn of Religion. According to the current tradition, this building was erected over the tomb of a Moham- medan saint, honored by the above name (and the building, of course, receiving its name from the saint), who flourished some five hundred years ago. The building is used as a mosque, but the native Christians say that originally it was a Christian church. It con- sists of two apartments, the floor of the first still partly paved with fragments of very beautifid mosaic-work, wrought in marble of red, bhie, and white. On the middle of the inner room stands a large wooden lamp- stand in imitation of a tree, with a goodly number of branches, on which a number of oil-lamps are hanging, together with a formidable array of filthy rags placed there by pilgrims in honor of the saint, whose tomb, they say, is in the northern wall, indicated by a marble slab placed against it. This part of the mount is fre- quently called by the natives after the saint, 'Imad ed- Din.
4. The present inhabitants of Nablus, with very few exceptions, are Aralis. It is difficult to say with exact- ness what is the number of its population, inasmuch as no census is taken. About 10,000 is near the mark. Of these there are about 100 Jews, 150 Samaritans, from 500 to 600 native Christians; the remaining 9400 are INIohammedans — the most bigoted aiad unridy, per- haps, in Palestine. The enmity between the Samari- tans and Jews is as inveterate still as it was in the days of Christ.
Being, as it is, the gateway of the trade between Jaffa and Beirut on the one side, and the transjor- danic districts on the other, and the centre also of a province so rich in wool, grain, and oil, Nablfis be- comes, necessarily, the seat of an active commerce, and
SHECHEMITE
037
SHECHINAH
of a comparative luxury to be found in very few of the inland Oriental cities. It produces, in its own manu- factories, many of the coarser woollen fabrics, delicate silk if<iods, cloth of camel's hair, and especially soap, of which last commodity larjjc quantities, after supplying the immediate country, are sent to Egypt and other parts of the East. The ashes and other sediments thrown out of the city, as the result of the soap manu- facture, have grown to the size of hills, and give to tlie environs of the town a peculiar aspect. The olive, as in tlie days when Jotham delivered his famous par- able, is still the principal tree. Figs, almonds, walnuts, mulberries, grapes, oranges, apricots, pomegranates, are abundant. The valley of the Nile itself hardly sur- passes Nablus in the production of vegetables of everj' sort.
See Robinson, Palestine, ii, 94 - 136 ; Olin, Travels, ii, 389 - 365 ; Nurratice of the Scottish Deputation, p. 'iOS-'ilS; Schubert, 3Io}-ffenlatid. li'i, l'd(3-lb4 ; Lord Nugent, Lands Classical and Sacred, ii, 17'2-180; Hack- ett. Illustrations of Scripture, p. 193 sq. ; Thomson, Land and Book, ii, 203; Contler, Tent Work in Palestine, i, 61 sq. Dr. Kosen, in the Zeitschr. der deiitschen morgenland. Gesellschaft for 1860 (p. 622-639), has given a careful plan of Nablfis and the environs, with various accom- panying remarks. See also Samaritans, Modern.
She'chemite (Heb. with the art. and collectively
hash-Skikmi', "iTIDIi'll, a patronymic, Sept. 6 ^vx^ni), a family designation of the descendants of Shechem (q. v.), the son of Shemidah of the tribe of Manasseh (1 Chron. vii, 19).
Shechi'nah [some Shech'inah ; also written She- kina/i] (in Clialdee and Neo-Hehrew Shekinah',n''2'V, strictly residence, i.e. of God, his visible presence, from ■|5'l3. to dwell), a word not found in the Bible, but used by tlie later Jews, and borrowed by Christians from them, to express the visible majesty of the Divine Pres- ence, especially when resting or dwelling between the cherubim on the mercy-seat in the tabernacle and in the Temple of Solomon; but not in Zerubbabel's tem- ple, for it was one of the five particulars which the .Jews reckon to have been wanting in the second Temple (Caslell, Lexic. s. v. ; Prideaux, Connect, i, 138).