generally of rude construc- tion, but are someliines high and well-built enclosures or towers ( generally round ). which are im])regnable to any force of the depreda- tors when once the flock is within them. Such towers also occur in districts where there are oidy small dis- persed settlements and vil- lages, and serve the inhab- itants not only for the pro- tection of their flocks, but as fortresses in times of dan- ger, in which they deposit their property, and, perhaps, when the danger is immi- nent, their females and chil- dren. AVhen no danger is apprehended, or none from which the protection of the shepherds and dogs is not sufficient, the flocks are only folded when collected to be shorn. They are then kept in a walled, but still un- covered, enclosure, partly to keep them together, but still more under the impression that the sweating and evaiKiration which result from their being crowded together previously to shearing improve the quality of the wool. Those poor villagers who have no large flocks to send out to the wilderness pastures, with a proper appointment of shepherds, but possess a few sheep and cattle, which feed during the day in the neighboring commons, under the care of children or woinen, and who cannot provide the necessary watch and protection for them at night, drive them home, and either fold them in a common enclosure, such as we have mentioned, in or near the village, or pen them separately near their own dwellings. Pens or cotes of this class serve also for the lambs and calves, while too young to be kept out with the flocks or to be trusted in a common enclosure. They usually are near the dwell- ings, which are merely huts made of mats on a frame- work of palm -branches; these we conceive to answer well to the "tabernacles" (booths), "shejiherds' cot- tages," and other humbler habitations noticed in Script- ure. Such villages are of a class belonging to a people (Arabs) who, like the Israelites, have relinquished the migratory life, but who still give their principal atten- tioii to pasturage, and do some little matters in the way of culture. It is possible that the villages of the Ile-
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BliM«Ji,«^r-/r^
Aiab Huts aud bheepcoies ueir Buthue
SHEEPGATE
643
SHEKEL
brews, when they first began to settle in Palestine, were of a very similar description. — Kitto, I'kt. Bibk, note at
1 Clirou. xvii, 2.
Sheepgate (1X2^? "l?^', Sha'ar hats-Tsun; Sept. T) TTvXi] if TrpofiaTiKl] ; Viilg. Porta greylg), one of the gates of Jerusalem as rebuilt by Nehemiah (Neh. iii, 1, 32; xii, 39). It stood between the tower of Meah and the chamber of the corner (iii, 1, 32) or gate of the guard-house (xii, 39, A. V. "prison-gate"). It is prob- ably the same with the Tzpo^iaTiKi] (sc. TrvXij) of .John V, 2 ; A. V. inaccurately, " sheep-market"). Bertheau {Exeg. Haiidbuch, on Nehemiah, p. 144) is right in placing it on the east side of the city, but is wrong in placing it at the present St. Stephen's Gate (so also Keil, after Tobler), since no wall existed north of the Temple enclosure nearly so fiir to the east as that point till after the ileath of Christ. See Jkiuisaue.m. Barclay locates it in a presumed outer wall beyond tlie precincts of the Temple on the east {City of the Great King, p. 111!); but it is doubtful whether any such separate wall existed. The adjoining localities would seem to fix it in the eastern wall of Ophel, opposite the present Foun- tain of the Virgin. See Bethesda.
Sheep-market (John v, 2). The word " market" is an interpolation of our translators, possibly after Lu- ther, who has Schafhaus. The words of the original are tTri ti) npojiaTiKg. to which should probably be sup- filieil not market, but gate (jruXy'), as in the Sept. version of the passages in Nehemiah quoted in the foregoing article (q. v.). The Vulgate connects the irpojiaTtKr] with the KoXvi-ilSij^pa, and reads Probatica piscina ; while the Syriac omits all mention of the sheep, and names only a " place of baptism." — Smith.
Sheep-master C^i^b, naked), properly a shepherd (q. V.) or sheep-l)reeder (2 Kings iii, 4) ; hence a " herd- man" in general (Amos i, 1).
Sheepshanks, Williaji, a learned English cler- gyman, was born at Linton, Craven, Yorkshire, March 18, 1740. Educated in the grammar-scliool of his own parish, he was admitted in 17(J1 to St. John's College, Cambridge. He took the degree of B.A. in January, 1706, and in 17G7 was elected fellow and took the de- gree of M.A. In 1771 and 1772 he served the univer- sity in the office of moderator. He accepted the rec- tory of Ovington, Norfolk in 1773 ; and, having set- tled in Grassington, he received a limited number of pupils into his house. In 1777 he was presented to the living of Seberham, Cumberland ; in 1783 was ap- pointeil to the valuable cure of St. John's, Leeds; and in 1792 was collated to a prebend in Lincoln, which he exchanged in 1794 or 1795 for a much more valuable stall at Carlisle. He died at Leeds, July 26, 1810, and was interred in his own church. See Chalmers, Biog. Jjict. s. V.
Sheep-shearer (Tfj, gnzvz, 2 Sam. xiii, 23, 24; fully with "jS^i, tsoii, added. Gen. xxxviii, 12). The time of sheep-shearing was, among the Hebrews, a sea- son of great festivity (xxxi, 19; 1 Sam. xxv, 4, 8, 36;