4. Another layman of the "sons of Baui" who did the same (Ezra x, 41). B.C. 458.
Shemarim. See Lees.
Sheme'ber [many Shem'eher'] (Heb. id. "i2X u'i", lofty jlifjht [Gesenius], or splc7iclor of heroism [Flirst]: Sept. '^of.ioliup ; Josephus, Sv/io/Sopoe, -4?;^ i, 9, 1), the king of Zeboim (q. v.) at the time of the attack of So- dom by Chedorlaomer ((ien. xiv, 2). B.C. cir. 2088.
She'mer (Heb. id. "I'C^', something kept, as lees of wine; Sept. St/iZ/p ; Josejjhus, Ss/inpof, .4?(^ viii, 12, 5), the original owner of the hill of Samaria, which derived its name from him. B.C. 917. Omri bought the hill for two talents of silver, and built thereon the city, also called Samaria, which he made the capital of his king- dom (1 Kings xvi, 24). We should rather have ex- pected that the name of the citj' would have been Shimron, from Shemer ; for Shomeron would have been the name given after an owner Shomer. This latter form, which occurs in 1 Chron. vii, 32, appears to be that adopted by the Vulgate andSyriac,which read Somer&nA Shomir respectively ; but the Vatican MS. of the Sept. at that place retains the form " Shomer," and changes the name of the city to 'Eififpwv or Si/jtipwi'. Both names have the same radical meaning, from "TC'iT, to watch, referring, perhaps, bj* paronomasia, to this con- spicuous post of obserration. See Sajiakia. As the Israelites were prevented by the law (Lev. xxv, 23) from thus alienating their inheritances, and as his name oc- curs without the usual genealogical marks, it is more than probable that Shemer was descended from those Canaanites whom the Hebrews had not dispossessed of their lands.
Sheni hammephorash (^■'nS'sri C^", shem ham- mephorusli, as if the peculiar Xaiiie ; but perhaps facti- tious). By this expression the Jews mean the name of God written mn"', but since the time of the Keforma- tion, i. e. from the time that Christians began to study Hebrew, pronounced, according to its accompanying vowel-points, Jehovah. Before entering upon the ex- planation of the word it will be well to review what is said concerning that name of God. Jerome, who was not only acquainted with the language, but also with the tradition, of the Jews, says, in Prolof/iis Galeatus: " Nomen Domini tetragraramaton (i. e. niiT') in qui- busdam Grajcis voluminibus usque hodie antiquis ex- pressum Uteris invenimus;" and in the 136th letter to Marcellus, where he treats of the ten names of God, he says : " Nonum (se. nomen Dei) est tetragrannnum, quod at'iK(pm'r]Tor, i. e. ineffabile, putaverunt, quod his Uteris scribitur lod, K, Van, E. Quod (luidaui non intelli- gentes pntpter ekmuntorum similitudinem, ipumi in Gr;ecis libris repererint, Pi I'i legere consueverunt" {0pp. ed. Vallarsi, i, 131; iii, 720). Similar is the statement found in a fragment of Evagrius treating of the ten Jewish names of (Jod, that the ineffable Tetragram, which KaraxpiJ'^TtKwc is pronounced by the Jews ci^w- va'i, by the (ireeks Kvpioc, according to Exod. xxviii, 36, was written on the plate of the higli-priest : uyUiafia Kvpiijj mill [in some codd. tti m] . . . rovroit; jpacpit- fifvoi' Tolc Trotx«(otc iwi tjtt ovau hjtt II I III, 6 HfiJf (cf. Cotelerius, Moin/m. Ecrl. Gr(TC(v, iii, 216, by Vallarsi, iii, 726; Lagarde, Oiioma^tica Sacra, p. 205 sq.). Al- most the same we find in Origen, Onoviasticon (cf. La- garde, loc. cit.). From these statements we see that at and before the time of Jerome there were already Greek MSS. of the Old Test, in which the Tetragram was written with Hebrew letters which were regarded as the (ireek uncial letters 111111. Such a mistake was only possible when the Hebrew square alphabet was used. When, in the last quarter of the last century, the attention of tlie learned was again called to the Syriac
SHEM HAMMEPHORASH
653
SIIEMINITH
translation of the Sept. by the bishop Paul of Tela, they found in many places the Hebrew name of God, which otherwise is expressed by the Greek Kvpioq and the Syriac N"^"n3, represented by '^S'^S. It was, however, more surprising that in the main manuscript of this version in the celebrated Codex Syro-Hexaplaris Am- brnsianus at Milan, in the notes on Isaiah, instead of oSLQ. the word riTI^ was found. The connection between the Greek 171111 and this iT'iT' was soon per- ceived, but not in a correct manner, so that in 183.5 Mid- deldorpf. in his edition of Codex Syro-Ile,raplaris, could but explain it as "ita ut inscius quidam librarius, Cod. Syr. Hexaplarem describens, sed sensum Grseci illius riini baud perspiciens Grrecum characterem IT loco Hebraic! il positum esse opinaretur, quemadmodum I loco Hebr. "i, ideoque Syriace rT^IT^ scriberet." Bern- stein, in reviewing Middeldorpf's edition, quoted a scho- lion of Bar-Hebra;us, which gives us the following interesting notice : '• The Hebrews call the glorious name of God ims Cir, which is H-^ni (Hini), and dare not to pronounce it with their lips, but read and speak instead, to those who listen, ^iHX. Since the seventy interpreters retained the Hebrew nomenclature, the Greeks fell into an error and believed that these two letters were Greek, and read it from the left to the right, and the name HIHI was formed, and thus riTI'' ( ni IT'), which designates the Eternal Being, was changed into mni, which yields no sense at all. The Yod of the Hebrews is like the Yod (Iota) of the Greeks, and He of the Hebrews has the form of the Greek Pi (H). Hence, in the Syriac copies of the Sept. we tind every- where the name N'^1'0 (i.e. where X'^"!^ stands for kv- pio(; = iTiri'i), with "^S^S written above." On this scho- lium Bernstein remarks that lUnS S'J corresponds to the Rabbinic CIS'Cn CTl"', Shem hnmmephorash. In his lexicon, Bernstein writes: "OTIS is one who sep- arates, discerns, hence 'J1"!S -uJ is a discerning, sepa- rating, or especial name, nomen separatum, secreium, oc- CLiltum. Schroeter, in his edition of Bar-HebraBus, ex- plains OTIS CO by nomen distinctum, singulare. But Bar-Hebr:\;us tells us only what he found in Jacob of Edessa, who has a whole scholium entitled "Scholium on the Singular and Distinguished Name which is found in the Syriac Holy Writings translated from the Greek, and which is called among the Jews TUT^EJ Di3." From this scholium, which Nestle published in the Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenldndischen Gesellschaft, 1878, xxxii, 405 sq., and which purports to give what Jewish tradi- tion believed concerning this name, we see that it means the separated, i. e. singular name of God — a view also adopted by Nestle himself. But a review of the dif- ferent opinions will show that there is a great difference as to what the meaning of the word 'JTSTSn DO is. Some translate it by nomen explicituni, others by nomen sejniratum (comp. Buxtorf, Lex, Talm. s. v.); Petrus Galatinus, De Arcanis Catholicte Veritatis, ii, 18, by separatum, i.e. "sejunctum et distinctum ab aliis omni- bus Dei nominibus, et soli Deo proprie conveniens." Eeuchlin, in the third book of iJe Arte Cabalistica, explains it by nomen expnsitorium ; Munk, le nom dis- tinctemenf pi'ononce; Geiger, der ausdriickliche Name; Levy, der deuflich ausgesprochene. Name.