3. Son of Maachah, and phylarch of the Simeonites in tiie time of David (1 Chron. xxvii, 10). B.C. 1014.
4. Last named of the six brothers of Jehoram, the son of king Jehoshaphat, whom their fatiier endowed richly (2 Chron. xxi, 2). B.C. 887.
5. Son of jMahalaleel and father of Amariah, ances- tors of Athaiah of the family of Pliarez, son of Judah (Neh. xi, 4). B.C. long ante 536.
6. Son of Keuel and father of Meshullam, the Benja- mite chieftain at the time of the captivity (1 Chron. ix, 5, A. V. '■ Shephatliiali"). B.C. ante 5S8. See No. 8.
7. Son of jMattan, and one of the ])rinces who ad- vised Zedekiah to put Jeremiah to death (Jer. xxxviii, 1). B.C. 589.
8. An Isr.aelite whose descendants (or perhaps a place whose inhalntants) to the number of three hundred and seventy- two returned with Zerubbabel from Babylon (Ezra ii, 4 ; Neh. vii, 9). B.C. ante 530. He is a()par- ently the same with him whose descendants to the number of eighty males returned, under the leadership of Zebadiali, with Ezra (K/ra viii, 8). AN'hether he was identical with No. 0 is uncertain.
9. One of "Solomon's servants'" whose descendants returned from Babylon under Zerubbabel (Ezra ii, 57; Neh. vii, 59). B.C. ante 530.
Shephelah, Tiif: (nSD'i'n, hash-Shephelah', the low; Sept. »'/ ilf^j/Xw, 1 Mace, xii, 38; ,]cTi.in\c, Sephtla, in Onomast,), the native name for the southern divis- ion of the low-lying, fiat district winch intervenes be- tween the central highlands of the Holy Land and the Mediterranean, the other and northern portion of which was known as Sharon. The name occurs tliroughout the topograjihical records of Joshua, tiie historical works, and tlie topograpliical passages in the prophets, always with tlie artii'le iirefixed,and always denoting the same region (Dent, i, 7; Josh, ix, 1 ; x, 40; xi, 2, 16 « ,- xii, 8; XV, 33; Judg. i, 9; I Kings x, 27; 1 Cliron. xxvii, 28; 2 Chron. i, 15; ix, 27; xxvi, 10; xxviii, 18; .ler. xvii, 26; xxxii, 44 ; xxxiii, 13 ; Obad. 19; Zech. vii, 7). So absolute is this u.sage that in the single instance in which the word stands without the article (Josh, xi, 16 b) itevi-
SHEPHELAII
665
SHEPHERD
tlentlv does not denote the region referred to above, but the plains surrounding tlie mountains of Ephraim. In each of the above passages, however, the word is treat- ed in the A. V. not as a proper name, analogous to the Campaf/na, the Wolds, the Curse, but as a mere appella- tive, and rendered ■' the vale," " the valley," '• the plain," " the low plains," and " the low country." How de- structive this is to the force of the narrative may be realized by imagining what confusion would be caused in the translation of an English historical work into a foreign tongue if such a name as "the Downs" were rendered by some general term applicable to any other district in the country of similar formation. Fortu- nately the book of Maccabees has redeemed our version from the charge of having entirely suppressed this in- teresting name. In 1 Mace, xii, 38, the name Sephela is found, though even here stripped of the article, which was attached to it in Hebrew, and still accompanies it in the Greek of the passage. Whether the name is given in the Hebrew Scriptures in the shape in which the Israelites encountered it on entering the country, or modified so as to conform it to the Hebrew root bsiIJ, shaphdl, " to be low," and thus (according to the constant tendency of language) bring it into a form in- telligible to Hebrews, we shall probably never know. The root to which it is related is in common use both in Hebrew and Arabic. In the latter it has originated more than one proper name — as Mespild, now known as Koyunjik ; el- Mesjhle, one of the quarters of the city of Mecca (Burckhardt, A rubia, i, 203, 204) ; and Seville, originally Hi-spalis, probably so called from its wide plain (Arias Montano, in Ford, flmid-bnuk for Spain). The name Shephelah is retained in the old versions, even those of the Samaritans, and rabbi Joseph on Chronicles (probably as late as the 11th century). It was actually in use down to the 5th centurv. Euse- bius, and after him Jerome (Onomast. s. v. " Sephela," and Comm. on Oi^c/.), distinctlj' state that "the region round Eleutheropolis on the north and west was so called." In his comment on Obadiah, Jerome appears to extend it to Lydda and Emmaus-Nicopolis ; and, at the same time, to extend Sharon so far south as to in- clude the Philistine cities. A careful investigation might not improbably discover the name still lingering about its ancient home even at the present day. See Plain.
No definite limits are mentioned to the Shephelah, nor is it probable that there were any. In the list of Joshua (xv, 33-47) it contains forty-three "cities," as well as the hamlets and temporary villages dependent on them. Of these, so far as our knowledge avails us, the most northern was Ekron,the most southern Gaza, and the most eastern Nezib (about seven miles north- northwest of Hebron). A large number of these towns, however, were situated not in the f)lain, nor even on the western slopes of the central mountains, but in the mountains themselves. See Jakmutii; Kkilah; Nezib, etc. This seems to show either that, on the ancient l>rinciple of dividing territory, one district might in- trude into the limits of another, or, which is more lirobable, that, as already suggested, the name Shephe- lah did not originally mean a lowland, as it came to do in its accommodated Hebrew form. The Shephelah was, and is, one of the most productive regions in the Holy Land. Sloping, as it does, gently to the sea, it receives ever3' year a fresh dressing from tiie materials washed down from the mountains behind it by the fu- rious rains of winter. This natural manure, aided by the great heat of its climate, is sufficient to enable it to reward the rude husbandry of its inhabitants, year after year, with crops of corn which are described by travellers as prodigious. Thus it was in ancient times the corn-field of Syria, and as such the constant subject of warfare between Philistines and Israelites, and the refuge of the latter when the harvests in the central country* were ruined by drought (2 Kings viii,