Shechem

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The locations of Shechem and Mount Gerezim are circled in yellow.

Shechem, also called Sichem, (Hebrew: שְׁכֶם‎ / שְׁכָם, Šəḵem; "Shoulder") was an Israelite city in the tribal area of Ephraim, and the first capital of the Kingdom of Israel. It later became an important center in the life of the Samaritans.

Shechem is situated at Tel Balatah two kilometers east of present-day the present day Palestinian city of Nablus. Archaeological evidence indicates that the city was razed and reconstructed up to 22 times before its final demise in 200 Within the remains of the city can still be found a number of walls and gates built for defense, a government house, a residential quarter, and the ruins of a temple dedicated to Zeus by the Roman Emperor Hadrian around 200 C.E.

In the Bible, Shechem was perhaps the first place where the patriarch Abraham built an altar to God. It was the site of several incident in both the Hebrew and Christian tradition: the "rape" of Dinah that the consequent slaughter of its residents by the son of Jacob; a subsequent destruction by Gideon's son Abimelech, the installation of Solomon's on Rehoboam as king, and the establishment of capital for rebel Kingdom of Israel under king Jeroboam. It later became an important city of the Samaritans, especially because of its proximity to their temple on Mount Gerizim. In the New Testament, it is the site of Jesus' meeting of the "woman at the well" and possibly other events.

It continued as a center of Samaritan life until about 200 C.E., when Hadrian destroyed it in retaliation for a rebellion.

History

Its position is clearly indicated in the Bible. It lay north of Bethel and Shiloh, on the high road going from Jerusalem to the northern districts (Judges 21:19). It was in the hill-country of Ephraim (Joshua 20:7), immediately below Mount Gerizim (Judges 9:6-7).

The old city of Shechem dates back before biblical times, an estimated 4,000 years. Before its history as an Israelite city, it had been a Canaanite settlement, mentioned on an Egyptian stele of a noble at the court of Senusret III (c. 1880–1840 B.C.E.).

In the Amarna Letters of about 1350 B.C.E., Shachmu (i.e. Shechem) was the center of a kingdom carved out by the Canaanite warlord Labaya, who recruited mercenaries from among the Habiru. Labaya was the author of three Amarna letters, and his name appears in 11 of the other 382 letters. The Bible (Gen. 34) identifies it as a Hivite town.

Shechem first appears in the Hebrew Bible in Genesis 12:6–8, which records how Abraham reached the "great tree of Moreh" at Shechem and offered sacrifice nearby. Later Joseph's bones were brought out of Egypt and reburied at Shechem. The name Shechem (Hebrew shékém—'shoulder, saddle') appears to have been suggested by the geographical configuration of the place.

At Shechem, Abraham "built an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him... and had given that land to his descendants" (Gen 12:6-7). The Bible states that on this occasion, God confirmed the covenant He had first made with Abram in Ur, regarding the possession of the land of Canaan. Jacob came to Shechem after his reunion with Esau after a 21-year exile in Haran. Jacob reportedly he bought land there from the sons of Hamor. He, too, set up an altar, and called it "El Elohe Israel."

Shechem was also the site of Jacob's daughter Dinah's ill-fated love affair with the son of Hamor, also named Shechem (Gen. 34). The sons of Jacob brutal avenged their sister's "rape" by first demanding that its male citizens be circumcized—to which they agreed—and then massacring the city's inhabitants. Jacob reproved them for this act of vengeance, saying, "You have brought trouble on me by making me a stench to the Canaanites and Perizzites, the people living in this land." (Gen. 34:30)

In the Book of Deuternomy, God commands Moses to assemble the Israelites on the mountains of Ebal and Gerizim, overlooking Shechem, to declare the "blessings and curses" with which they will be blessed for obedience the God's law and cursed for disobedience to it (Deuteronomy 11:29). This was fulfilled at the time of the conquest of Canaan under Joshua (Joshua 8:34). Shechem itself became a city of refuge and was given to the Kohathite clans of the Levites (Joshua 21:20). At the end of Joshua's life, he once again chose Shechem as a place to assemble the Israelites, and call them to recommit themselves to obedience to the Torah (Joshua 24). It was also here that Joseph's bones were buried (Joshua 24:32).

During the period of the Judges, Shechem was rescued from the Midianties by Gideon. Perhaps dating back to pre-conquest times, the boast of a Bronze Age temple, described in Judges 9 both as the temple of "El-Berith" and the temple of "Baal Berith.

Even before the birth of the future kings Saul and David, Gideon's son Abimelech was crowned king of Israel in Shechem. He reportedly murdered 70 of his own "brothers" in order to solidify his position. A complex series of events ensured, leading to the city's destruction by Abimilech in retaliation for the it alleged treachery against him (Judges 9). Here the city still appears to be divided between those loyal to the Israelites and those loyal to the "sons of Hamor." Modern excavations confirm that the city was indeed destroyed around 1100 B.C.E.

Capital of Israel

It was rebuilt in the tenth century B.C.E. and was probably the capital of the tribes lands of Ephraim (1 Kings 4). Shechem was the place appointed, after Solomon's death, for the meeting of the people of Israel and the investiture of Solomon's son Rehoboam. When Rehoboam refused to lighten the burden of forced labor his father had imposed on the northern tribes, the meeting ended in the secession of the ten northern tribes. Shechem, fortified by King Jeroboam, became the capital of the new Kingdom of Israel (1 Kings 12:1; 14:17; 2 Chronicles 10:1).

Shechem was a commercial center due to its position in the middle of vital trade routes through the region. It traded in local grapes, olives, wheat, livestock and pottery between the middle Bronze Age and the late Hellenic Period (1900-100 B.C.E.).

When the kings of Israel moved first to Tirzah, and later on to Samaria, Shechem lost its importance, and we do not hear of it again until after the fall of Jerusalem (587 B.C.E.; Jeremiah 12:5).

However, the events connected with the restoration of Temple of Jerusalem were to bring it again into prominence. According to Josephus, on his second visit to Jerusalem, Nehemiah expelled the grandson of the high priest Eliashib, who refused to separate from his alien wife. Many Jews, both priests and laymen, sided with Eliashib's grandson and settled in Shechem. They also built a rival temple on Mount Gerizim. Thus Shechem became the holy city of the Samaritans. Shechem thus became the center of the Samaritan kingdom until it fell about 128 B.C.E. before the military invasion of the Jewish king John Hyrcanus, and their temple was destroyed ("Antiq.," XIII, ix, 1).

Classical and modern history

In Classical times, Shechem remained the main settlement of the Samaritans, whose cultic center was reestablished on nearby Mount Gerizim, just outside of the town. Like all of Samaria, it was annexed, at the time of the deposition of Archelaus in 6 C.E., to the Roman province of Syria. In Acts 7:16 the place is called Sychem, and in the Gospel of John 4:5 it is called Sychar.

Shechem is also the location of Jacob's Well, where, according to the Gospel of John 4:5–6 Jesus' famously met with the woman of Samaria, and proved to her that he was both a prophet and the Messiah. The Ancient Roman and Arab city of Nablus lies 2 km to the west of the site. Josephus, writing in about 90 C.E., placed the city between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal (Jewish Antiquities 4.8.44), and other ancient writers knew that it was on the outskirts of "Neapolis" (Nablus). Its archaeological site was only stumbled upon in 1903 by a German party of archaeologists led by Dr. Hermann Thiersch at a site known as Tel Balatah, beside the traditional site associated with the tomb of Joseph (Joshua 24:32).

Some of its inhabitants may have been of the number of the "Samaritans" who believed in Jesus when He tarried two days in the neighborhood (John 4), and the city must have been visited by the Apostles on their way from Samaria to Jerusalem (Acts 8:25). Of the Samaritans of Sichem not a few rose up in arms on Mt. Garizim at the time of a Galilean rebellion in (67 C.E.). The city was very likely destroyed on that occasion by Cerealis ("Bell. Jud.," III, vii, 32). A few years after this a new city, Flavia Neapolis, was built by Vespasian a short distance to the west of the old one. Some 50 years later Hadrian restored the temple of Yahweh on Mount Gerezim and dedicated it to Jupiter (Dion Cass., xv, 12).

Neapolis, like Sichem, had very early a Christian community. It was from here that the first Christian apologist, Justin Martyr hailed. Sources also speak of of bishops of Neapolis (Labbe, "Conc.," I, 1475, 1488; II, 325). On several occasions the Christians persecuted by the Samaritans. Later, the tables were turned, and in 474 the Christian emperor—reportedly to avenge an unjust attack on Christians by the Samatarians—deprived the Samaritans of Mt. Gerezim and gave it to the Christians who built on it a church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin (Procop., "De edif," v, 7).

Since the Mohammedan conquest (636, first under the Arab Caliphates, ultimately under the Ottoman Turks) Christianity had practically disappeared from Nablús, which, however, remained the headquarters of the Samaritan sect and of its high priest.

Modern Nablus is a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank, with a population of 134,000. It is the capital of the Nablus Governorate and a Palestinian commercial and cultural center. Several hundred Samaritans still live near the city of Nablus, many of them on Mount Gerezim.

Homonym

Sichem is also the old spelling for Zichem, a Flemish municipality which is named after the biblical Sichem; it is now merged into Scherpenheuvel-Zichem.

See also

• Biblical archaeology
• Kingdom of Israel
• Nablus

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Stager, Lawrence (2003). The Shechem Temple Where Abimelech Massacred a Thousand. Biblical Archaeology Review 29:4 (July/August): 26-35, 66, 68-69.

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