Hashum

Hashum is a name borne by more than one figure in the post-exilic books of Ezra and Nehemiah. The same form covers the head of a clan whose descendants return from Babylon, a man who stands beside Ezra at the public reading of the Law, and one of the chiefs who seals the renewed covenant under Nehemiah. The name surfaces only in registers, lists, and ceremonial line-ups, never in narrative action of its own.

Ancestor of returning exiles

In the first census of those who came up out of captivity with Zerubbabel, Hashum heads a family group: "The sons of Hashum, two hundred twenty and three" (Ezr 2:19). Nehemiah's parallel register of the same return gives a different total for the same house: "The sons of Hashum, three hundred twenty and eight" (Ne 7:22).

The clan reappears in the marriage-reform episode under Ezra. When the foreign-wife crisis is addressed and the offending households named, Hashum's line is among them: "Of the sons of Hashum: Mattenai, Mattattah, Zabad, Eliphelet, Jeremai, Manasseh, Shimei" (Ezr 10:33). Seven men of the family are listed.

At Ezra's side for the reading of the Law

A Hashum is among the men flanking Ezra on the wooden pulpit when the Law is read aloud to the assembly: "And Ezra the scribe stood on a pulpit of wood, which they had made for the purpose; and beside him stood Mattithiah, and Shema, and Anaiah, and Uriah, and Hilkiah, and Maaseiah, on his right hand; and on his left hand, Pedaiah, and Mishael, and Malchijah, and Hashum, and Hashbaddanah, Zechariah, [and] Meshullam" (Ne 8:4). Hashum stands on Ezra's left, sixth in the line of seven.

Sealing the covenant

In the list of chiefs of the people who set their seal to the covenant under Nehemiah, Hashum is named between Hodiah and Bezai: "Hodiah, Hashum, Bezai," (Ne 10:18). The placement marks him as a head of a family putting his name to the obligations the assembly has just sworn.