Shalmai

Shalmai is the head of a family among those given to temple service who return from exile. He is named only in the post-exilic return registers, and the two parallel lists spell his name slightly differently — UPDV reads "Shamlai" in Ezra and "Salmai" in Nehemiah.

A Family Among Those Given to Temple Service

In the Ezra register of returnees, the line that includes him reads: "the sons of Hagab, the sons of Shamlai, the sons of Hanan" (Ezr 2:46). The whole block is introduced two verses earlier as "Those given [to temple service]" (Ezr 2:43) — the bracketed expansion is UPDV's resolution of what older translations call the Nethinim. Shamlai's family stands in that catalogue between Hagab and Hanan, recorded by clan rather than by individual headcount.

The Nehemiah Parallel

When Nehemiah copies the same list, the spelling shifts and the immediate neighbours differ slightly: "the sons of Lebana, the sons of Hagaba, the sons of Salmai" (Neh 7:48). The introductory formula is the same — "Those given [to temple service]" — and the family is again carried as a clan unit. The two spellings, Shamlai and Salmai, identify the same returning house in the two parallel rolls.