Shechem

Shechem stands in the central hill-country of Ephraim as one of the most repeatedly occupied sites in Israel's story. Scripture names it as Abram's first halt inside the land, as the parcel Jacob bought and the place where Joseph's bones were finally buried, as the central refuge-city of the western tribes, as the convocation site of Joshua's covenant renewal, as the seat from which Abimelech briefly ruled and which he then sowed with salt, as the town where the united kingdom split between Rehoboam and Jeroboam, and as the patriarchal site beside which Jesus met the Samaritan woman at Sychar. Also gathered under this lemma are the man Shechem son of Hamor, the Manassite clan-eponym Shechem, and a son of Shemida.

The Patriarchal Site

Shechem is the place to which Abram first comes inside the land of promise: "Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land" (Gen 12:6). Generations later Jacob arrives at the same site on his return from Paddan-aram: "Jacob came in peace to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Paddan-aram; and encamped before the city" (Gen 33:18). Jacob then secures a holding there by purchase: "he bought the parcel of ground, where he had spread his tent, at the hand of the sons of Hamor, Shechem's father, for a hundred kesitah [of silver]" (Gen 33:19), and on it "he erected there an altar, and called it El-elohe-israel" (Gen 33:20).

The site continues to function as Jacob's pasture-land into the next generation. When Israel sends Joseph after his brothers, the dispatch-point is Shechem: "Are not your brothers shepherding the flock in Shechem? Come, and I will send you to them" (Gen 37:13), and Joseph "came to Shechem" (Gen 37:14) before being redirected to Dothan. The Jacob-bought parcel finally becomes a burial-place at the close of the conquest: "the bones of Joseph, which the sons of Israel brought up out of Egypt, they buried in Shechem, in the parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for a hundred kesitah [of silver]: and they became the inheritance of the sons of Joseph" (Jos 24:32).

The Son of Hamor

The city is distinguished from the man it is named for. Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite is "the prince of the land" (Gen 34:2), and the only sustained scriptural account of him is Genesis 34. He sees Dinah daughter of Leah, takes her, and "plowed her, and violated her" (Gen 34:2); afterward "his soul stuck to Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the damsel, and spoke kindly to the damsel" (Gen 34:3), and asks his father Hamor to "Get me this damsel as wife" (Gen 34:4). Hamor and his son negotiate publicly at the city gate (Gen 34:20), proposing intermarriage, free settlement, and trade, and Jacob's sons answer "with guile" (Gen 34:13), demanding circumcision of every male as the price of consent. The men of the city accept the terms; "on the third day, when they were in pain, ... two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brothers, took each man his sword, and came upon the city unawares, and slew all the males" (Gen 34:25). "And they slew Hamor and Shechem his son with the edge of the sword, and took Dinah out of Shechem's house, and went forth" (Gen 34:26). Jacob's protest, "You⁺ have troubled me, to make me stink to the inhabitants of the land" (Gen 34:30), and his sons' retort, "Should he deal with our sister as with a whore?" (Gen 34:31), close the episode.

The Manassite Genealogy

A separate Shechem appears in the Manassite line as a clan-eponym in the wilderness census: "and [of] Shechem, the family of the Shechemites" (Num 26:31). The same clan-name reappears in the Manassite land-allotment after the conquest, listed among "the male sons of Manasseh the son of Joseph according to their families" (Jos 17:2). A further Shechem is listed in the Chronicler's Manassite genealogy as "the sons of Shemida were Ahian, and Shechem, and Likhi, and Aniam" (1Ch 7:19).

The Refuge-City

When the western refuge-cities are set apart, Shechem is the central-hill-country member of the three-city set: "they set apart Kedesh in Galilee in the hill-country of Naphtali, and Shechem in the hill-country of Ephraim, and Kiriath-arba (the same is Hebron) in the hill-country of Judah" (Jos 20:7). The same city is then assigned as a Levitical city to the non-Aaronide Kohathites: "they gave them Shechem with its suburbs in the hill-country of Ephraim--the city of refuge for the manslayer, and Gezer with its suburbs" (Jos 21:21). The Bethel-to-Shechem road is also a fixed topographic landmark in the Benjaminite recovery narrative: "the highway that goes up from Beth-el to Shechem" (Jud 21:19).

Joshua's Covenant Renewal

At the close of his career Joshua summons the nation to Shechem: "Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and called for the elders of Israel, and for their heads, and for their judges, and for their officers; and they presented themselves before God" (Jos 24:1). The conclusion of that assembly is a covenant cut on the spot: "Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and set them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem. And Joshua wrote these words in the Book of the Law of God; and he took a great stone, and set it up there under the oak that was by the sanctuary of Yahweh" (Jos 24:25-26). The stone is given a witness-function: "Look, this stone will be a witness against us; for it has heard all the words of Yahweh which he spoke to us: it will therefore be a witness against you⁺, in case you⁺ deny your⁺ God" (Jos 24:27). Joshua himself is not buried at Shechem; the "Joshua buried at" entry actually points to Jos 24:30, where "they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnathserah." The Shechem-burial in this same closing section belongs to Joseph's bones (Jos 24:32, above).

Abimelech's Kingship and the Salting of the City

The judges-period narrative makes Shechem briefly the seat of an attempted Israelite kingship. Gideon's son by his Shechemite concubine is its hinge: "his concubine that was in Shechem, she also bore him a son, and he named him Abimelech" (Jud 8:31). After Gideon's death Abimelech goes "to Shechem to his mother's brothers" (Jud 9:1), takes seventy shekels of silver from the temple of Baal-berith (Jud 9:4), kills his seventy half-brothers on one stone at Ophrah (Jud 9:5), and is then made king at Shechem: "all the men of Shechem assembled themselves together, and all the house of Millo, and went and made Abimelech king, by the oak of the pillar that was in Shechem" (Jud 9:6). Jotham, the only surviving son of Jerubbaal, calls down a parable-curse from Mount Gerizim: "let fire come out from Abimelech, and devour the men of Shechem, and the house of Millo; and let fire come out from the men of Shechem, and from the house of Millo, and devour Abimelech" (Jud 9:20).

The curse is then narrated in fulfillment. "God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem; and the men of Shechem betrayed Abimelech" (Jud 9:23). Gaal son of Ebed leads a rebellion within the city; Abimelech ambushes it, and "fought against the city all that day; and he took the city, and slew the people who were in it: and he beat down the city, and sowed it with salt" (Jud 9:45). The men of the tower of Shechem flee to "the stronghold of the house of El-berith" (Jud 9:46), which Abimelech burns down on them, "so that all the men of the tower of Shechem died also, about a thousand men and women" (Jud 9:49). Abimelech is killed shortly afterward at Thebez by a millstone thrown from a tower (Jud 9:53), and the narrator closes: "Thus God returned the wickedness of Abimelech, which he did to his father, in slaying his seventy brothers; and all the wickedness of the men of Shechem did God return on their heads: and on them came the curse of Jotham the son of Jerubbaal" (Jud 9:56-57).

The Schism Coronation

Centuries later Shechem is again the venue at which Israel makes a king, this time as the public site at which the united monarchy fractures: "Rehoboam went to Shechem: for all Israel had come to Shechem to make him king" (1Ki 12:1). When Rehoboam refuses to lighten Solomon's yoke the northern tribes withdraw under Jeroboam, and Shechem becomes Jeroboam's first capital: "Then Jeroboam built Shechem in the hill-country of Ephraim, and dwelt in it; and he went out from there, and built Penuel" (1Ki 12:25).

After the Fall

In the wake of the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem, Shechem is named as one of the three northern points of origin for the eighty mourning-pilgrims murdered by Ishmael son of Nethaniah: "there came men from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria, even eighty men, having their beards shaven and their clothes rent, and having cut themselves, with meal-offerings and frankincense in their hand, to bring them to the house of Yahweh" (Jer 41:5).

In the postexilic sage's view the Shechem-locale has crystallized as the center of a denounced foreign polity. After listing two abhorred peoples and a third "[which is] not a people" (Sir 50:25), the sage closes: "The inhabitants of Seir, and Philistia, And that foolish nation which dwells in Shechem" (Sir 50:26). The Shechem-dwellers stand as the Samaritan polity targeted under their place-name.

Sychar by Jacob's Well

The patriarchal site reappears in the gospels as the setting of Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman. The town is given its later name: "he comes to a city of Samaria, called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph: and Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour" (John 4:5-6). The proximity-clause anchors the encounter to the Jacob-bought parcel of Gen 33:19 and the Joseph-burial parcel of Jos 24:32. The two-day stay produces the Samaritan confession: "from that city many of the Samaritans believed on him because of the word of the woman" (John 4:39); "when the Samaritans came to him, they implored him to stay with them: and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word; and they said to the woman, Now we believe, not because of your speaking: for we have heard for ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Savior of the world" (John 4:40-42).