SHALMANESER, king of Assyria [Assvitm]. SHAMGAR (We; Sept. ZaAeydp), son of Anath, and third judge of Israel. - It is not known whether the only exploit recorded of him was that by which his authority was acquired. It is said that he slew of the Philistines 600 men with an ox-goad ' (Judg. 31). It is supposed that he was labouring in the field, without any other weapon than the long staff armed with a strong point, used in urging and guiding the cattle yoked to the plough, when he perceived a party of the Philistines, whom, with the aid of the husbandmen and neighbours, he repulsed with much slaughter. The date and duration of his govemment are un known, but may be probably assigned to the end of that long penod of repose which followed the deliverance under Ehud. In Shamgar's time, as the song of Deborah informs us (Judg. v. 6), the condition of the people was so deplorably insecure that the highways were forsaken, and travellers went through by-ways; and, for the same reason, the vil lages were abandoned for the walled towns.—J. K.
SHAMIR a precious stone, named in Jen xvii. ; Ezek. 9 ; Zech. VI 12. The Sept.
in Jer. xvii. 1, and the Vulgate in all the passages, take it for the diamond. The signification of the word, a sharp point,' countenances this interpre tation, the diamond being for its hardness used in perforating and cutting other minerals. Indeed, this use of the shamir is distinctly alluded to in Jer. xvii. it, where the sOdus pointed with it is dis tinguished from one of iron (comp. Plin. Hist. Nat. Jaucvii. 15). The two other passages also favour this view by using it figuratively to express the hardness and obdumcy of the Israelites. Our
A. V. has diamond' in Jer. xvii. t, and adamant' in the other texts : but in the original the word is the same in all. Bochart, however (Hieroz. 843., seq.) rejects the usual explanation, and com. panng the word shamir with the Greek auipts or o-ubpts, conceives it to mean emery.' This is a calcined iron mixed with silicious earth, occurring in livid scales of such hardness that in ancient times, as at present, it was used for polishing and engraving precious stones, diamonds excepted (Hoffmann, Minerat. i. 56/, seq.) Rosenmiffier is in favour of the diamond in his Scholia ; but in his A lterthumskunde he takes up Bochart's notion, and urges that if the Hebrews had been acquainted with the diamond, and the manner of working it, we should doubdess have found it among the stones of the high-priest's breastplate ; and that, as the shanzir was not one of the stones thus employed, therefore it was not the diamond. But to this Winer well answers, that it was perhaps not used because it could not be engraved on, or was possibly not introduced until a later period. The argument -drawn from the rarity of the word in the O. T. is of little weight, and there is no necessity for seek ing an Oriental origin of the word pa, or ground for considering it identical with :handl-, as it may easily be traced from the Greek itself. (See Passow, s. v. ; Eichhorn, De Genzmis Sculpt. Hebr.)—J. K.