SHECHEM (ine ; Sept. lux4u, also Tec MiKtua), a town of central Palestine, in Samaria, among the mountains of Ephraim (Josh. IOC. 7 I Kings Xii. 25), in the narrow.valley between the mountains of Ebal and Gerizim (comp. Judg. ix. 7 ; Joseph. Antiq. iv. 8. 44), and consequently within the tribe of Ephraim (Josh. xxi. 2o). It is in N. lat. 32° 17', E. long. 35° 2o', being thirty-four miles north of Jerusalem and seven miles south of Samaria. It was a very ancient place, and appears to have arisen as a town in the intenral between the arrival of Abraham in Palestine and the return ot Jacob from Padam-aram, for it is mentioned only as a place, described by reference to the oaks in the neighbourhood, when Abraham came there on first entering the land of Canaan (Gen. xii. 6). But in the history of Jacob it repeatedly occurs as a town having walls and gates : it could not, how ever, have been very large or important, if we may judge from the consequence which the inhabitants attached to an alliance with Jacob, and from the facility with which the sons of the Patriarch were able to surptise and destroy them (Gen. xxxiii. 19 ; xxxiv. I, 2, 20, 24,26). After the conquest of the country, Shechem was made a city of refuge (Josh. xx. 7), and one of the Levitical towns (Josh. xxi. 21), and during the lifetime of Joshua it was a centre of union to the tribes Gosh. tociv. 1, 25), probably because it was the nearest con siderable town to the residence of that chief in Timnath-serah. In the time of the judges, She chem became the capital of the kingdom set up by Abimelech (Judg. ix. 1, seq.), but was at length conquered and destroyed by him (Judg. ix. 34). It must, however, have been ere long rebuilt, for it had again become of so much importance by the time of Rehoboarn's accession, that he there gave the meeting to the delegates of the tribes, which ended in the separation of the kingdom (I Kings xii. to). It was Shechem which the first monarch of the new kingdom made the capital of his do minions (1 Kings xii. 25 ; comp. xiv. 17), although later in his reign the pleasantness of Tirzah induced him to build a palace there, and to make it the summer residence of his court ; which gave it such importance, that it at length came to be regarded 25 the capital of the kingdom, till Samaria even tually deprived it of that honour (i Kings xiv. 7 ; xvi. 24 ; see ISRAEL). Shechem, however, still throve. It subsisted during the exile Ger. xli. 5), and continued for many ages the chief seat of the Samaritans and of their worship, their sole temple being upon the mountain (Gerizim), at whose foot the city stood (Joseph. A/14 xi. 8. 6 ; comp. John iv. 20 ; and see also the articles EBAI and GERIZIM; SAMARITANS). The city was taken, and the temple destroyed, by John Hyrcanus, B.C. 129 (Joseph. Antiq. xiii. 9. 1; De Bell. i. 2. 6).
In the N. T. it occurs under the name of Sychar (Ivxdp ; John iv. 5), which scents to hiwe been a sort of nickname (perhaps from lpty, sheker, falsehood,' spoken of idols in Hab. iS ; or from -nzt.), shikkor, drunkard,' in allusion to Is. xxviii. t, 7)—such as the Jews were fond of irn posing upon places they disliked ; and nothing could exceed the enmity which existed between them and the Samaritans, who possessed Shechem. Stephen, however, in his historical retrospect, still uses the proper and ancient name (Acts vii. 16). Not long after the times of the N. T. the place re ceived the name of Neapolis, which it still retains in the Arabic form of Nablfis, being one of the very few names imposed by the Romans in Pales tine which have survived to the present day. It had probably suffered much, if it was not com pletely destroyed, in the war with the Romans, and would seem to have been restored or rebuilt by Vespasian, and then to have taken this new name ; for the coins of the city, of which there are many, all bear the inscription, Flavia Neapolis— the former epithet no doubt derived from Flavius Vespasian (Eckhel, Doan ATIL711. Hi. 433; Mion net, Afid. Antiq. v. 499). The name occurs first in josephus (De Bell. yucl. iv. S. t), and then in Pliny (Hist. Nat. v. 14), Ptolemy (Geog. v. 16). There had already been converts to the Christian faith at this place under our Saviour, and it is probable that a church had been gathered here by the apostles (John iv. 30-42 ; Acts viii. 25 ; ix. 31 ; xv. 3). Justin Martyr was a native of Neapolis (Apdos. 41). The name of Germanus, bishop of Neapolis, occurs in A.D. 314; and other bishops continue to be mentioned down to A.D. 536, when the bishop John signed his name at the synod of Jerusalem (Reland, Palest. p. too9). When the Moslems invaded Palestine, Neapolis and other small towns in the neighbourhood were subdued while the siege of Jerusalem was going on (Abul feda, Anna/. i. 229). After the taking of Jeru salem by the Crusaders, Neapolis and other towns in the mountains of Samaria tendered their sub mission, and Tancred took possession of them without resistance (Will. Tyr. ix. 20). Neapolis was laid waste by the Saracens in A.D. 1113 ; but a few years after (A.D. 112o) a council was held here by king Baldwin II., to consult upon tbe state of the country (Fulcher, p. 424 ; Will. Tyr. xii. 13). Neapolis was not made a Latin bishopric, but belonged probably to that of Samaria, and the property of it was assigned to the abbot and canons of the Holy Sepulchre (Jac. de Vitriacus, ch. lviii.) After some disasters in the unquiet times which ensued, and after some circumstances which show its remaining importance, the place was finally taken from the Christians in A.D. 1242, by Abu Ali, the colleague of Sultan Bibars, and has re mained in Moslem hands ever since.