SHELOMITH (roni50, the name of several persons male (1 Chron. xxiii. IS ; xxiii. 9 ; xxvi. 25 ; Ezra viii. to) and female (Lev. xxiv. ; Chron. 19).
SHEM (Dt:i, name ; Sept. Z7j,u), one of the three sons of Noah (Gen. v. 32), from whom descended the nations enumerated in Gen. x. 22, seq., and who was the progenitor of that great branch of the Noachic family (called from him Shemitic or Semitic) to vvhich the Hebrews belong. The name of Shem is placed first wherever the sons of Noah are mentioned together : whence he would seem to have been the eldest brother. But against this conclusion is brought the text Gen. x. 21, which according to the Authorised, and many other versions, has Shem the brother of Japheth the elder ;' whence it has been conceived very gene rally that Japheth was really the eldest, and that Shem is put first by way of excellency, seeing that front him the holy line descended. But this con clusion is not built upon a critical knowledge of the Hebrew, which would show that 5ron, the elder,' must in this text be referred not to Japheth but to Shem, so that it should be read Shem . . . .
the elder brother of Japheth.' The current version of the text is sanctioned only by the Septuagint among the ancient versions, and it is there supposed by some to be corrupt. The Samaritan, Syriac, Arabic, and Vulgate, adopt the other interpreta tion, which indeed is the only one that the analogy of the Hebrew language will admit. The whole Bible offers no other instance of such a construction as that by which 4rit.: becomes the brother of Japhet the elder,' which indeed would be an awkward phrase in any language. The ob ject of the sacred writer is to mark the seniority and consequent superiority of Shem. He had already told us (Gen. ix. 24) that Ham was, if not the youngest, at least a younger son of Noali, and. he is now careful to acquaint us that Shem, the stem of the Hebrews, was older than Japheth (see Baumgarten, Theolog. Commentarzum Alten Test. ; Geddes, Critical Remarks : respecting the posterity of She'll, see NATIONS, DISPERSION OF).—J. K.