Shimron, Shomron

שמרון


Genesis 46:13 names him as the youngest son of Yisaschar (יששכר), his siblings were Tol'a (תולע), Pu'ah (פוה) and Iyov (יוב - Job).

The Beney Shimron (שִּׁמְרֹנִי) are mentioned in Numbers 26:24, though this may be an anachronistic reference to the Beney Shomron, for whom see below.

The root Shamar (שמר) means "to watch" or "guard" or "observe"; or in its secondary meaning "to keep" or "to preserve" (cf 1 Samuel 1:12). This then extends still further (cf Psalm 17:4 and throughout Torah) to the idea of keeping the Law (watching or guarding one's personal behaviour), and as such we still have "Shomer Shabat" today for a person who keeps the Halachic Laws observantly, and the general notion of an "observant" Jew.

1 Chronicles 6:31 (some versions have 1 Chronicles 6:46) and 7:34 also refer to a character named Shemer, or possibly Shamer. Likewise 1 Chronicles 7:34. In 2 Kings 12:22 he is read in the Masoretic text as Shomer (שֹׁמֵר), though the unpointed text might just as well be the same Shemer (שמר).

2 Chronicles 24:26 has Shimrit (שמרית).

The problem that arises from this is that Shemer (שמר) also refers to the dregs or lees that remain after the wine has been bottled, which has obvious Bacchanalian connotations; however this is probably just another variation on the meaning "to guard", "keep", "preserve".

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And then there is Shomron, which is written identically to Shimron when unpointed.

Shamrayin (שמרין) was the Chaldean name for what we now call Samaria, and which in Yehudit became Shomron (שמרון) - a space of land that, by curious irony of history, is almost identical to the Palestinian West Bank of today. The Samarians (or Samaritans) suffered the same fate as the remnant of Yehudah, and in the same year 586 BCE. Conquered by Nebuchadnezzar, they were "ethnically cleansed" from their homeland by forced migration: literally swapped with the people of Yehudah. The key Biblical reference for this is 2 Kings 17:24/30, where we are told:

In the end, the LORD removed Israel from His presence, as He had warned them through all His servants the prophets. So the Israelites were deported from their land to Assyria, as is still the case. The king of Assyria brought [people] from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sephar-vaim, and he settled them in the towns of Samaria in place of the Israelites; they took possession of Samaria and dwelt in its towns. When they first settled there, they did not worship the LORD; so the LORD sent lions against them which killed some of them. They said to the king of Assyria: “The nations which you deported and resettled in the towns of Samaria do not know the rules of the God of the land; therefore He has let lions loose against them which are killing them—for they do not know the rules of the God of the land." The king of Assyria gave an order: “Send there one of the priests whom you have deported; let him go and dwell there, and let him teach them the practices of the God of the land.” So one of the priests whom they had exiled from Samaria came and settled in Bethel; he taught them how to worship the LORD. However, each nation continued to make its own gods and to set them up in the cult places which had been made by the people of Samaria; each nation [set them up] in the towns in which it lived."

What they brought with them was their Mesopotamian cults, and it is almost certain that the Eden, No'ach, Nimrod, Bavel (Babel) and other such myths, as well as Tammuz worship, either came into Kena'an with them, or - far more likely - were given added significance and endorsement by their arrival. "Arey Shomron" (ערי שמרון) = "the cities of Samaria", became a synonym for the region that had once been inhabited by the lost tribes (cf 2 Kings 17:26 and 23:19) of Ephrayim, West Menasheh and particularly - and most interestingly because of the note at the very top of this page - Yisaschar. 

Hosea 8:5 even has "Egel Shomron" (עגל שמרון) = "the calf of Samaria" as a synonym for "the calf of Beit-El", which is worth thinking much further about in respect of the cult that must have been taking place at Beit-El when Av-Raham and Ya'akov first sacrificed there.

1 Kings 16:24 gives the root of Shomron (שֹׁמְרוֹן - Samaria):

"He [King Omri - עָמְרִי - of Yisra-El] bought the hill of Shomron from Shemer [שֶׁמֶר] for two talents of silver, and built a city on the hill, calling it Shomron, after Shemer, the name of the former owner of the hill."

Shomron (שמרון) is mentioned repeatedly in Amos; as the capital city of the northern kingdom of Yisra-El in 2 Kings 3:1 et al; and many times as both a mountain, and the name of the city built upon that mountain, in the tribal domain of Yisaschar, at the time of King Omri.

At what point then was Shimron denoted as a son of Yisaschar? Before or after the exile? If before, was he simply the ruler of a hill-city that served as a look-out? If after...

What we can say is that, of all the tribes, it is Yisaschar and the eastern part of West Menasheh which essentially became Shomron, so having Shemer as a son of Yisaschar is quite reasonable - but only after 586 BCE!

1 Chronicles 4:37, 11:45, 26:10 and 2 Chronicles 29:13 all have characters named Shimri (שמרי); given that Chronicles was written for the Ephrayimite tribes two hundred years before the Samaritans were sent to that region...

2 Chronicles 11:19 and Ezra 10:32 both have a Shemar-Yah (שמריה), the former a son of King Rechav-Am  (Rehoboam); and 1 Chronicles 12:5 has a Shemar-Yahu (שְׁמַרְיָ֔הוּ).

1 Chronicles 8:21 has a Shimrat (שמרת).

For a fullaccount of their history and faith, written by themselves, click here.

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