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Shechem - location profile

Location and Setting

• Shechem was located in the Hill Country of Ephraim (Josh 20:7) at the base of Mount Gerizim on its northeastern side.
• This ancient city was situated at the northern terminus of the Ridge Road (the "Patriarch’s Highway") that followed the watershed fifty miles south to Hebron. Jerusalem was some thirty miles to the south and Samaria seven miles to the northwest.
• Shechem was located at the most important crossroad in the central part of the country. In addition to the road leading south, two other routes from Shechem were important, one leading northwest toward the International Coastal Highway and the other eastward toward the Transjordanian Highway. North from Shechem, the road followed the short Wadi Beidan to Tirzah where it turned eastward to descend to the Jordan Valley by the Wadi Fari’a. Eventually it reached the Transjordanian Highway through the Jabbok Valley. The other route passed between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, descending to the Plain of Sharon to reach the International Coastal Highway at Socoh.
• The boundary between Ephraim and Manasseh passed near Shechem (Josh 17:7) although the city was located in the tribal territory of Manasseh.
• Shechem was one of the three cities of refuge on the west side of the Jordan and also a Levitical city (Josh 20:7; 21:21; 1 Chr 6:67).

Historical and Biblical Significance

1. Shechem (between Sychar and Jacob’s well) was a place of altars and "historical markers". . .

• At Shechem, Abram "built an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him . . . and had given that land to his descendants" (Gen 12:6-7). This was the first recorded place where Abram stopped when he and Sarah and Lot and their entourage entered the land. On this occasion, God confirmed to Abram the promise He had first made to him in Ur of the Chaldees, that He would give him this land. It is possible that Abram climbed nearby Mount Ebal to view his inheritance, much of which could be seen from that peak.
• At Shechem, Jacob built an altar and called it "El-Elohe-Israel" when he returned from Padan-Aram with his eleven sons whose descendants would possess that land (Gen 33:19-20). Jacob and his family had traveled down the Jabbok Valley to the Jordan, camped at Succoth and then ascended through the Wadi Fari’a and the Wadi Beidan to Shechem (Gen 33:17-20). It is likely that, in doing this, he had retraced the route he had taken alone to Padan-Aram, twenty years before. While camped at Shechem, his family was involved in many contacts with the local people. Shechem, the son of the ruler, Hamor, raped Jacob’s daughter Dinah. Her brothers, Levi and Simeon, avenged this crime by killing all the males of the city, including Shechem and his father. During this period, Jacob dug a well, augmenting the local water resource to supply the large herds of livestock he had brought back from Padan-Aram. This well was widely known in that region two thousand years later (John 4:12). Jacob also purchased land for his favorite son, Joseph, who at that time was the only son of his favorite wife Rachel (Gen 3:19; 48:21,22; Josh 24:32).
• Several years later, when Joseph was seventeen years old, Jacob sent him from Hebron to Shechem to "see about the welfare of your brothers" (Gen 37:12-14). When he arrived at Shechem, he found that his brothers had moved on twenty miles farther to the Plain of Dothan where there was very good pasturage (Gen 37:15-17). This sequence of events is important for two reasons. It confirms the affinity Jacob’s family had with the Shechem area, the first place they had settled when they came to the land for the first time (Cf. Abraham). It also records the sovereign supervision of God over the process by which He would bring Joseph to Egypt. It was there that He would multiply Jacob’s descendants in fulfilment of His covenant with Abraham, preparing them to become the nation that would later possess the land.
• At nearby Mount Ebal, Joshua built an altar of uncut stones. He also wrote a copy of the law on a pillar of stones. From Mount Ebal, half of the tribes shouted the penalties if they disobeyed the law and from Mount Gerizim, the other half shouted the blessings if they obeyed (Josh 8:30-35).
• At Shechem, Joshua set up a large stone to remind Israel of their commitment to worship God alone. "Behold, this stone shall be for a witness against us, for it has heard all the words of the Lord which He spoke to us; thus it shall be for a witness against you, lest you deny your God" (Josh 24:1, 25-27).

    2.    Shechem was a place of witness.

• It was a place of "stones and bones," memorializing twenty centuries of God’s faithfulness. Joseph’s last memories of the land were of Shechem and Dothan. How often, in prison and in power in Egypt, had he longed for those familiar places and those green pastures, for Hebron and Shechem? Would he ever return there? Throughout his years far from his homeland, Joseph believed that God would fulfil His promise to give the land to his people. He expressed this confidence in his last words, ". . . you shall carry my bones up from here" (Gen 50:25). When Moses led the descendants of Jacob out of Egypt, he was careful to bring with him Joseph’s bones (Exod 13:19). Forty years later, when Joshua led the tribe of Manasseh to Shechem, they brought with them the bones of Joseph, the father of their tribe (Josh 24:32).

    3.    Shechem was a place of spiritual warfare.

• Here the kingdom was divided. Jeroboam called out "To your tents, O Israel" and separated the northern tribes from Judah (1 Kgs 12:1,16). To prevent his people from going up to Jerusalem to worship, Jeroboam set up a golden bull image at Bethel, near Shechem where their ancestors had made a covenant to worship God alone (1 Kgs 12:25-33).
• Here Samaritans lived. When the Assyrians deported most of the citizens of the Northern Kingdom in the seventh century B.C., they repopulated the Northern Kingdom with people who did not know the God of Abraham (2 Kgs 17:24-41). The people living in the region subsequently, part Jew, part Gentile, came to be known as Samaritans (from the name of Omri’s former capital, Samaria). Over the years, this mixed people developed a Pentateuch-based religion, with worship centered at Mount Gerizim (John 4:20).
• The existence of Samaritans and their presence in the midst of the land near Shechem, the place where God had confirmed His promise of the land to Abraham when he first entered it, constituted a constant reminder of Israel’s apostasy and its resulting exile from the land.
• When the exiles of Judah returned from Babylon, Zerubbabel would not allow Samaritans to participate in the restoration of the temple in Jerusalem (Ezra 4:1-3). The chasm between Jews and Samaritans widened when, in 107 B.C., John Hyrcanus destroyed the Samaritan’s temple on Mount Gerizim. For Samaritans, their place of worship became a matter of religious and cultural pride.

For further study, see also: Mount Ebal, Mount Gerizim, Sychar.

Bibliography

1. Bimson, John J., ed. Baker Encyclopedia of Bible Places. Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1995.
2. DeVries, LaMoine F. Cities of the Biblical World. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1997.
3. Rousseau, John J. and Rami Arav. Jesus and His World: An Archaeological and Cultural Dictionary. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995.