Bible Reading: Shechem (Sichem, Sychem) From Olive Tree

“Shechem (Sichem, Sychem) City located in Israel between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, in the valley between two mountains named Ebal and Gerizim. Scripture first mentions Shechem when Abraham stopped at a tree there on his way through Canaan from his hometown of Ur (Gen. 12:6). It was there that God promised Abraham to give the land to his descendants (Gen. 12:7). Shechem is next mentioned when Jacob traveled there after reuniting with his brother Esau (Gen. 32:18). Jacob set up an altar on a piece of the land which he bought from the sons of a man named Hamor, one of whom was named Shechem (Gen. 33:19-20). Shechem subsequently raped Jacob’s daughter Dinah and was killed in revenge with the rest of the males in the town by her brothers, Simeon and Levi (Gen. 34:1-31). Before moving away from Shechem, Jacob had his family bury their idols underneath an oak tree (Gen. 35:4). When Jacob later sent his son Joseph to find his brothers Joseph originally went to Shechem but discovered that they had moved elsewhere (Gen. 37:12-14). After Israel’s conquest of Canaan, Shechem was allotted to the tribe of Manasseh and was appointed to be a city of refuge (Josh. 17:7; 20:7). It was later given to the tribe of Levi, which was not allotted its own tribal land (Josh. 21:21). In Shechem Joshua gathered the Israelites to reaffirm God’s covenant law and to challenge them to intentionally serve God (Josh. 24:1,15,25). Joshua set up a stone underneath an oak in Shechem to mark the occasion (Josh. 24:25-26). The bones of Joseph, brought up by the Israelites from Egypt, were then buried on the same plot of land that Jacob had purchased (Josh. 24:32). The people of Shechem funded Abimelek, the son of the judge Gideon and a female slave from the town, so he could kill his seventy brothers to eliminate rivals for the throne (Judg. 9:1-5). He was crowned king under an important oak in the city (Judg. 9:6). In response, God stirred up animosity between the citizens of Shechem and Abimelek, and he was killed (Judg. 9:22-24). During the time of Israel’s split, Solomon’s son Rehoboam – the first king of Judah – was anointed in Shechem, though his rival brother Jeroboam later set up residence there (1 Kings 12:1, 25). It is possible that by the time of Christ the town was named Sychar, where Jesus met with the Samaritan woman by a well that had originally been dug by Jacob (John 4:5, 12). It was here, then, in the same place where God had established his covenant with Abraham and reaffirmed it under Joshua, that Christ revealed himself as the Messiah (John 4:25-26).” Sent from Bible Study