SHECHEM, called
Sychar in the Syriac Gospels, is located about 38 miles
north of Jerusalem at the eastern end of the beautiful
valley between Mount Ebal [3130 feet] and Mount
Gerizim [2930 feet] and was a major stop along
the inland International Trade Route, known as the King's
Highway, which linked Egypt and Mesopotamia (modern day
Iraq). This region was settled by the "Joseph" tribes of
Ephraim and Manasseh, SHECHEM was Abraham's first stop
when he entered the Promised Land for the first time.
There he built his first altar unto the Lord.
After returning from
Padan-Aram, Jacob (Israel) bought his first piece of
property and erected his first altar unto the Lord in
SHECHEM. (Genesis 33:19-20) Joseph as a boy went to seek
his brothers near SHECHEM (Genesis 37:2-14). SHECHEM was
assigned to Ephraim and Manasseh (Joseph's sons) when the
promised Land was assigned to the twelve tribes of
Israel. (Numbers 26:31 & Joshua 17:2-7) Six hundred
years after Abraham built his first altar at SHECHEM,
Joshua entered the Promised Land and followed the command
Moses had given him to set up stones on Mount Ebal,
stucco them and write all the words of the Law of God on
them. (Deuteronomy 27:1-3)
At SHECHEM, the natural
amphitheatre formed between Mount Gerazim (the Mount of
Blessing) and Mount Ebal (The Mount of Cursing) allowed
Joshua to be clearly heard by all men, women and children
of Israel as the Book of the Law was read to them in a
solemn ceremony. We see here a good example for parents -
to teach God's Word at an early age to their children. At
this time Israel became a covenant confederacy until the
time when the people demanded a king and Samuel anointed
Saul as first King of Israel.
JOSEPH'S
TOMB
After Israel entered the
Promised Land, the mummified body of Joseph was taken to
the plat of ground which Jacob purchased at SHECHEM and
remains there to this day. Joshua 24:32
JACOB'S
WELL
Jacob's well ( building
shown above) is the oldest continuously used artifact on
the face of the earth. Jacob cut his well from solid rock
four feet wide. A visitor measured it at 240 feet in A.D.
670. In 1697 another said it was 105 feet deep. By 1861
it was only 75 feet deep; this is due to all the pebbles
that people have thrown in over the centuries. In SHECHEM
at the foot of Mount Gerazim, Jesus stopped for a drink
of water from Jacob's well.
LISTEN
TO THE WOMAN AT THE WELL
In 928 B.C. after Solomon
died, his son Rehoboam went to SHECHEM to be confirmed as
King of all Israel. Rehoboam made the mistake of
listening to his youthful companions rather than the
older and wiser men. This mistake split the Kingdom in
two and cost him the loss of ten of the northern Tribes.
Rehoboam ruled as King over "Judah" from Jerusalem. Many
Levites stayed with Judah because of the Temple at
Jerusalem. Solomon's former work superintendent,
Jeroboam, was elected King over the ten Northern Tribes,
now called "Israel", at SHECHEM and made SHECHEM his
capital until Omri built Samaria as a more strategic
site.
Three ancient routes
passed through Samaria: a coastal route from Tyre to
Egypt via Caesarea Maritima, another down the west side
of the Jordan valley, and a third from the eastern end of
the valley of Jezre'el through the central hill country
to Jerusalem.. The coastal plain produces ample wheat,
and the central hills are ideal for vineyards and olive
groves.
The
Samaritans
The
people of the northern kingdom of Israel were entirely
conquered and taken away from Samaria by the Assyrians
under Sargon by 721 B.C. Later, about 677 B.C., the
Assyrians under Esarhaddon brought people of other
nations in to keep the land from turning back into a
wilderness.
With most
of the people of Israel taken away into exile, the
Assyrian king brought in foreigners to tend to the land.
Because they were pagans, they soon found themselves the
subject of God's wrath.Those non-Israelites became known
as "Samaritans."
In an
effort to save them from the wrath of God, the Assyrians
had a Levite priest brought back from exile to teach the
pagans how to obey God (ironic, since the people of
Israel, and the Levites with them, had been sent away
into exile for doing the very same sort of abominable
things that the Samaritans were then doing). The Levite
was not very successful, but then he obviously hadn't
been a very effective teacher for his own people either.
Some Samaritans may have listened, but most "made gods of
their own."So was Israel carried away out of their own
land to Assyria unto this day."
"And the
king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from
Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from
Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria
instead of the children of Israel: and they possessed
Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof. And so it was
at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they
feared not The Lord: therefore The Lord sent lions among
them, which slew some of them.""Howbeit every nation made
gods of their own, and put them in the houses of the high
places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in
their cities wherein they dwelt." (1 Kings 17:23-29
KJV)
Shechem regained
importance after the Babylonian exile, when natives
excluded from the temple in Jerusalem by repatriated
Judean exiles built a rival shrine on Mt. Gerizim.
Tensions between these rival shrines, each claiming to be
the sole heir of Mosaic tradition led to clashes between
Jews & Samaritans during the Hellenistic era. When
the Hasmonean dynasty in Jerusalem occupied the province
of Samaria, Johanan Hyrcanus destroyed Shechem and burned
the temple on Mt. Gerizim in 127 B.C.
Ancient Shechem was never
rebuilt. But the importance of Mt. Gerizim led to the
foundation of a small Samaritan town near to the well.
After the Romans destroyed the Jewish temple in 70 A.D.a
new city, Neapolis. was built in honor of the emperor
Vespasian 1.5 miles west of the ruins of the historic
city. A small community of a few hundred Samaritans with
its own high priest still lives in this
city---
After the
people of the southern kingdom of Judah (the tribes of
Judah and Benjamin, became totally separate from the
northern ten tribes of "Israel") returned to the land of
Israel from their exile they refused to allow the
Samaritans to take part in the rebuilding of the Temple
because they were not Israelites. This contemptuous
relationship continued right into New Testament times e.g
"for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans" (John
4:9 KJV). "Samaritan" became a term of derision - in an
intended insult to Jesus some of the Jewish authorities
said to Him, "Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan,
and has a devil?" (John 8:48 KJV)
Passover Night in Shechem (Sychar)
The Samaritans seperated
from Temple practices after Solomon's Kingdom was divided
and thus were uneffected by the destruction of the Temple
in 70 A.D.. Their practice of Passover has continued for
thousands of years unto this
day. Ironically,
the non-Israelite, non-Jewish, Samaritans fared far
better when Judaism blossomed into Christianity. The
Messiah freely and openly accepted and associated with
Samaritan people (John 4:1-26), and they recognized and
accepted Him as The Savior (John 4:39-42), while the
Jewish leadership, His own people, generally rejected
Him. Samaritans were among the earliest Christians (Acts
8:25, 9:31, 15:3).
The Assyrians captured
SHECHEM in 722 B.C. The mixed marriages that followed
produced the general term or name "Samaritans" of which
only about 600 remain to this day. The Jerusalem Jews
viewed the Samaritans with contempt and had no dealings
with them. These "Samaritans" accepted the first five
books of Moses and after being spurned by the Jews in the
re-building of the Temple in Jerusalem they built their
own Temple on Mount Gerazim. To this day Samaritan
priests continue to sacrifice the Passover Lamb on Mount
Gerazim.
"We are the real
Israelites," declares Benyamin Tsedaka, a priest among
the 600-strong Samaritan community which traces its
ancestry back to the northern biblical kingdom of Israel.
"Unlike some of our returning Jewish brothers," says
Tsedaka, "we have always been here; we never ever left
this land." Tsedaka claims to represent the 125th
generation of his family to live in Israel, which
according to him goes back 3630 years to the time of
Joshua's conquest of the Land of Canaan.
The Patriarch highway
gets its name from the path that was walked throughout
Canaan and Israel from the North to the South ---
traveling on the ridges of the hills and mountains. This
is the path followed by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and as
they traversed the land. The Patriarch‚s moved their
families, livestock and herdsmen along the Patriarch
Highway. The highway wound its way atop the hills and
mountains throughout Samaria. The large number of
livestock being transported called for water and grazing
land. This is also the path followed by Jesus as with his
disciples when he moved from Jerusalem in the South to
the Sea of Galilee in the North passing through Samaria.
Today the Patriarch Highway follows closely the Israeli
highway number 60.
MAP FROM CHRISTIAN CYBER MINISTRIES
