appear to have been wrecked before they set sail (1 Kings 22:48, 49; 2
Chronicles 20:35-37).
In our Lord’s time fishermen’s boats on the Sea of Galilee were called
“ships.” Much may be learned regarding the construction of ancient
merchant ships and navigation from the record in Acts 27, 28.
- SHISHAK I =Sheshonk I., king of Egypt. His reign was one of great
national success, and a record of his wars and conquests adorns the portico
of what are called the “Bubastite kings” at Karnak, the ancient Thebes.
Among these conquests is a record of that of Judea. In the fifth year of
Rehoboam’s reign Shishak came up against the kingdom of Judah with a
powerful army. He took the fenced cities and came to Jerusalem. He
pillaged the treasures of the temple and of the royal palace, and carried
away the shields of gold which Solomon had made (1 Kings 11:40; 14:25; 2
Chronicles 12:2). (See REHOBOAM.) This expedition of the Egyptian
king was undertaken at the instigation of Jeroboam for the purpose of
humbling Judah. Hostilities between the two kingdoms still continued; but
during Rehoboam’s reign there was not again the intervention of a third
party. - SHITTAH-TREE (Isaiah 41:19; R.V., “acacia tree”). Shittah wood was
employed in making the various parts of the tabernacle in the wilderness,
and must therefore have been indigenous in the desert in which the
Israelites wandered. It was the acacia or mimosa (Acacia Nilotica and A.
seyal). “The wild acacia (Mimosa Nilotica), under the name of sunt,
everywhere represents the seneh, or senna, of the burning bush. A slightly
different form of the tree, equally common under the name of seyal, is the
ancient ‘shittah,’ or, as more usually expressed in the plural form, the
‘shittim,’ of which the tabernacle was made.” Stanley’s Sinai, etc. (Exodus
25:10, 13, 23, 28). - SHITTIM acacias, also called “Abel-shittim” (Numbers 33:49), a plain or
valley in the land of Moab where the Israelites were encamped after their
two victories over Sihon and Og, at the close of their desert wanderings,
and from which Joshua sent forth two spies (q.v.) “secretly” to “view” the
land and Jericho (Joshua 2:1). - SHOA opulent, the mountain district lying to the north-east of
Babylonia, anciently the land of the Guti, or Kuti, the modern Kurdistan.
The plain lying between these mountains and the Tigris was called