Shitrai (Hastings' Dictionary)

A Sharonite who was over king David's herds that fed in SHARON, 1 Ch 27. Lavard, yiiirveh, ii. 383. ♦ Layard, vol. ii. 384, 385. i KV ' In the sliips ol their rejoicing.' i Ac 27". SHITTAH TREE SHOBAI 507 SHITTAH TREE {n-^ s/iit/dh, jri-Jot, spirta, Is 41" i:V 'acacia tree'); SHITTIM WOOD (;-:;;-sy dzf-shittim, (i\a iaarra, liqna sctim, Ex i)'- '"■ '^ 26"- » 27'«, Dt 10' UV 'acacia wood').— ^ViiVW/i is modified from shintdh, as hitidh, ' wlieat,' from hintdh.

The cognate Arab, equivalent for shintdh is sont, a name identical with the old Ejjyp. name of this tree, and is, like it, generic fur Acacia, but particularly applied to A. Silotirn, Del. The desert acacia, of which the Ark of the Covenant, and the boards, tables, ete. of the Tabernacle were made, is no doubt j4. Scyal, Del., and A. tor/ His, Hayne, if the two be not, as we suspect, varieties of the same species. Both are called sei/i/dl. Sciiil means ' torrent,' and prob.

the ellipsis ' tree ' should be supplied- It is the torrent tree, i.e. the char- acteristic tree of the desert wadis of Sinai, et-Tih, and the Dead Sea. The conius of these trees resembles that of the apple. It is about 15-2j ft. high, and a little broader than its height. It has stitf, thorny branches, bipinnate leaves with leaf- lets 1-2 lines long, and A line broad, and more or less spirally twisted, necklace-shape pods, 3-4 in. long. lt.

s wood is heavier than water, exceedingly hard, of tine grain, the sap-wood yellow, the heart- wood brown. It is not attacked by insects. It was therefore eminently suited for furniture such as that for which it was employed, in a climiite where insects commit such ravages as in the desert and in Palestine. These trees must have been very numerous in ancient times, perhaps filling most of the desert valleys, and growin-j in clefts of the rocks on the now bare mountain sides.

Even now, after they have been so extensively cut by the charcoal burners, there are large numbers of them. They form quite a characteristic feature of the desert landscape. The trunks are now not infrequently 2 ft. thick, and old trees may have been much thicker, quite suUiciently so to supply planks 10 cubits long and IJ wide (Ex 36-')- If any dilliculty existed on this point, it would be easily met oy supposing that the planks were joined.

Arab, carpenters do this now very cleverly in Egypt and Syria. Besides the wood, so valuable on account of its durability and the excellent charcoal which can be niaile from it, the tree yields the famous ' gum arable ' in considerable quantities. Its astringent bark is used for tanning yellow leather. A number of places were named from this tree, as Shittim (Jos 2' al.), perhaps the modem Ghor es:S(iisabdn, where there are still plenty of acacia trees, and Abfl-Shittim (Nu 3^*"), i.e.

the I'lain of the Acaciaa, which is the .same as the above. The Valley (Srjj ' wady ') of Shittim (Jl 3 (4) '») may have been the lower part of the Wddij en-Ndr, the continuation of Kidron, into which flows the water from tlip neighbourhood of Jerusalem. This, as all the va'leys debouching on to the Dead Sea, would nat'irrtlly have acacia trees growing in it. G. E. PO.ST.