Shittim (Hastings' Dictionary)

One of the limits of the camping-ground of the children of I.srael in the plains of Moab, Nu SS" (here only it is called AnKL-SHlTTlM). According to Nu 25' the anger of the Lord was there kindled against Lsrael for joining him.self unto Baal-pcor. The spicH were sent out from Shittim (Jos 2'), and from thence the children of Israel moved to Jordan before cro.ssing the river (Jos 3'). These are the only places where the word occurs in the Ilexateuch.

The LXX in the last three passages has i:o7-Ttl>' in B (v is omitted in .\ of Jos 2'). In Nu XV I!«X<rd in B and BtXcrarW/i in A are renderings of Abel-ahi(tim. The word occurs twite in the Prophets : (1) Mic 6* 'from Shittim unto Gilgal.' By some this is regarded as a gloss ; others suggest that a part of the text has been lost here — ' [remember that which I did] from Shittim unto Gilgal ' — with refer- ence to the wonders manifested at the passage of the Jordan.

(2) Jl 3'" ' the valley of Shittim.' The Heb. word hero used for ' valley ' (^-} ' wady ' ; see Bkook) is never api)Ued to the broad open space immediately N. of the Dead Sea in which Shittim was situated. The idea in the pa.ssage is similar to that in Ezk 47'-'^ Zee 14", and Rev 22'— waters (of life) issuin" from the house of God w<mld reach the Eastern (the Dead) and the Western (the Medi- terranean) seas. The ordinary cour.

se of waters from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea would be along the Wady Silti M'triaui and Wady ca-N&r, the ancient Kidron called %i 2 S 15^ (cf. Driver, ad lac, in Camb. Bible for Schools and Colleges). The LXX renderinjf in both these passages is Tai» ffx^'ivim. It has been proposed (ttie 8n£;t;e-stion is as old as Jerome) to rend ffX'*^, and then the translators would have considered tiie shitVah-tfee as equivalent to the niasticli.

tree {axt^a, PUtachia- lenlUcxu), a tree common in Me<iiterranean countries. Tlie aerreement between these two passajres, and their variation from the renderings in the Hex., are noteworthv (cf. Rvssel on MicOi). A. T. Chap.man.