Shema

Shema appears once in Scripture as a place name in Joshua's catalog of Judah's southernmost cities: "Hazor, Hadattah, and Kerioth, and Hezron, which is Hazor, Amam, and Shema, and Moladah, And Hazar-gaddah, and Heshmon, and Beth-palet" (Joshua 15:25-27). The town belonged to the cluster of frontier settlements on the far southern edge of Judah's tribal inheritance, where the cultivated land gave way to the Edomite-Amalekite desert margin. The personal name Shema appears as a Calebite descendant in 1 Chronicles 2:43 ("Korah, and Tappuah, and Rekem, and Shema"), preserving the family-and-settlement link characteristic of the Chronicler's genealogies.