Shelah (son of Judah)

Template:Short description {{#invoke:other uses|otheruses}} According to the Bible, Shelah/Shela (Template:Hebrew Name) was the third son of Judah, and was born at Chezib,<ref>Template:Bibleverse</ref> which can be identified with an unknown town in the vicinity of Mareshah.<ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Biblical narrative

According to the book of Genesis, God had killed Shelah's two older brothers, Er and Onan.<ref name="bibleverse||Genesis|38:7-10">Template:Bibleverse</ref> Judah was unwilling to allow Tamar, who had been successively Er's and Onan's wife,<ref name="bibleverse||Genesis|38:7-10"/> to be married to Shelah.<ref name="bibleverse||Genesis|38:11">Template:Bibleverse</ref> Judah's concern was that Tamar might be cursed and Shelah might die if married to her. So Judah told her to wait until Shelah had grown up.<ref name="bibleverse||Genesis|38:11"/> When Shelah came of age, Judah neglected to marry him to Tamar.<ref>Template:Bibleverse</ref> In the Book of Chronicles, Shelah is identified as the name of a clan, containing a subclan named Er.

According Template:Bibleverse, the sons of Shelah were:

1. Er, the father of Lecah
2. Laadah, the father of Mareshah.
3. The families of the house of the linen workers of the house of Ashbea
4. Jokim, the men of Chozeba
5. Joash
6. Saraph
7. Jashubi-Lehem

The descendants of the last four sons were potters who dwelt at Netaim and Gederah and worked for the king.

According to some biblical scholars, the description of Shelah is an eponymous aetiological myth concerning fluctuations in the constituency of the tribe of Judah, with Shelah representing the newest clan to become part of the tribe.<ref name="J. A. Emerton, Judah And Tamar">J. A. Emerton, Judah And Tamar</ref><ref name="ReferenceA">Cheyne and Black, Encyclopedia Biblica</ref> The Book of Chronicles' description of Er as a descendant of Shelah, suggests that Er was in reality the name of a clan that was originally equal in status to the Shelah clan, but was later subsumed by it.<ref name="J. A. Emerton, Judah And Tamar"/><ref name="ReferenceA"/>

Professor Aaron Demsky argues that the genealogy of Shelah is an allegory of the history of Shelanite clans in Shephelah (i.e. Judean foothills). Remnants of the Er clan joined the Shelanites and founded the city of Lecah, which was the alternative name for Lachish. Later, the Laadah clan founded Mareshah, a town of secondary importance to Lachish. The families of Beth Asheba lived in a town of the same name and produced clothing for the priesthood and aristocracy, using byssus cloth. The Jokim clan founded Chozeba, which was synonymous with the Chezib near Mareshah. The Joash and Saraph clans lived with the Moabites. The last Shelanite clans to emerge consisted of the residents of Lahem or Lahmas. The last four clans worked for the king, who was most likely Hezekiah.<ref name=":0" />

In 701 BC, Sennacherib destroyed important Shelanite cities. Survivors fled to Jerusalem and assimilated with the local populace after the return of Babylonian exiles<ref name=":0" /> in c.a. 538 BC.<ref>Ezra 2:64–65</ref><ref>http://hirr.hartsem.edu/ency/jews.htm Template:Webarchive , the "population" section of this article estimates a pre-exilic population of 1.8 million in Israel and Judah combined. referenced on 6/26/2018.</ref> According to Demsky, the author of the Book of Chronicles considered the Shelanite clans to be inferior to other Judahite clans, based on their positioning in the biblical text.<ref name=":0" />

Scholars have argued that the Tamar and Shelah narrative has a secondary role in either promoting the institution of levirate marriage, or presenting an aetiological myth for its origin;<ref name="J. A. Emerton, Judah And Tamar" /> Shelah's role in the narrative would thus be as the example of a brother refusing to perform levirate marriage.<ref name="J. A. Emerton, Judah And Tamar" /> John Emerton regards the evidence for this as inconclusive, though classical rabbinical writers argued that this narrative concerns the origin of levirate marriage.<ref>Genesis Rabbah 85:6</ref>