🔼The name Shimrath: Summary
- Meaning
- Guarding, Ward
- Etymology
- From the verb שמר (shamar), to keep or guard.
🔼The name Shimrath in the Bible
There's only one Shimrath mentioned in the Bible. He is mentioned as a son of Shashak of Benjamin, and that's all we know about him (1 Chronicles 8:21).
🔼Etymology of the name Shimrath
The name Shimrath could be regarded as a (second person) form of the verb שמר (shamar), meaning to keep, guard, observe or give heed:
שמר
The verb שמר (shamar) means to guard or to exercise great care over. Noun שמרה (shomra) means guard. Noun שמר (shimmur) means night watch. Noun אשמורה ('ashmura) or אשמרת ('ashmoret) refers to the night watch as unit of time. Noun משמר (mishmar) describes the "place or agent" of guarding, which may come down to either a prison or a guard, but it may also describe the keeping on some religious observances or something like that. Noun משמרת (mishmeret), literally meaning "with the function of watching," used in the sense of a charge or obligation; an official function of guarding. Noun שמרה (shemura) describes an eyelid.
Noun שמר (shemer) describes the dregs or residue that collects at the bottom of a bottle of wine. This word may stem from a whole other root, or it reflects the similarity between patiently standing through a night watch and a bottle ageing in a rack. This word may also describe a stagnant heart, either as a heart in which dregs settle out or a heart that's carefully guarded.
Noun שמיר (shamir) describes some kind of wild, thorny vegetation that covers large areas. Again, this noun may stem from a whole other verb, but a hedge of thorns is not unlike a perimeter peopled by armed guards, or even a tender heart that's guarded by sarcasm and a proneness to insult.
The noun שמור (shamor), fennel, equals the Greek noun μαραθον (marathon), and Greece's victory at the Battle of Marathon (490 BC) made the whole world Greek.
🔼Shimrath meaning
For a meaning of the name, NOBSE Study Bible Name List reads Guarding. Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names has Ward, and adds "i.e. one in the hands of the Divine guardian or men". BDB Theological Dictionary does not translate our name but does list it under the verb שמר (shamar).