Shecaniah; Shechaniah

SHECANIAH; SHECHANIAH

shek-a-ni'-a, shekan'-ya (shekhanyah (in 1 Chronicles 24:11; 2 Chronicles 31:15, shekhanyahu); Codex Vaticanus Ischania, Sekenia):

(1) A descendant of Zerubbabel (1 Chronicles 3:21,22). This is the same Shecaniah mentioned in Ezra 8:3.

(2) "The sons of Shecaniah," so the Massoretic Text of Ezra 8:5 reads, were among those who returned with Ezra, but a name appears to have been lost from the text, and we should probably read "of the sons of Zattu, Shecaniah the son of Jahaziel" (compare 1 Esdras 8:32, "of the sons of Zathoes, Sechenias the son of Jezelus").

(3) Chief of the tenth course of priests (1 Chronicles 24:11).

(4) A priest in the reign of Hezekiah (2 Chronicles 31:15).

(5) A contemporary of Ezra who supported him in his opposition to foreign marriages (Ezra 10:2).

(6) The father of Shemaiah, "the keeper of the east gate" (Nehemiah 3:29).

(7) The father-in-law of Tobiah the Ammonite (Nehemiah 6:18).

(8) The eponym of a family which returned with Zerubbabel (Nehemiah 12:3). It is the same name which, by an interchange of "bh" and "kh", appears as Shebaniah (see SHEBANIAH, (2)) in Nehemiah 10:4,12,14.

Horace J. Wolf