4. Why it is written Sychar, and not Sychem.

'Nebuchadnezzar' is elsewhere 'Nebuchadrezzar'; 'Belial' is 'Beliar'; 'Shepham,' by the Greek interpreters, Sephamar, Numbers 34:11: so Sychem, Sychar; and this so much the rather because the letters r and m have obtained I know not what kind of relation and affinity one with another. So Dammesek and Darmesek in the Holy Scriptures; and the 'Samaritans' are the 'Samatians' in Dionysius Afer, &c.

Or, secondly, it might happen that the Jews, by way of scoff and opprobrium, might vulgarly call Sychem Sychar, either that they might stigmatize the Samaritans as 'drunkards,' Isaiah 28:1, "Woe to the drunkards of Ephraim"; or (as the word might be variously writ and pronounced) might give them some or other disgraceful mark. So Aruch in Sochere, i.e. sepulchres. He quotes a place where the words are not as they are by him cited; nor is he consistent with himself in the interpretation. But Munster hath a sepulchre. If it be thus, perhaps Sychem, might be called Sychar, because there the twelve patriarchs were buried; and under that notion the Samaritans might glory in that name.