Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Gabe Eisenstein <gabe AT cascadeaccess.com>]

I've been annoyingly pushing my agenda regarding Shechem as a theme in 
northern Israelite texts. But here's a strictly linguistic question: why 
does my Strong's say that shechem in the sense of "shoulder" derives 
from shacham, "to rise up early"?
And further: what is the origin of this word? Why is there a special 
word for getting up early?

A nonlinguistic question is: why is this verb used so often in the 
Bible? Why do people always have to do things early in the morning?


Gabe Eisenstein