Shittim

Shittim is the name of a place in the plains of Moab, east of the Jordan opposite Jericho, where Israel camped before entering Canaan; the Hebrew word means “acacias,” and the place also appears in the longer form Abel-shittim, “meadow of acacias.”

The text says that Israel “stayed in Shittim” and there “began to play the prostitute with the daughters of Moab” (Numbers 25:1), the episode that runs on into the Baal-peor apostasy and plague. From Shittim Joshua sent the two spies who came to Rahab’s house in Jericho (Joshua 2:1), and Micah has Yahweh summon Israel to remember the journey “from Shittim to Gilgal” (Micah 6:5) — that is, from the last camp east of the river to the first camp west of it. Shittim is thus consistently the staging point on the far side of the Jordan. Its exact site is uncertain; historically, proposals have clustered in the southern Jordan Valley near the river’s mouth, and the fuller name Abel-shittim is located “in the plains of Moab” in the itinerary of Numbers 33:49.

Linguistically, shittim is the plural of shittah, the acacia tree, and the same word stands behind the “acacia wood” of the tabernacle furnishings — the ark (Exodus 25:10) and its pillars and sockets (Exodus 26:37) — and behind the acacia listed among the trees Yahweh promises to plant in the wilderness (Isaiah 41:19). The name therefore describes a place characterized by acacias, a tree suited to dry valley ground. Joel speaks separately of a “valley of Shittim” that a fountain issuing from Yahweh’s house will water (Joel 3:18).

Traditions read these details differently. Some take Joel’s valley literally as a valley of acacias within the promised landscape; others, in a long-standing identification, connect it with the Kidron Valley near Jerusalem. One interpretive suggestion, not a settled point, hears in Abel (“meadow”) a homophone of Hebrew ’ebel, “mourning,” and links the name to the deaths at Baal-peor. Shittim’s association with apostasy (Numbers 25:1) is preached in both Jewish and Christian settings as a warning about compromise, while Micah 6:5 is read as a call to remember God’s faithfulness; the text itself states the events, and the moral application belongs to later readers.

AI-generated reference entry, grounded in the passages where this term appears — history and Scripture stated as such, interpretation labeled as interpretation. Not a substitute for the text itself.