town or village

Shunem

• Today Sulam

Open on the map →

History

Shunem is identified with the village of Sulam, at the foot of the hill now called Givat HaMoreh on the north side of the Jezreel Valley, about 5 km north of Jezreel and facing Mount Gilboa across the plain. In the fourteenth century BC Biridiya, ruler of Megiddo, wrote to Pharaoh in one of the Amarna letters that he alone was cultivating at Shunama and furnishing men for the corvée; another letter recalls that Lab'ayu of Shechem had attacked Shunama. The town also appears in the lists of conquered places of Thutmose III and of Shishak at Karnak.

In the Book of Joshua Shunem lies on the border of Issachar. Before Saul's last battle the Philistines "came and pitched in Shunem", while Saul gathered all Israel in Gilboa; Josephus places their camp near the city Shunem, in the plain. When King David was old, his servants sought a fair damsel throughout all Israel and found Abishag the Shunammite to minister to him. After David's death Adonijah asked for Abishag to wife, and Solomon took the request as a claim to the kingdom and had him put to death.

Elisha, passing through, often ate at the house of a great woman of Shunem; she and her husband made him a little chamber on the wall with a bed, a table, a stool and a candlestick. Elisha promised her a son, and she bore one; when the child died, she rode to the prophet at Mount Carmel, and he came and raised him to life. Later, at Elisha's word, she sojourned seven years in the land of the Philistines during a famine, and on her return the king restored her house and her land. Some link the Shulamite of the Song of Solomon with Shunem, but this is uncertain.

In the early fourth century Eusebius knew a village called Soulem five miles south of Mount Tabor. Small excavations in the village of Sulam have found pottery of the Bronze and Iron Ages and remains of the Roman and Byzantine periods.

Scripture: Josh 19:18; 1 Sam 28:4; 1 Sam 31:1; 1 Kgs 1:1–4; 1 Kgs 2:13–25; 2 Kgs 4:8–37; 2 Kgs 8:1–6; Song 6:13

Checked against its sources; not yet read by a historian.

Verses (9)

Josh 19:18

And their border was toward Jezreel, and Chesulloth, and Shunem,

1 Sam 28:4

And the Philistines gathered themselves together, and came and pitched in Shunem: and Saul gathered all Israel together, and they pitched in Gilboa.

1 Kgs 1:3

So they sought for a fair damsel throughout all the coasts of Israel, and found Abishag a Shunammite, and brought her to the king.

1 Kgs 2:17

And he said, Speak, I pray thee, unto Solomon the king, (for he will not say thee nay,) that he give me Abishag the Shunammite to wife.

1 Kgs 2:21

And she said, Let Abishag the Shunammite be given to Adonijah thy brother to wife.

2 Kgs 4:8

And it fell on a day, that Elisha passed to Shunem, where was a great woman; and she constrained him to eat bread. And so it was, that as oft as he passed by, he turned in thither to eat bread.

2 Kgs 4:11

And it fell on a day, that he came thither, and he turned into the chamber, and lay there.

2 Kgs 4:12

And he said to Gehazi his servant, Call this Shunammite. And when he had called her, she stood before him.

2 Kgs 4:25

So she went and came unto the man of God to mount Carmel. And it came to pass, when the man of God saw her afar off, that he said to Gehazi his servant, Behold, yonder is that Shunammite:

King James Version

Tours through this place

• Elisha the prophet →