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Meaning, origin and etymology of the name Shinar


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Shinar Shinar

Shinar is the region in southern Mesopotamia where Nimrod's kingdom commenced. It is also the location of the tower of Babel (Gen 11:2).

"The beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. From that land he went forth into Assyria, and built Nineveh and Rehoboth-Ir and Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city." - Genesis 10:10-12

The etymology or meaning of the name Shinar is unknown.

Jones derives it from shr (sh'r 2437). The root idea is to split open, to break through. Derivative shr (sha'ar 2437a) means gate. But this explanation fails to incorporate the letter nun.

More appealing is the word naar (na'ar 1387-1389):
naar (na'ar 1387) means to growl.
naar (na'ar 1388) means shake, shake out or off.
naar (na'ar 1389) is the root for words like naar (na'ar 1389a), boy, youth, and naar (na'ar 1389b), youth, early life.

This root preceded by the relative particle shin, meaning who, which, that, yields That What Is Young (or Shakes, Growls).

The name Shinar may even remind of a combination of the words shen (shin 2422a), tooth, from the verb shanan (shanan 2422), sharpen, both literally and figuratively of the mind or intellect; and rr ('ar 2930a), foe, and Aramaic loan word which is very sporadically used in the Hebrew text of the Bible. The latter may also be a contraction of the much more common word ir ('ir 1615), city. That would bring the meaning of Shinar to Tooth Town, or City Of Wit.



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