🔼The name Shuppim: Summary
- Meaning
- Border Markers
- Etymology
- From the verb שפף (sapap), to mark a border or reach across it.
🔼The name Shuppim in the Bible
There are two men named Shuppim mentioned in the Bible:
- A son of Ir of Benjamin and brother of Huppim (1 Chronicles 7:12, spelled שפם, like the name Shapham). It appears that these two sons of Ir were provided with a wife by Machir of Manasseh (1 Chronicles 7:14, now spelled שפים).
- One of the gatekeeping Levites in the time of David (1 Chronicles 26:16, also spelled שפים). This man was teamed up with Hosah to guard the west, near the gate of Shallecheth.
🔼Etymology of the name Shuppim
The name Shuppim clearly derives from the root שפף (sapap), to mark a border or reach across it:
ספף
Root ספף (sapap) has to do with creating, marking or temporarily reaching through the border between two essentially distinct realms that nevertheless have a common origin; this border circles around the smaller of the two so that this smaller realm sits within the larger. It's the verb that describes any such formation from the palisade around a tribal territory to the fence around a single house, the skin of a person or even the cellular wall of a eukaryote.
Noun סף (sap) means threshold or sill (and is also the word for a kind of goblin or based bowl). Verb סוף (sup) means to come at an end. Noun סוף (sop) means end. Noun שפה (sapa) denotes the edge of things. Noun סופה (supa) describes a violent storm (perhaps a tornado, in form comparable to a goblin or based bowl).
Noun סוף (sup) refers to reed, which grows at, and thus marks the border between water and dry land. From reed comes papyrus, and books mark the border between the howling outer dark and the enlightened space within. The industrial production of papyrus, of course, was an absolute marvel and a milestone in information technology (easily comparable with the invention of floppies and disk drives in our age).
Verb ספה (sapa) means to sweep away (across the threshold, out the door) and so does verb שפה (shapa). The latter may also mean to skim, to shave or to border-mark by means of a protruding beacon or mark. From the latter comes the verb שפת (shapat), which describes some kind of setting or placing just outside the realm of civilization, and that usually by means of a ring of conspicuous, guiding and protecting fires. Proverbially, both the contagious and the extremely poor, and of course the shepherds, their flocks and wild animals abided on the dark side of these fires. The latter verb also yields noun שפי (shepi), which describes bones sticking through the skin of an emaciated man, or hills that likewise conspicuously mark some border, presumably in an otherwise flat landscape.
Verb שוף (shup) appears to mean to violate in the sense of illicitly entering one's personal space (or body). This verb became associated with the bite of a snake, and the noun שפיפן (shepipon) denotes some sort of snake, presumably one that attacks by darting from its burrow and then swiftly retreating.
🔼Shuppim meaning
For a meaning of the name Shuppim, NOBSE Study Bible Name List reads the singular Serpent and Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names suggests a plural Serpents. BDB Theological Dictionary does not interpret our name but does list it under the root שפף (spp).
Here at Abarim Publications we surmise that the name Shuppim emphasizes the marking of a national or social border of some sort. The Bible is of course not at all concerned with the political evolution of nations and solely with the advance of mankind's knowledge of nature and the development of technologies to aid that, and Shuppim and his brothers perhaps personify bridges between previously unrelated scientific disciplines.