Christians know that, first and foremost, God’s Word is the story of God, His love, and His plan of redemption for the people He created—realized in Jesus Christ. However, the Bible also records the stories of hundreds of men and women who lived and breathed on the earth. A close reader of this vast work (sixty-six books written by about forty authors over fifteen hundred years) will find little gems about obscure individuals hidden in genealogies or historical passages. This is where we find a woman named Sheerah tucked into 1 Chronicles 7. The single verse we have about Sheerah provides intriguing details about her life. Frustratingly, it’s the only mention of her anywhere in Scripture.
Whenever we discover one of these single-verse stories, we should certainly stop to consider why God included it in His Word. We know God to be intentional, so recording the name and accomplishment of an individual in His Word is a signal there’s something for us to note in its inclusion. At the very least, we can tell that God knew Sheerah, witnessed her work, and determined that her accomplishment should be known to readers of His Word.
Yet, when approaching these scant passages, we need to exercise caution. When we’re given such spare detail about an individual, we may be tempted to fill in the blanks with our imaginations. Speculating on the lives of biblical figures using what we know about ancient cultures and about human beings in general can help set their stories in context, even “bring them to life.” But, when teaching or drawing lessons from the passage, we’re wise to stick with what we know. We can trust that Sheerah was an actual historical figure and because of that, we’re not free to create our own mythology around her but must content ourselves with all the information that God believed we needed to understand.
Here is what we know. First and Second Chronicles were likely written by a priest or Levitical scribe during the Persian period of biblical history (think Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther). The first nine chapters are the genealogical records of the Israelites from Adam to the exiles who returned to Israel after the Dispersion. Included in these lists are notes about where each tribe’s allotted land was in Israel. This makes sense since the Jewish remnant was reassembling and rebuilding Jerusalem.
1 Chronicles 7 includes the descendants of Jacob’s sons Issachar, Benjamin, Naphtali, and Asher. It also includes the two sons of Joseph whom Jacob legally claimed in his final blessing in order to doubly bless Joseph—Manasseh and Ephraim.
When Joseph won the favor of Pharaoh, he was given an Egyptian wife named Asenath (Genesis 41:45). She was the daughter of Potiphera, priest of On. “Before the year of famine came, two sons were born to Joseph. Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera priest of On, bore them to him. Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh. ‘For,’ he said, ‘God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father's house.’ The name of the second he called Ephraim, ‘For God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction’” (Genesis 41:50-52 ESV). Genesis 50 tells us that Joseph lived out his days in Egypt and “saw Ephraim’s children to the third generation” (Genesis 50:22).
Sheerah, to most readers of the passage, was the daughter of Ephraim, making her a direct descendant of Joseph and his Egyptian wife. According to the timeline, she would have lived during the lifetime of her grandfather, Joseph. Some read 1 Chronicles 7:24 to mean that Beriah was her father but it’s just as likely that she was a daughter to Ephraim. Either way, she was either granddaughter or great-granddaughter to Joseph. She was born into a family led by an Israelite who served the Living God but who had spent the majority of his life in Egypt. His marriage to Asenath was arranged civilly and politically by the Pharaoh to honor Joseph, but we know he remained faithful to his God.
Sheerah was also born into a family that had experienced great tragedy. Ephraim had initially had many sons, but they were all killed suddenly in a raid by the men of Gath. Ephraim mourned bitterly, but after a time, “Ephraim went in to his wife, and she conceived and bore a son. And he called his name Beriah, because disaster had befallen his house” (1 Chronicles 7:23). Beriah sounds like the Hebrew word for disaster. After this, a daughter, Sheerah, was born, followed by other sons.
1 Chronicles 7:27 also records that from Ephraim’s tribe came Nun, the father of Joshua, who led the Israelites after the death of Moses. Sheerah clearly came from a powerful lineage with strong ties to faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Still, there may have been some influence on the generations by Asenath’s family, priests of On, who led worship of the Egyptian sun god in Heliopolis. The tribe of Ephraim would eventually be called out for their idolatry by Hosea (Hosea 4:17 and Hosea 12:1) and taken captive by the Assyrians during the fall of the Northern Kingdom. These events, however, would happen generations after the life of Sheerah.
So, we know that Sheerah was born in a time when the Israelites were likely still held in favor in Egypt. Joseph’s God had given him the meaning of Pharaoh’s dreams, warning the Egyptians of a famine and laying out a plan to save the nation. Joseph was second in the land only to Pharaoh. Sheerah lived centuries before the Israelites were enslaved by the Egyptians. Ephraim was half Hebrew and half Egyptian, son of a prominent and powerful father, still mourning the sudden loss of many sons when Sheerah was born.
This context makes the single verse about Sheerah all the more intriguing. “His daughter was Sheerah, who built both Lower and Upper Beth-horon, and Uzzen-sheerah” (1 Chronicles 7:24). Was Sheerah the architect or designer of these cities? Did Sheerah work as a builder or as an overseer of the construction of these places? Or was she the patron who supplied the funding for these works? Any of these possibilities suggest that Sheerah was a woman of intelligence, industry, and creative energy.
We know that the twin cities of Upper and Lower Beth-horon were instrumental geographically in a battle in which the Lord supported Joshua’s victory in Joshua 10:9-11. They were also borders marking the land designated for the tribe of Ephraim. We also know that Solomon rebuilt the cities of Lower and Upper Beth-horon later on as recorded in 2 Chronicles 8:5. Uzzen-sheerah was a city whose name incorporated its builder, Sheerah’s, name. Some have suggested it means “portion of Sheerah” while others state that the meaning is unclear.
The true author of Scripture is God and so we can know for certain He wanted it recorded that Sheerah was a builder of cities. Sheerah was a daughter (or granddaughter) born out of grief into recovery. She was born to a family that usually produced sons. She was also a daughter of the Living God and a daughter of Egypt—in whom these great nations merged and descended from Joseph who was accustomed to managing large public works. We don’t know if she had a family of her own as she isn’t associated anywhere with a husband, an unusual distinction in such a genealogy of this time in Israel.
Perhaps the cities she built stood as testaments in stone that one time the nation of Egypt had been an ally of the people of Israel and had witnessed the mercy of the living God. Maybe Sheerah wanted to build lasting monuments so her family would be remembered for more than the tragic deaths of her older brothers. It’s possible that building or designing was a way to stand out in a family of sons or that she admired her grandfather, Joseph, and sought to contribute on a grand scale as he did. We might even imagine that, seeing the spark of building skill in his granddaughter, Joseph may have encouraged her to take on these great works. There are many possibilities, but what’s clear is that this woman had the skills, resources, and motivation to build three entire cities and that God wanted us to know her name and remember what she accomplished.
I believe the greatest lesson we can learn from Sheerah is that God decides who will be remembered and for what. There is a parallel to this in Mark 14:3-9 when a woman anointed Jesus with oil, upsetting the disciples, specifically Judas. Jesus declared that “wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her” (Mark 14:9). It’s not likely anyone else in that room wanted that story remembered as most of them don’t come out looking very good, but Jesus wanted it remembered, and so it is.
God determines the scope of our impact. Here in this single verse in 2 Chronicles, God ensures that the name of Sheerah will be remembered. Think about the powerful Pharaohs and military leaders of that ancient time whose names have been lost to history, and yet, Sheerah’s name stands.
Think, too, about those ancient mighty men and women whose souls are lost forever because they worshipped idols while this one woman is remembered forever by the Living God. Our response to the Son of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob determines where we will spend eternity. The writer of Ecclesiastes penned this warning, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going” (Ecclesiastes 9:10).
Perhaps this was on the mind of Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1818, inspiring him to write a poem, now in public domain, titled Ozymandias. The poem is about this idea of those who built great statues and pyramids wanting to be remembered only to have their works eaten away by the sand. In the poem, a traveler describes parts of a massive statue spotted in the desert. The last six lines read:
“And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Sheerah’s cities may be lost to the sands of time, but Sheerah’s name lives on, and perhaps her soul does, too, if she worshipped God in faith, looking to the Messiah yet to come.
May this single verse about Sheerah and her cities remind us of Jesus’s Words to His disciples in Luke 10:20, “Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” It’s impressive that there was a Hebrew woman who built cities in Egypt. More impressive, though, is that God knew her by name, Sheerah, and now, so do we.
Further Reading
Sheerah – Meaning and Verses
Sheerah Scriptures
Photo credit: ©Getty/Dion Lefeldt Rezaei