Geshem
Ge'shem (Heb. id. גֶּשֶׁם a shower, if Heb.; Fürst, firmness; but more prob. the Arabic Jasim or Jahum, a historical name in Arabia Proper; Sept. Γηρσώμ, Vulg. Gesam), once (Ne 6:6) in the prolonged form GASH'MU (He.). Gashmu', גִּשׁמוּ), as Arabian (Ne 2:19; Ne 6:1), and one of the enemies of the Jews on the returns from the exile, especially in the plots against the life of Nehemiah (Ne 6:2). B.C. 446. Geshem, we may conclude, was an inhabitant of Arabia Petraea, or of the Arabian Desert, and probably the chief of a tribe which, like most of the tribes on the osastern frontier of Palestine, was, in the time of the captivity and the subsequent period, allied with the Persians, or with any peoples threatening the Jewish nation. Geshems, like Sanballat and Tobiab, seems to have been one of the "governors beyond the river," to whom Nehemiah came, and whose mission "grieved them exceedingly, that there was come a man to seek the welfare of the children of Israel" (Ne 2:10); for the wsardering inhabitants of the frontier doubtless availed themnselves largely, in their predatory excursions, of the distracted state of Palestine, and dreaded the re-establishment of the kingdom; and the Arabians, Ammonites, and Ashdodites are recorded as having "conspired to fight against Jerusalem, and to hinder" its repairing. SEE NEHEMIAH.
