Hebrew word · H8020

שַׁלְמַן

shalman

Shalman

A personal name (Shalman) and a place name (Beth-arbel, 'House of Arbel'). Neither appears anywhere else in the Hebrew Bible.

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament.

What it means

A man living at the time of Divided Monarchy, first mentioned at 2Ki.17.3; also called Shalman at Hos.10.14;

Another name of shal.man.e.ser (שַׁלְמַנְאֶ֫סֶר "Shalmaneser" H8022)

§ Shalman = "fire-worshipper"

1) a contraction for Shalmaneser king of Assyria

1a) maybe an obscure Assyrian king, predecessor of Pul

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

Range of meaning: A personal name (Shalman) and a place name (Beth-arbel, 'House of Arbel'). Neither appears anywhere else in the Hebrew Bible.
Against the English: Most versions read 'as Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel', taking Shalman as the attacker and Beth-arbel as the victim. YLT's 'Shalman of Beth-Arbel' treats the town as Shalman's home, which the Hebrew allows but which fits the context less well.
Used elsewhere in the period: Candidates for Shalman: (1) Salamanu, a king of Moab who paid tribute to Tiglath-pileser III around 732 BC according to that king's annals. (2) An abbreviation of Shalmaneser, either Shalmaneser V (727–722 BC), who besieged Samaria, or Shalmaneser III, who campaigned in the region in 841 BC. Beth-arbel is most often identified with Irbid in northern Gilead, east of the Jordan, or with Arbela west of the Sea of Galilee, which Eusebius's place-name handbook mentions.

Hosea · 1

Hosea 10:14 שַֽׁלְמַ֛ן Shalman

the roar of battle will rise against your people, so that all your fortresses will be demolished as Shalman devastated Beth-arbel in the day of battle, when mothers were dashed to pieces along with their children.

Here: A personal name, the one who did the devastating. Hosea's hearers knew who he was; we no longer do with certainty (see debates).

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.