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Shibboleth

Smith's Bible Dictionary

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Concordances
Nave Topical Bible
• Shibboleth
Dictionaries
American Tract Society
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Easton's Bible Dictionary
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Fausset Bible Dictionary
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Holman Bible Dictionary
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Hitchcock Bible Names
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Hastings' BibleDictionary
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King James Dictionary
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Morrish Bible Dictionary
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1910 New Catholic Dictionary
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Hawker's Poor Man's Dictionary
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People's Bible Dictionary
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Smith Bible Dictionary
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Webster Dictionary
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Watson's Theological Dictionary
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Encyclopedias
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
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International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
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Kitto Biblical Cyclopedia
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McClintock and Strong's Bible Encyclopedia
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The Nuttall Encyclopedia
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The Jewish Encyclopedia
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Lexicons
• שִׁבֹּלֶת , שִׁבֹּלֶת
• שַׁבְּלולּ

Shibboleth. (a stream). Judges 12:6. Shibboleth is the Hebrew word, which the Gileadites, under Jephthah, made use of at the passage of the Jordan, after a victory over the Ephraimites, to test the pronunciation of the sound, "sh", by those who wished to cross over the river. The Ephraimites, it would appear, in their dialect, substituted for "sh", the simple sound "s"; and the Gileadites, regarding every one who failed to pronounce "sh" as an Ephraimite, and therefore an enemy, put him to death accordingly. In this way, there fell 42,000 Ephraimites. There is no mystery in this particular word. Any word beginning with the sound "sh" would have answered equally well as a test.