Shema (Man living at the time of Exile and Return)

Shema is a name shared by at least four different men in the genealogical lists of Chronicles and Nehemiah, not a single figure. One Shema was a descendant of Caleb through Hebron, in the tribe of Judah, and fathered Raham (1 Chronicles 2:43-44). A second was an ancestor of Bela, a leading man among the Reubenites who lived on the plateau east of the Jordan (1 Chronicles 5:8). A third was a Benjamite clan leader who helped drive the inhabitants out of Gath (1 Chronicles 8:13), and a fourth stood on the wooden platform beside Ezra when he read the Law aloud to the assembled people at the Water Gate in Jerusalem (Nehemiah 8:4).