SHIBAH . A name given to a well dug by Isaac ( Genesis 26:33 ), which gave its name to the town Beersheba (wh. see). The word means, according to the writer, ‘an oath’; and Beersheba is ‘the well of the oath,’ so named from the swearing of the oath of friendship between Isaac and Abimelech ( Genesis 26:31 ). In Genesis 21:22-31 we have another account, according to which the well was dug by Abraham and received its name from the oath between Abraham and Abimelech. There is also a play on the word shÄ•bû‘ah , ‘oath’ and sheba ‘, ‘seven,’ as a sacrifice of seven lambs was offered. Perhaps the name, however, was already in existence before Abraham’s time, and the writer simply gives a more or less plausible explanation of its derivation.
W. F. Boyd.