Hashum

Hashum (meaning opulent or their silence) is the name of two individuals in the post-exilic records. The first is the head of a family of returnees from Babylon: 228 men of the children of Hashum are listed in Ezra 2:19 (Nehemiah 7:22 gives 328) among those who returned with Zerubbabel. Seven members of this family had married foreign women and were included in Ezra's reform (Ezra 10:33). The second Hashum stood at Ezra's left hand during the public reading of the law at the Water Gate (Nehemiah 8:4) and also signed the covenant renewal document (Nehemiah 10:18), suggesting a prominent lay leader in the Jerusalem community.