The son of Noah blessed by his father, an ancestor of Abraham.
The Righteous Forefather Shem, Son of Noah
Shem was one of the three sons of the Righteous Noah, named in the genealogies of Genesis (chapters 5-11) and in 1 Chronicles 1:4. Through him the line of the patriarchs is traced from Noah to Abraham, and the Orthodox Church numbers him among the Holy Forefathers of Christ. He is commemorated on December 14, and corporately on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers, the second Sunday before the Nativity, when the Church remembers the righteous men and women of the Old Covenant who awaited the coming of the Messiah.
Shem is remembered chiefly for the blessing he received from his father. After the Flood, when Noah had planted a vineyard and lay drunk and uncovered in his tent, Shem (with Japheth) covered their father without looking upon his nakedness, while their brother Ham did not honor him; upon waking, Noah blessed Shem and prophesied concerning his descendants (Genesis 9:20ff). The Synaxarion for the Sunday before the Nativity relates that 'on account of his piety and respect for the dignity of his father, Shem was chosen by God to be the ancestor of the glorious line of Abraham and the Israelites.'
From Shem descended the peoples called, after him, the Semites; among these the Hebrew people are reckoned first, the people with whom faith in the true God was preserved. The genealogy of Genesis 11 traces the line from Shem through his son Arpachshad down to Abraham, so that Shem stands as a forefather of the patriarchs and, in the Church's reading, of the lineage leading to Christ according to the flesh. According to the Genesis account he begot Arpachshad two years after the Flood and lived a great span of years thereafter.
Genesis names five sons of Shem: Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud, and Aram. Through Arpachshad the scriptural genealogy continues to Abraham, which is why Shem is honored among the forefathers of Christ. The wider family of nations descended from Shem is traditionally associated with the peoples of the Near East and gives its name to the Semitic peoples.
An old tradition, found in Jewish sources such as the Targums and the Talmud and discussed by some of the Fathers, identifies Shem with Melchizedek, the king and priest of Salem who blessed Abraham (Genesis 14). Saint Ephrem the Syrian noted that because the span of Melchizedek's life would have reached down to the days of Jacob and Esau, it had been said 'with much probability' that he was Shem. This identification is a tradition and a matter of opinion rather than a settled teaching: the Orthodox Church commemorates the Righteous Melchizedek, King of Salem, as a distinct figure, honoring him above all as a type and prefiguration of Christ the eternal High Priest.
Among the Holy Forefathers, commemorated on the Sunday before the Nativity of Christ.