The Shema is a famous and still very important prayer in Judaism. It comes from Deuteronomy 6:4, where it is written:
“4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”
In Hebrew, that first word “hear” is the command Shema, which itself comes from the Hebrew word “to hear”, Shama.
The modern Jewish prayer consists almost entirely of Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Deuteronomy 11:13-21, and Numbers 15:37-41. And since the first word of this prayer is Shema, the whole thing is now just referred to as “the Shema”.
Even during Jesus’ time, the Shema was recognized as a very important section of the Scriptures. Think of when Jesus said in Mark 12:29 that the greatest command was “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”
And, strangely enough, the word Shema was also the name of four men and one city recorded in The Old Testament. You can find all references to these men and this city in 1 Chronicles 2:43, 1 Chronicles 5:8, 1 Chronicles 8:13, Nehemiah 8:4, and Joshua 15:26.
It seems that the name was probably from the noun form of Shema, which would mean “sound”. So, their names were something along the lines of “sound”, “hearing”, or “fame”.
Plus, this is where we get the modern names Simeon and Simon.