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RAMAH

(Heb. rāmâ)

Common designation for elevated towns and villages in ancient Israel (Heb. “the height”).

1. A town allotted to Benjamin (Josh. 18:25), located on the border of Ephraim. It is usually identified with modern er-Râm (172140), 8 km. (5 mi.) N of Jerusalem. Deborah the prophetess would sit under a palm tree between Ramah and Bethel and decide Israelite disputes (Judg. 4:5). Ca. 900 b.c. King Baasha of Israel captured Ramah and fortified the city in an attempt to cut off northern access to Jerusalem. Baasha’s occupation of Ramah ended when King Asa of Judah bribed Ben-hadad of Aram to attack Israel (1 Kgs. 15:16-22; 2 Chr. 16:1-6). In the late 8th century both Hosea (Hos. 5:8) and Isaiah (Isa. 10:29) allude to an attack on the city (probably by the Assyrians, though some have suggested the Syro-Ephraimite coalition). Captives seem to have been collected at Ramah for deportation to Babylon (Jer. 40:1). Jeremiah portrays Rachel (the mother of Benjamin whose tomb was nearby) as “weeping for her children,” i.e., for the Jews being taken into exile (Jer. 31:15). Matthew applies Jeremiah’s lamentation to the sorrow experienced when Herod massacred the babies at Bethlehem (Matt. 2:18). Ramah is mentioned in several postexilic contexts (Ezra 2:26; Neh. 7:30; 11:33).

2. Ramah of the Negeb; a town in the territory of Simeon (also called Baalath-beer; Josh. 19:8). David sent some of the plunder taken from the Amalekites to a town near Ziklag called Ramoth of the Negeb (1 Sam. 30:27), undoubtedly the same place. The site has not been certainly identified.

3. A village near the northern border of Asher, in the vicinity of Tyre (Josh. 19:29). Modern Ramieh (180280) has sometimes been identified as the biblical site, though this is uncertain.

4. A fortified city in Naphtali (Josh. 19:36), usually identified with modern Khirbet Zeitûn er-Râmeh/Khirbet Jûl (187259), 13 km. (8 mi.) SW of Safed.

5. The hometown of Samuel. Many scholars equate Samuel’s birthplace with Ramah of Benjamin, arguing that Samuel’s father Elkanah was a descendant of Zuph (1 Sam. 1:1), a Levite of the Kohathites who settled in northern Benjamin (9:5; cf. Josh. 21:5; 1 Chr. 6:22-26, 35, 66-70), or that Ramah (near the border of Ephraim) was inhabited by Zuphites. Others understand 1 Sam. 1:1 to mean that Ramathaim (“two heights”), usually called Ramah (cf. v. 19; 2:11), was located in the territory of Ephraim. The latter has sometimes been associated with NT Arimathea, modern Rentîs (151159; cf. Eusebius Onom. 32.21-23). Samuel was born in Ramah (1 Sam. 1:19-20), grew up in Shiloh (v. 24), but after the tabernacle was moved from Shiloh returned to Ramah where he spent most of his adult life (7:17; 25:1).

6. A shortened form of the name for Transjordanian Ramoth-gilead (2 Kgs. 8:29 = 2 Chr. 22:6).

Stephen R. Miller

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

RAMAH

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)