Ramah

In the Bible

Ramah appears in several books of the Old Testament. The principal passages are as follows.

• A town of the tribe of Benjamin: Joshua 18:25 lists Ramah among the towns allotted to the tribe of Benjamin. According to Judges 4:5, the judge Deborah judged Israel under a palm tree "between Ramah and Bethel."
• Hometown of Samuel: After the birth of their son, Hannah and her husband Elkanah returned to their house in Ramah (1 Samuel 1:19). Samuel lived in Ramah, where he built an altar and judged the people (1 Samuel 7:17). Ramah was also where the elders of Israel asked for a king (1 Samuel 8:4) and where David, fleeing from Saul, took refuge with Samuel (1 Samuel 19:18). After his death Samuel was buried in Ramah (1 Samuel 25:1).
• Border between the northern and southern kingdoms: After the division of the kingdom, Baasha king of Israel fortified Ramah in an attempt to blockade Judah. When Asa king of Judah enlisted the help of Ben-hadad king of Aram (Syria), Baasha abandoned the work (1 Kings 15:17–22).
• The Prophets: In Isaiah 10:29 and Hosea 5:8, Ramah appears as a town seized with fear at the approach of an enemy army.
• Exile and return: Nebuzaradan, the Babylonian captain of the guard, released Jeremiah at Ramah (Jeremiah 40:1). The list of those who came back in the return from exile also includes "the children of Ramah and Gaba" (Ezra 2:26).

Background

The Hebrew word Ramah (רָמָה) means "high place." For this reason, several towns bore the same name. Examples include Ramah of the tribe of Naphtali (Joshua 19:36) and Ramah on the border of the tribe of Asher (Joshua 19:29). The Ramah of 2 Kings 8:29 is generally taken to refer to Ramoth-gilead.

Ramah of Benjamin is commonly identified with the area of modern er-Ram, about 8 km (5 miles) north of Jerusalem. Scholars differ on whether Samuel's hometown of Ramah (called "Ramathaim-zophim" in 1 Samuel 1:1) is the same place.

Ramah in Jeremiah and Matthew

Jeremiah 31:15 describes Rachel weeping in Ramah for her lost children and refusing to be comforted. Rachel was the mother of Joseph and Benjamin. The verse is commonly read as a picture of the mother of Israel mourning over the people carried away to Assyria and Babylon. The fact that Ramah was a gathering place for captives (Jeremiah 40:1) is often cited as the reason this location was chosen. The verses that follow (16–17) offer the comfort that her children will return, and verse 31 promises a new covenant.

The Gospel of Matthew (2:16–18) quotes this verse in connection with Herod's killing of the male children two years old and under in Bethlehem and its surrounding region. This scene is linked to the account of the flight into Egypt.

Interpretations and Debates

• Matthew's use of the quotation: Conservative interpreters read Jeremiah's words as a prophecy looking ahead to the messianic age. Many commentators explain the passage as typological fulfillment. Typology is an interpretive approach that sees Old Testament events as patterns of things to come. On this reading, the grief of the exile is repeated at the Messiah's birth, and the comfort Jeremiah promised is realized in Christ. Some interpreters note that, unlike other fulfillment formulas in Matthew, 2:17 does not say "that it might be fulfilled" but simply "Then was fulfilled."
• Rachel's tomb: Genesis 35:19 says Rachel was buried on the way to Bethlehem, while 1 Samuel 10:2 places her tomb on the border of Benjamin. Various explanations have been offered for harmonizing the two texts.
• Later embellishments: The number of children killed is not given in the text. Later church tradition sometimes reports very large figures, but these are not stated in Scripture. Some traditions commemorate these children, as in the Feast of the Holy Innocents on December 28 in the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church.