Ramah

The name Ramah ("height") attaches to several distinct sites in the Hebrew scriptures: a Benjamite border town fortified and unfortified across the Asa-Baasha conflict; a town on the coastal frontier of Asher; a town in the Naphtali hill country; and Ramathaim-Zophim in the hill country of Ephraim, the home of Elkanah and the prophet Samuel.

Ramah of Benjamin

Ramah of Benjamin sits in the city-list of the tribe between Gibeon and Beeroth (Jos 18:25). Travelers in Judges treat it as one of a small cluster of overnight stopping-places north of Jerusalem: "Come and let us draw near to one of these places; and we will lodge in Gibeah, or in Ramah" (Jdg 19:13). It lies on the prophetic line that Isaiah traces as the Assyrian advance presses south through Benjamin: "they have gone over the pass; they have taken up their lodging at Geba; Ramah trembles; Gibeah of Saul has fled" (Isa 10:29). Hosea pairs it with Gibeah and Beth-aven in a similar warning: "Blow⁺ the cornet in Gibeah, and the trumpet in Ramah: sound an alarm at Beth-aven; behind you, O Benjamin" (Hos 5:8).

Asa, Baasha, and the Fortification

Because Ramah straddles the road north out of Judah, it became the flashpoint of the border war between Asa of Judah and Baasha of Israel. Baasha "went up against Judah, and built Ramah, that he might not allow anyone to go out or come in to Asa king of Judah" (1Ki 15:17). Asa answered by emptying the treasuries of the house of Yahweh and of the king's house and sending the silver and gold to Ben-hadad of Syria at Damascus, asking him to break his league with Baasha (1Ki 15:18-19). Ben-hadad struck the cities of Israel — Ijon, Dan, Abel-beth-maacah, all Chinneroth, all the land of Naphtali — and Baasha "left off building Ramah, and dwelt in Tirzah" (1Ki 15:20-21). Asa then mustered all Judah and "they carried away the stones of Ramah, and its timber, with which Baasha had built; and King Asa built with them Geba of Benjamin, and Mizpah" (1Ki 15:22). The Chronicler tells the same sequence, dating Baasha's move to "the six and thirtieth year of the reign of Asa," and naming Geba and Mizpah as the two new fortresses raised from Ramah's dismantled stones (2Ch 16:1-6).

Ramah after the Exile

Ramah of Benjamin reappears among the Babylonian-period associations of the town. Jeremiah is released from his chains there: "The word which came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, after Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had let him go from Ramah, when he had taken him being bound in chains among all the captives of Jerusalem and Judah, who were carried away captive to Babylon" (Jer 40:1). The returnees from captivity include "the sons of Ramah and Geba, six hundred twenty and one" (Ezr 2:26), repeated in Nehemiah's roll as "the men of Ramah and Geba, six hundred twenty and one" (Ne 7:30). Nehemiah's later list of resettled Benjamite towns also names it: "Hazor, Ramah, Gittaim" (Ne 11:33).

Rachel Weeping in Ramah

Jeremiah's oracle of comfort opens with a sound rising from this same town: "Thus says Yahweh: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her sons; she refuses to be comforted for her sons, because they are not" (Jer 31:15). The geography matters — Ramah is the Benjamite waystation through which the captives passed (Jer 40:1) — and Rachel, the matriarch buried near her sons' tribal territory, becomes the voice of the bereaved.

Ramah of the South (Simeon)

A Ramah belonging to the tribe of Simeon is identified at the southern edge of its allotment. The boundary description in Joshua reads: "all the villages that were round about these cities to Baalath-beer, Ramah of the South. This is the inheritance of the tribe of the sons of Simeon according to their families" (Jos 19:8). UPDV renders the name as "Ramah of the South" to distinguish this Simeonite site from the Benjamite and other Ramahs; older versions call it "Ramath of the South" or "Ramath-negeb."

Ramah of Asher

A second Ramah lies on the boundary description of the tribe of Asher, on the coastal frontier near Tyre: "and the border turned to Ramah, and to the fortified city of Tyre; and the border turned to Hosah, and the goings out of it were at the sea; Mahalab, Achzib" (Jos 19:29).

Ramah of Naphtali

A third Ramah belongs to the territory of Naphtali, listed among its inland towns: "and Adamah, and Ramah, and Hazor" (Jos 19:36).

Ramathaim-Zophim: The Home of Samuel

A fourth Ramah is identified with Ramathaim-Zophim in the hill-country of Ephraim — the home of Elkanah and Samuel. The opening of 1 Samuel introduces Elkanah as "a certain man from Ramathaim of the Zuphites, of the hill-country of Ephraim" (1Sa 1:1). After the worship at Shiloh, "they rose up early in the morning, and worshiped before Yahweh, and returned, and came to their house to Ramah" (1Sa 1:19), where Hannah conceived and named her son Samuel (1Sa 1:20). Elkanah "went to Ramah to his house," while the boy ministered before Eli (1Sa 2:11).

Ramah is named as Samuel's settled base across his life as judge and prophet. His circuit of judgeship returned year by year to Ramah: "And his return was to Ramah, for his house was there; and there he judged Israel: and he built there an altar to Yahweh" (1Sa 7:17). It is to Ramah that "all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel" to demand a king (1Sa 8:4). After the breach with Saul, "Samuel went to Ramah; and Saul went up to his house to Gibeah of Saul" (1Sa 15:34). After anointing David, "Samuel rose up, and went to Ramah" (1Sa 16:13). When Saul began hunting David, "David fled, and escaped, and came to Samuel to Ramah, and told him all that Saul had done to him. And he and Samuel went and dwelt in Naioth" (1Sa 19:18). Samuel's death and burial are placed at the same town: "And Samuel died; and all Israel gathered themselves together, and lamented him, and buried him in his house at Ramah" (1Sa 25:1), restated when Saul consults the medium of Endor — "Now Samuel was dead, and all Israel had lamented him, and buried him in Ramah, even in his own city" (1Sa 28:3).