Re'em and Ramot

Never mind now what animal the Tanachic Re'em was (my favorite opinion is Rabbi Ahron Marcus's, that it was the elephant, but I am aware that the popular opinion is that it was the Aurochs), Re'em is usually spelled in Hebrew ראם, but there are some variants: רמים (sing. רם - Tehillim 22:22), ראים (Tehillim 92:11), רים (Iyov 39:9-10). Re'em appears to be connected to the word רם - Ram, great (in size). In other words, we are talking about a large animal.

I noticed something interesting a couple of days ago. There are two cities in Tanach said to have been called Ramot - ראמות: One is Ramot in the Gilad ( one of the cities of refuge and a Levitical city - Devarim 4:43, Yehoshua 20:8, Chronicles 1:6:65) and the other is Ramot in the territory of Yissachar (later a Levitical city - Chronicles 1:6:58).

Anyway, there's no huge chiddush here, I just find it interesting that the root ראם exists also in the names of cities that were likely high up, topographically-speaking, considering their names.


(image taken from here)


Comments

  1. AlexMarch 7, 2022 at 6:21 PM

    Do you think there's any relationship with ראמות as the name of a precious stone (Iyov 28:18 and Mishlei 24:7) - one that fetches a "high" price?

    ReplyDelete

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