Posts

Showing posts with the label elephant

Re'em and Ramot

Image
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...