RAMOTH
RAMOTH identical in signification with Râm and Ramah, equivalent in Hebrew to an eminence, and hence a generic name for towns situated on remarkable heights, as so many in Palestine were. Besides those above named [RAMAH; RAMATHA] was a Ramah in the tribe of Asher, not far from Tyre; and another in Naphthali (
Josh. 19.29, 36) in the north; and a Ramath in the tribe of Simeon, appropriately called “Ramath of the South” (ver. 8.), to which David sent a share of the spoils of Ziklag (1
Sam. 30.27), and yet a Ramoth in Issachar, assigned to the Levites of the family of Gershom. (1
Chron. 6.74.) More important than the foregoing was--
RAMOTH-GILEAD (
Ῥαμὼθ ἐν Γαγαάδ), a city of the tribe of Gad, assigned as a city of refuge, first by Moses and subsequently by Joshua. (
Deut. 4.43;
Josh. 20.8,
Ἀρημώθ.) It was also a Levitical city of the family of Merari. (
Josh. 21.38.) The Syrians took it from Ahab, who lost his life in seeking to recover it. (1
Kings, xxii.) Eusebius places it 15 miles west of Philadelphia (
Onomast. s. v., where S. Jerome erroneously reads east; Reland, p. 966), in the Peraea, near the river
Jabok. Its site is uncertain, and has not been recovered in modern times.
[
G.W]
