Ram

ram (ram, "high," "exalted"):

(1) An ancestor of David (Ruth 4:19 (Arran); Matt 1:3; Matt 1:4 (Aram); in 1 Chr 2:9 he is called the "brother," but in 2:25, the "son of Jerahmeel" (compare 2:27). Ram as the son of Hezron appears more likely than Ram the son of Jerahmeel, since, according to the narratives of 1 and 2 Samuel, David cannot have been a Jerahmeelite.

(2) Name of Elihu's family (Job 32:2). It is an open question as to whether Ram should be taken as a purely fictitious name, invented by the author of the Elihu speeches, or whether it is that of some obscure Arab tribe. In Gen 22:21 Aram is a nephew of Buz (compare Elihu the Buzite), and the conjecture was at one time advanced that Ram was a contraction of Aram; but this theory is no longer held to be tenable. The suggestion that the initial "a" (the Hebrew letter, 'aleph) has been changed by a scribal error into "h" (the Hebrew letter, he) is more acceptable. Rashi, the rabbinical commentator, takes the quaint position that Ram is identical with Abraham.

Horace J. Wolf

ram:

(1) The ordinary word is 'ayil, which is remarkably near to 'ayyal, "deer" (compare Latin caper, capra, "goat," and capreolus, "wild goat" or "roe-buck"; also Greek dorkas, "roe-buck" or "gazelle").

(2) dekhar, literally, "male" (Ezra 6:9; Ezra 6:17; Ezra 7:17).

(3) kar, "battering ram" (Ezek 4:2; Ezek 21:22); elsewhere "lamb" (Deut 32:14, etc.).

(4) `attudh, properly "he-goat" ("ram," Gen 31:10; Gen 31:12 the King James Version).

See SHEEP.