Yosua 18:24-25

18:24 Kephar Ammoni, Ophni, and Geba – a total of twelve cities and their towns.

18:25 Gibeon, Ramah, Beeroth,

Yosua 18:1

The Tribes Meet at Shiloh

18:1 The entire Israelite community assembled at Shiloh and there they set up the tent of meeting. ¹  Though they had subdued the land, ² 

1 Samuel 7:17

7:17 Then he would return to Ramah, because his home was there. He also judged ³  Israel there and built an altar to the Lord there.

1 Samuel 15:34

15:34 Then Samuel went to Ramah, while Saul went up to his home in Gibeah of Saul.

Yeremia 31:15

31:15 The Lord says,

“A sound is heard in Ramah, ⁴ 

a sound of crying in bitter grief.

It is the sound of Rachel weeping for her children

and refusing to be comforted, because her children are gone.” ⁵ 

Hosea 5:8

The Prophet’s Declaration of Judgment

5:8 Blow the ram’s horn in Gibeah!

Sound the trumpet in Ramah!

Sound the alarm in Beth Aven! ⁶ 

Tremble in fear, ⁷  O Benjamin!

[18:1]  ¹ tn Heb “the tent of assembly.”

[18:1]  sn On the tent of meeting see Exod 33:7-11.

[18:1]  ² tn Heb “and the land was subdued before them.”

[7:17]  ³ tn Or perhaps “settled disputes for” (cf. NLT “would hear cases there”; NRSV “administered justice there”).

[31:15]  ⁴ sn Ramah is a town in Benjamin approximately five miles (8 km) north of Jerusalem. It was on the road between Bethel and Bethlehem. Traditionally, Rachel’s tomb was located near there at a place called Zelzah (1 Sam 10:2). Rachel was the mother of Joseph and Benjamin and was very concerned about having children because she was barren (Gen 30:1-2) and went to great lengths to have them (Gen 30:3, 14-15, 22-24). She was the grandmother of Ephraim and Manasseh which were two of the major tribes in northern Israel. Here Rachel is viewed metaphorically as weeping for her “children,” the descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh, who had been carried away into captivity in 722 b.c.

[31:15]  ⁵ tn Or “gone into exile” (cf. v. 16), though some English versions take this as meaning “dead” (e.g., NCV, CEV, NLT), presumably in light of Matt 2:18.

[5:8]  ⁶ sn See the note on the place name Beth Aven in 4:15.

[5:8]  ⁷ tc The MT reads the anomalous אַחֲרֶיךָ בִּנְיָמִין (’akharekha binyamin, “behind you, O Benjamin”), a reading followed by many English versions. The LXX reads ἐξέστη (exesth) which might reflect an alternate textual tradition of הַחֲרִדוּ בִּנְיָמִין (hakharidu binyamin, “Tremble in fear, O Benjamin”); the verb form would be a Hiphil imperative 2nd person masculine plural from חָרַד (kharad, “to tremble, be terrified”; BDB 353 s.v. חָרַד). For discussion of this textual problem, see D. Barthélemy, ed., Preliminary and Interim Report on the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project, 5:236.