Ram (1)

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

(1) An ancestor of David (Ruth 4:19 (Arran); Matthew 1:3,4 (Aram); in 1 Chronicles 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 Genesis 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