On this thread we are examining proper names in plural construct in
Biblical place names. Although there are many Ramahs in Canaan [west of the
Jordan
River], only two seem to use construct form, with both of them being
located in southern Canaan.
RMT LXY at Judges 15: 17, meaning “Height of a Jawbone”, appears to be
feminine construct singular, n-o-t plural. The meaning is self-evident from
the storyline about Samson. The Biblical author chose not to use construct
plural here, because the focus is not on location, location, location, but
rather is on Samson’s exploits.
So the only Ramah west of the Jordan River that concerns us is the one such
Ramah that seems to use feminine construct plural: RMWT NGB, at I Samuel
30: 27. Cf. R)MT NGB at Joshua 19: 8. Though pointed and spelled
differently, this is probably the same place. It is possible that the R)MT
spelling
in Joshua is defective spelling of R)MWT, being feminine construct plural.
However, it seems more likely that the Joshua rendering is feminine construct
singular, n-o-t plural, and it is so viewed here. This then illustrates
that Biblical authors sometimes had the option of using construct plural or
construct singular in rendering place names.
R)MT NGB at Joshua 19: 8 is probably feminine construct singular, in which
case the meaning is simply “Ramah of the Negev”. If RMWT NGB at I Samuel
30: 27 is feminine construct plural, which seems likely, and with it also
seeming to be the same place as referred to in Joshua, the meaning is
nevertheless slightly different: “[concerning the various] Ramahs [in southern
Canaan, the most southern of these] Ramahs[, being the one Ramah that is] of
the
Negev”. That is to say, using plural construct form gives us the additional
information that there were several Ramahs in southern Canaan. It also
calls attention to the geographical location of the Ramah being referenced
here. R)MT NGB is not an important city in its own right, but rather seems to
have been a tiny village on the outskirts of southernmost Canaan. The point
at I Samuel 30: 27 is that David is portrayed as having operated in his
youth in the arid land in southernmost Canaan, even as far south as RMWT NGB,
which but for its far southern location would otherwise ordinarily not be
worth mentioning.
Except in the context of David emphasizing how far south he had lived in
his youth, the more expected and neutral form of this village’s name is what
we see at Joshua 19: 8, R)MT NGB, using construct singular, and simply being “
Ramah of the Negev”. We see that a Biblical author can sometimes use
either construct singular or construct plural, depending on whether or not the
Biblical author deliberately wants to call attention to the following two
facts by using construct plural: (i) there is more than one place in the
general neighborhood that has this same basic name, and (ii) a critical feature
of
the o-n-e place that is being referenced is location, location, location.
As we have been seeing, when a proper name appears in construct plural in a
Biblical place name, that means either that the place (i) had a strategic
location near a “pipe”/socket/narrow passageway/NQB, as with )DMY H-NQB, or
(ii) was an outer geographical boundary, being either far northeast or far
south, as with R)MWT B-GL(D and RMWT NGB. In all such situations the
emphasis is on location, location, location. We should keep that phenomenon in
mind when we focus on the all-important village name at I Samuel 10: 3. If a
Biblical author wanted to emphasize the fact that, before the cities of
Beth-Horon existed, that small village had had a critically important strategic
location, near a “pipe”/socket/narrow passageway/NQB [and with no Lower Beth
Horon there at that time], how would he accomplish that? By using
masculine construct plural, of course! Thus noting the presence of masculine
construct plural in a Biblical geographical place name may well be the key to
restoring the historicity of a significant part of the Bible. Instead of the
conventional view that the sole reference is to local topography, we should
a-s-k what the historical implication would be if this was a masculine
construct plural form of a proper name, namely the proper name of the village
at
I Samuel 10: 3, with the emphasis put on its location, location, location.
Hebrew grammar is super-exciting because it can solve some of the Bible’s
greatest mysteries.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
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