This has everything in its favor, since Atara is still found on the left hand of the north road, very nearly midway between er-Ram and Beitin. Its position is clearly indicated in the distressing narrative of the Levite recorded in Judges xix. He left Bethlehem for his home in Mount Ephraim in the afternoon. Passing Jerusalem, he journeyed northward, and, crossing the ridge, came in sight of Gibeah and Ramah, each stand- ing on the top of its hill; and he said to his servant, " Come and let us draw near to one of these places to lodge all night, in Gibeah or in Ramah" (ver. 13). The towns were near the road on the right, and about two miles apart. The position of these two ancient towns explains another statement of Scripture. It is said of Saul (1 Sam. xxii, 6) that "he abode in Gibeah under a tree in Ramah." The meaning appears to be that the site of his standing camp was in some command- ing spot on the borders of the two territories of Gibeah and Ramah. When Israel was divided, Ramah lay be- tween the rival kingdoms, and appears to have been destroyed at the outbreak of the revolt; for we read that " Baasha, king of Israel, went up against Judah, and built, Ramah" (1 Kings xv, 17). It was a strong position, and commanded the great road from the north to Jerusalem. The king of Judah was alarmed at the erection of a fortress in such close proximity to his cap- ital, and he stopped the work by bribing the Syrians to invade northern Palestine (vers. 18-21), and then carried off all the building materials (ver. 22). There is a precise specification of its position in the catalogue of the places north of Jerusalem which are enumerated by Isaiah as disturbed by the gradual approach of the king of As- syria (Isa. x, 28-32). At Michmash he crosses the ravine; and then successively dislodges or alarms Geba, Ramah, and Gibeah of Saul. Each of these may be recognised with almost absolute certainty at the present day. Geba is Jeba, on the south brink of the great valley; and a mile and a half beyond it, directly be- tween it and the main road to the city, is er-Ram, on the elevation which its ancient name implies. Ramah was intimately connected with one of the saddest epochs of Jewish history. The full story is not told, but the outline is sketched in the words of Jeremiah. In the final invasion of Judaea by the Babylonians, Nebuchad- nezzar established his headquarters on the plain of Hamath, at Riblah (Jer. xxxix, 5). Thence he sent his generals, who captured Jerusalem. The principal inhabitants who escaped the sword were seized, bound, and placed under a guard at Ramah, while the con- querors were employed in pillaging and burning the temple and palace, and levelling the ramparts. Among the captives was Jeremiah himself (xl, 1,5, with xxxix, 8-12). Perhaps there was also a slaughter of such of the captives as, from age, weakness, or poverty, were not worth the long transport across the desert to Baby- lon. There, in that heart-rending scene of captives in chains wailing over slaughtered kindred and d< solated sanctuaries, was fulfilled the first phase of the prophecy uttered only a few years before: "A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping: Rachel weep- ing lor her children, refused to be comforted for her children because they were not" (Jer. xxxi. 15). That mourning was typical of another which took place six centuries later, when the infants of Bethlehem were murdered, and the second phase of the prophecy was fulfilled (Matt, ii, 17). As Ramah was in Benjamin, the prophet introduces Rachel, the mother of that tribe, bewailing the captivity other descendants. See Rama. Ramah was rebuilt and reoccupied by the descend- ants of its old inhabitants after the captivity (Ezra ii, 26; Neh.vii,30). The Ramah in Neh. xi, 33 is thought by some to occupy a different position in the list, and may be a distinct place situated farther west, nearer i he plain. (This, and Jer. xxxi, 15, are the only passages in which the name appears without the article.) The Sept. finds an allusion to Ramah in Zech. xiv, JO, where it renders the words which are translated in the A. V.
RAMAH
894
RAMAH
"and sliall be lifted up (!TCX~i. and inhabited in her place," by " Ramah shall remain upon her place." Ac- cording to Josephus «liu calls ii 'Pafia&dtv), it was forty Btadia <li>t.-int from Jerusalem (Ant. viii, 12, 3); and Eusebius and Jerome place it in the sixth mile north of the holy city (Onomast. B.v."Rama;" Inn in his commentary on II"-. v. 8, Jerome says in septimo -tans thai ill his day it was a small village (ad Sophoniam, i, 15).
Modern travellers arc right in identifying Raman of Benjamin with the village oi er-Rdm (Brocardus, vii ; Robinson, Bill. Res. i. 576); thougli Maundrell and a few others have located ii al N< i «\ Samwil. Er-Ram is five miles north of Jerusalem and four south of
I.ethcl. The site of (iiheah of Saul lies two miles southward, and (ieba about the same distance eastward. Ram is a small, miserable village; but in the walls and foundations of the bouses are many large hewn stones. and in the lanes and fields broken columns and other remains of the ancient capital. The situation is com- manding, on the top of a conical hill, half a mile east ot ill. great northern road, and overlooking the broad summit of the ridge; the eastern view is intercepted by bare ridges and hill-tops. The whole country round Ramah lias an aspect of stern and even painful desola- tion; but this is almost forgotten in the great events which the surrounding heights and ruins recall to memory. On the identity of this Ramah with that of Samuel, see RAMATHAIM-ZOPHIM.