Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

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