Page:02.BCOT.KD.HistoricalBooks.A.vol.2.EarlyProphets.djvu/541

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- 1Sa 1:1. His father was a man of Ramathaim-Zophim, on the mountains of Ephraim, and named Elkanah. Ramathaim-Zophim, which is only mentioned here, is the same place, according to 1Sa 1:3 (comp. with 1Sa 1:19 and 1Sa 2:11), which is afterwards called briefly ha-Ramah, i.e., the height. For since Elkanah of Ramathaim-Zophim went year by year out of his city to Shiloh, to worship and sacrifice there, and after he had done this, returned to his house to Ramah (1Sa 1:19; 1Sa 2:11), there can be no doubt that he was not only a native of Ramathaim-Zophim, but still had his home there; so that Ramah, where his house was situated, is only an abbreviated name for Ramathaim-Zophim.^[1]

This Ramah (which is invariably written with the article, ha-Ramah), where Samuel was not only born (1Sa 1:19.), but lived, laboured, died (1Sa 7:17; 1Sa 15:34; 1Sa 16:13; 1Sa 19:18-19, 1Sa 19:22-23), and was buried (1Sa 25:1; 1Sa 28:3), is not a different place, as has been frequently assumed,^[2] from the Ramah in Benjamin (Jos 18:25), and is not to be sought for in Ramleh near Joppa (v. Schubert, etc.), nor in Soba on the north-west of Jerusalem (Robinson, Pal. ii. p. 329), nor three-quarters of an hour to the north of Hebron (Wolcott, v. de Velde), nor anywhere else in the tribe of Ephraim, but is identical with Ramah of Benjamin,

↑ The argument lately adduced by Valentiner in favour of the difference between these two names, viz., that “examples are not wanting of a person being described according to his original descent, although his dwelling-place had been already changed,” and the instance which he cites, viz., Jdg 19:16, show that he has overlooked the fact, that in the very passage which he quotes the temporary dwelling-place is actually mentioned along with the native town. In the case before us, on the contrary Ramathaim-Zophim is designated, by the use of the expression “from his city,” in 1Sa 1:3, as the place where Elkanah lived, and where “his house” (1Sa 1:19) was still standing.
↑ For the different views which have been held upon this point, see the article “Ramah,” by Pressel, in Herzog's Cyclopaedia.

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[1] The argument lately adduced by Valentiner in favour of the difference between these two names, viz., that “examples are not wanting of a person being described according to his original descent, although his dwelling-place had been already changed,” and the instance which he cites, viz., Jdg 19:16, show that he has overlooked the fact, that in the very passage which he quotes the temporary dwelling-place is actually mentioned along with the native town. In the case before us, on the contrary Ramathaim-Zophim is designated, by the use of the expression “from his city,” in 1Sa 1:3, as the place where Elkanah lived, and where “his house” (1Sa 1:19) was still standing.

[2] For the different views which have been held upon this point, see the article “Ramah,” by Pressel, in Herzog's Cyclopaedia.

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