🔼The name Raamiah: Summary
- Meaning
- Yah Has Thundered, Thunder Of Yah
- Etymology
- From (1) the verb רעם (ra'am), to thunder, and (2) יה (yah), the shortened name of the Lord.
🔼The name Raamiah in the Bible
The name Raamiah occurs only one time in the Bible. Nehemiah mentions him among the men who returned from the Babylonian exile, together with Zerubbabel (Nehemiah 7:7). Ezra lists the same group of men, but some names are slightly different. For Raamiah Ezra reads Reelaiah (Ezra 2:2). Whether Raamiah and Reelaiah are two names of the same man, or whether there were two men is unclear. There are several unexplained discrepancies between the records of Nehemiah and Ezra.
🔼Etymology of the name Raamiah
The name Raamiah consists of two elements, the final one being יה (Yah) = יהו (Yahu) = יו (Yu), which in turn are abbreviated forms of the Tetragrammaton יהוה, YHWH, or Yahweh.
The first part of our name comes from either the verb רעם (ra'am), meaning to thunder, or the noun רעם (ra'am), meaning thunder:
רעם
The unused verb רעם (ra'am) probably meant to roll like thunder. Noun רעם (ra'am) means thunder and denominative verb רעם (ra'am) means to thunder or cause to thunder. Noun רעמה (ra'ma), curiously enough, appears to be a rare word to describe a horse's mane, perhaps in the sense of its rolling or whipping.
🔼Raamiah meaning
For a meaning of the name Raamiah, NOBSE Study Bible Name List goes with the verb and reads Yahweh Has Thundered. Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names sees the noun and proposes Thunder Of The Lord. BDB Theological Dictionary also opts for the noun and has Thunder Of Yah, but adds a question mark to indicate that even though the name Raamiah looks a lot like "Thunder Of Yah," the true etymology is obscure.