🔼The name Reumah: Summary
- Meaning
- Exalted, Wild Ox
- Etymology
- From the verb ראם (ra'am), to rise, or the noun ראם (re'em), wild ox.
🔼The name Reumah in the Bible
Reumah is the concubine of Nahor, the brother of Abraham, and the mother of four sons (Genesis 22:24). After her brief cameo appearance in Genesis 22:24, Reumah quietly exits the Biblical stage and is heard from no more.
However, in the Greek Septuagint, the name Reumah is spelled Ρευμα (Reuma) and in the Latin Vulgate it's Roma, and this is identical to the name Rome.
🔼Etymology of the name Reumah
The name Reumah appears to come from the verb ראם (ra'am), meaning to rise, or even the noun ראם (re'em), wild ox:
רום
The verb רום (rum) means to be high or high up in either a physical, social or even attitudinal sense, and may also refer to the apex in a natural process: the being ripe and ready-for-harvest of fruits. Subsequently, our verb may imply a state beyond ripe (higher than ripe, overripe), which thus refers to rotting and being maggot riddled. This means that to the ancients, higher did not simply mean better, and an arrogant political status that was higher than it should be equaled rot and worms (Acts 12:23).
Derived nouns, such as רום (rum) and related forms such as רמה (rama), describe height or pride. Noun רמות (ramut) describes some high thing. The noun ארמון ('armon) refers to a society's apex: a citadel or palace. The noun ראם (re'em) describes the wild ox, which was named possibly for the same reason why we moderns call a rising market a "bull" market. The similar verb ראם (ra'am) means to rise.
The important noun רמון (rimmon) means pomegranate and the pomegranate became the symbol for harvest-ready fruit (see our full dictionary article for more on this). Overripe items might suffer the noun רמה (rimma), worm or maggot, or the verb רמם (ramam), to be wormy.