Ramath-Lehi

Ra´math-Le´hi. This name, which means height of the jawbone, belonged to a place on the borders of Philistia, and is referred by the sacred writer to the jaw-bone with which Samson slaughtered the Philistines (Jdg 15:17).

So Samson named the scene of his slaying a thousand Philistines with a jawbone. Jdg 15:17, "the height of Lehi." In Jdg 15:9 "Lehi" is used by anticipation, Samson calling it so subsequently, or else he played on the name which it had already, "Ramath Lehi," as expressing what he now has done, namely, "lifted up the jawbone." (But (See LEHI.)

By: Emil G. Hirsch, Immanuel Benzinger

Place on the frontier between Judah and Philistia; mentioned only in the story of Samson (Judges xv. 9, 14, 17). The name, (= "Jaw-Bone Height"), is explained by the tradition that Samson slew there 1,000 Philistines with the jaw-bone of an ass and then cast the bone away. More probably the hill was so called because of its peculiar form. The name of the spring 'En ha-Ḳore (= "Partridge Spring"), which flows past the hill, is explained by legend to mean the "Spring of the Caller" ("Ḳore") because it was in answer to Samson's prayer that Yhwh cleft the jawbone, sending forth a well of water. The scene of the Samson stories was laid in the vicinity of Timnath and Zareah, in the present Wadi al-Ṣarar. It is also stated that Ramath-lehi lay near the chasm of Etam. Since the place is called Σιαγών in the Septuagint, it has been identified with the site of Khirbat al-Ṣiyar, south of Wadi al-Ṣarar ("Z. D. P. V." x. 152 et seq.).

RAMATH-LEHI.—See Ramah, No. 6.

rā´math-lē´hı̄ (לחי רמת, rāmath leḥı̄, “the hill” or “height of Lehi”; Ἀναίρεσις σιαγόνος, Anairésis siagónos): So the place is said to have been called where Samson threw away the jaw-bone of an ass, with which he had slain 1,000 Philistines (Jdg 15:17). The Septuagint seems to have supposed that the name referred to the “heaving” or throwing up of the jaw-bone. The Hebrew, however, corresponds to the form used in other placenames, such as Ramath-mizpeh, and must be read as “Ramah of Lehi.” The name Lehi may have been given because of some real or imagined likeness in the place to the shape of a jaw-bone (Jdg 15:9, Jdg 15:14, Jdg 15:19). It may have been in Wâdy es-Sarār, not far from Zôrah and Timnath; but the available data do not permit of certain identification. See JAW-BONE; LEHI.