Ramoth-Gilead (, meaning "Heights of Gilead"), was a Levitical city and city of refuge east of the

Jordan River The Jordan River or River Jordan (, ''Nahr al-ʾUrdunn''; , ''Nəhar hayYardēn''), also known as ''Nahr Al-Sharieat'' (), is a endorheic river in the Levant that flows roughly north to south through the Sea of Galilee and drains to the Dead ...

in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Douay–Rheims Bible The Douay–Rheims Bible (, ), also known as the Douay–Rheims Version, Rheims–Douai Bible or Douai Bible, and abbreviated as D–R, DRB, and DRV, is a translation of the Bible from the Latin Vulgate into English made by member ...

. It was located in the tribal territorial allotment of the tribe of Gad.

Biblical events

Schnorr von Carolsfeld Bibel in Bildern 1860 118

According to (), Ramoth-Gilead was the base of Ben-Geber, one of

King Solomon King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a constitutional monarch if his power is restrained by f ...

's regional governors. He was responsible for ("to him belonged") the

towns A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

of Jair the son of

Manasseh Manasseh () is both a given name and a surname. Its variants include Manasses and Manasse. Notable people with the name include: Surname * Ezekiel Saleh Manasseh (died 1944), Singaporean rice and opium merchant and hotelier * Jacob Manasseh ( ...

, in Gilead and the region of Argob in

Bashan Bashan (; ; or ''Basanitis'') is the ancient, biblical name used for the northernmost region of Transjordan during the Iron Age. It is situated in modern-day Jordan and Syria. Its western part, nowadays known as the Golan Heights, was occupied b ...

: sixty large cities with walls and bronze gate-bars. It appears to have been lost to Syria (

Aram-Damascus Aram-Damascus ( ) was an Arameans, Aramean polity that existed from the late-12th century BCE until 732 BCE, and was centred around the city of Damascus in the Southern Levant. Alongside various tribal lands, it was bounded in its later years b ...

) during the battles between the

northern kingdom of Israel The Kingdom of Israel ( ), also called the Northern Kingdom or the Kingdom of Samaria, was an Israelite kingdom that existed in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. Its beginnings date back to the first half of the 10th century BCE. It c ...

and Syria, as

Ahab Ahab (; ; ; ; ) was a king of the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria), the son and successor of King Omri, and the husband of Jezebel of Sidon, according to the Hebrew Bible. He is depicted in the Bible as a Baal worshipper and is criticized for causi ...

, King of Israel, proposed to go to battle to win it back. After consulting prophets about the prospects of success, Ahab went to fight for Ramoth in Gilead, aided by

Jehoshaphat Jehoshaphat (; alternatively spelled Jehosaphat, Josaphat, or Yehoshafat; ; ; ), according to the Hebrew Bible, was the son of Asa, and the fourth king of the Kingdom of Judah, in succession to his father. His children included Jehoram, who ...

, King of Judah. During the battle, Ahab was wounded by an arrow. He was propped up in his chariot facing the enemy, but by evening Ahab had bled to death and the Syrians won the battle. Later, an incident occurred when Ahaziah and Joram fought against

Hazael Hazael (; ; Old Aramaic 𐤇𐤆𐤀𐤋 ''Ḥzʔl'') was a king of Aram-Damascus mentioned in the Bible. Under his reign, Aram-Damascus became an empire that ruled over large parts of contemporary Syria and Israel-Samaria. While he was likely ...

, king of

, and Joram was wounded ( 2 Kings 8:28). Also in this city,

Elisha Elisha was, according to the Hebrew Bible, a Jewish prophet and a wonder-worker. His name is commonly transliterated into English as Elisha via Hebrew, Eliseus via Greek and Latin, Ełishe (Yeghishe/Elisha) via Armenian or Alyasa via Arabic, a ...

, the prophet of God told one of the sons of the prophets to anoint

Jehu Jehu (; , meaning "Jah, Yah is He"; ''Ya'úa'' 'ia-ú-a'' ) was the tenth king of the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria), northern Kingdom of Israel since Jeroboam I, noted for exterminating the house of Ahab. He was the son of Jehoshaphat (father ...

, Joram's commander, king over Israel (). The British Bible scholar, Hugh J. Schonfield theorized that the location of

Armageddon Armageddon ( ; ; ; from ) is the prophesied gathering of armies for a battle during the end times, according to the Book of Revelation in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. Armageddon is variously interpreted as either a literal or a ...

, mentioned only in the

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

, at (), is a

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

garbling of a supposed late

Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...

name for Ramoth-Gilead; that this location, having anciently belonged to the Hebrew tribe of Gad, was, in New Testament times, part of the Greek region known as the

Decapolis The Decapolis (Greek: ) was a group of ten Greek Hellenistic cities on the eastern frontier of the Greek and late Roman Empire in the Southern Levant in the first centuries BC and AD. Most of the cities were located to the east of the Jordan ...

, it was (Schonfield theorized) known as ''Rama-Gad-Yavan'' (Yavan meaning Greek), which when translated into Greek became Armageddon (much as Ramathaim was translated to Aramathea).

Location

It has been tentatively identified with Reimun, on the northern slope of the

Zarqa River The Zarqa River (, ''Nahr az-Zarqāʾ'', lit. "the River of the Blue ity) is the second largest tributary of the lower Jordan River, after the Yarmouk River. It is the third largest river in the region by annual discharge and its watershed enc ...

, about west of

Jerash Jerash (; , , ) is a city in northern Jordan. The city is the administrative center of the Jerash Governorate, and has a population of 50,745 as of 2015. It is located 30.0 miles north of the capital city Amman. The earliest evidence of sett ...

or Gerasa, one of the cities of the

. Other possible locations include: # Tell er-Rumeith, about 3 miles south of ar-Ramtha, JordanFinkelstein, I., Lipschits, O., and Sergi, O. 2013. Tell er-Rumeith in Northern Jordan: Some Archaeological and Historical Observations. Semitica 55: 7-23. #

as-Salt Al-Salt ( ''Al-Salt''), also known as Salt, is an ancient trading city and administrative centre in west-central Jordan. It is on the old main highway leading from Amman to Jerusalem. Situated in the Balqa (region), Balqa highland, about 790– ...

References

External links

Photos of Rumeith
at the American Center of Research {{coord, 32, 30, N, 36, 01, E, region:JO_type:landmark_source:kolossus-dewiki, display=title Torah cities Hebrew Bible cities Levitical cities Jerash Book of Deuteronomy Book of Joshua