Ram (2)
Ram (אִיל, dyil; κριός ). As this animal, fattened, was a favorite article of food (Ge 31:38; Eze 39:18), it was considered, when offered as sacrifice, of higher value than sheep and lambs (Ge 15:9; Nu 15:5-6; Nu 23:1 sq.; 28:11 sq., 28 sq.; Mic 6:7), and the legal ritual gave exact directions on the sacrifice of them. The rams were sometimes burnt-offerings (Leviticus 8:18, 21; 9:2; 16:3; 29:18; Nu 7:15; Ps 46:11; Isa 1:11; Eze 45:23, etc.), sometimes thank-offerings (Le 9:4,18; Nu 6:14,17; Nu 7:17; Nu 28:11, etc.), sometimes trespass-offerings (Le 5:15,18-19; Le 6:6; comp. Le 19:21; Nu 5:8; Ezr 10:19, etc.). The ram, too, appears not only in public and private offerings in general, but especially in the purifying sacrifices of the Nazarite (Nu 6:14) and the sacrifices of Priestly Consecration. It was not used as a sin-offering. In 2Ch 29:21 only the seven he-goats belong to the sin-offering, as ver. 23 shows; the rams, with the other animals, forming the burnt- offering. The use of the ram as thank- and trespass-offering is pointed out in Ex 29:22 (comp. Le 8:16; Le 9:19; Isa 34:6). The Greeks and Romans used rams for sacrifice only exceptionally; yet comp. Pliny, H. N. 34:19, 19. In Egypt this was more frequent (Wilkinson, v, 191 sq.); only in the Thebais it was prohibited, save at the great annual festival of Amman (Herod. ii, 42). On the symbolic use of the ram in Daniel to signify the Persian empire, SEE CATTLE, No. II; and on the SEE BATTERING-RAM, see s.v. The use of ram's skins for covering is alluded to in Ex 25:5; Ex 26:14; Ex 36:19; Ex 39:34, and is still common in Palestine, where they are also "dyed red" (Ex 25:5) for the use of the shoemakers (Thomson, Land and Book, i, 139). SEE SHEEP.
