Rimmon

Did You Know?

• Torah scrolls are adorned with ornaments called Torah rimonim, from the Hebrew word for pomegranate.
• Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem titled 'Rimmon' in 1903 after the Boer War.
• According to The Urantia Book, Rimmon was a small city in Galilee once dedicated to the worship of a Babylonian god of the air, Ramman.

Hebrew Bible

Rimmon is a name that appears several times in the Hebrew Bible, referring to different places, a person, and a god. One Rimmon was a city in southern Judah, later assigned to the tribe of Simeon. In some passages, Ain and Rimmon are listed separately, but elsewhere they seem to form one place, Ain-Rimmon, meaning "spring of the pomegranate." This site is thought to be Horvat Rimmon, about thirteen miles southwest of Hebron.

The prophet Zechariah mentions it as being south of Jerusalem, using it with Geba to describe the full north-south extent of the kingdom of Judah. Another location, the Rock of Rimmon, is where the Benjamites took refuge after their defeat at Gibeah, hiding there for four months. This is identified with the modern village of Rammun, perched on the edge of the hill country with a steep drop toward the Jordan Valley, and is considered a possible site for the ancient city of Ai.

The nearby Israeli settlement Rimonim takes its name from this biblical place. There is also a mention of Hadad-Rimmon near Megiddo. As a personal name, Rimon was a man from Beeroth in Benjamin, whose sons Baanah and Rechab served as captains in the army of Ish-bosheth, King Saul's son. Finally, Rimmon was a Syrian storm god, also known as Hadad or Baal, and in Assyria as Ramanu, meaning "the thunderer."

A temple to this god appears in the Second Book of Kings. After the Aramean commander Naaman was healed of leprosy by the prophet Elisha, he asked for pardon for continuing to accompany the king of Syria into the Temple of Rimmon for worship, and Elisha granted it.