JERAHMEEL; JERAHMEELITES

je-ra'-me-el, je-ra'-me-el-its (yerachme'el, "may God have compassion!"):

(1) In 1 Ch 2:9,25,26,27,33,42, he is described as the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah by Tamar his daughter-in-law (Genesis 38). In 1 Sam 27:10 is mentioned the neghebh of the (ha-yerach-me'eli, a collective noun), the Revised Version (British and American) "the South of the Jerahmeelites." The latter is a tribal name in use probably before the proper name, above; their cities are mentioned in 1 Samuel 30:29. Cheyne has radical views on Jerahmeel. See EB , under the word; also T. Witton Davies in Review of Theology and Philosophy, III, 689-708 (May, 1908); and Cheyne's replies in Hibbert Journal, VII, 132-51 (October, 1908), and Decline and Fall of the Kingdom of Judah.

(2) A Merarite Levite, son of Kish (1 Chronicles 24:29).

(3) "The king's son," the Revised Version (British and American) and the King James Version margin (Jeremiah 36:26). the Revised Version margin, the King James Version have "son of Hammelech," taking the word ha-melek as a proper name. He was "probably a royal prince, one who had a king among his ancestors but not necessarily son of the ruling king; so Jeremiah 38:6; 1 Kings 22:21 Kings 6b; especially Zephaniah 1:8 written at a time when the reigning king, Josiah, could not have had a grown-up `son' " (Driver, Jeremiah, 224, note e). Jerahmeel was with two others commanded by Jehoiakim to arrest Jeremiah and Baruch.

David Francis Roberts

From the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Edited by James Orr, published in 1939 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.