Ruhamah (Hastings' Dictionary)

The second child (a daughter) of Gomur, Hosea's unfaithful wife, was called Lo- RUllAMAH, ' unpitied,' Uos l"- », as a type of Israel, when, unnitied by .laliweh, slie was to be given over to calamity. The opi)osite condition of things ie expressed in Hos 2> [Lng. 2'] 'Say ye unto your brethren, Animi (i.e. 'my people,' in opposition to the name of the third child, Lo-AMMI, ' not my people'), and to your sisters, Ruhamah' (tjo-i 'pitied,' LXX 'l^\n\iUrr)).

Similarly, when Jah- well's an-rer is turned away. He declares in v.''<^) ' and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy ' {tvcrihnmti eth-l6 ruhamah, LXX B Koi d7a7r. TJcroi TTjx OvK Tj-favriixivTiv [ AQ have (Xe-fiau for d7ajrv)o-u), and i)\triixivT)v for ^-lairrnjAv-qv, cf. llort on 1 I' 2'"]). J. A. Selrie. RULERS OF THE CITY is, at Ac 17« ', the EV rendering of the (Jr. jroXiTdpxai (on the various spelling TToXeiT. see Tisch. N'l^, Prol. p. 86, n.

2), as the special local title belonging to the magistrates in Thessalonica, belore whose bar the Jews of that city, along with a mob of market-idlers, dragged Ja.son and other Christian c<mverts, under a charge of hospitably receiving Paul and Silas, and of en- tertaining treasonable designs against the emperor. The word denotes 'rulers of the citizens,' who, as Thessalonica was a free city, had then the privi- lege of choosing their own rulers. The use of the term TroXirdpx'?'

lias been pointed to as an excel- lent illustration of the accuracy of St. Luke (e.g. by Alford and Knowling, ad loc.) ; for, while it is not employed in that form by classical authors, who use TroMapx"!

and TroMrapxos, the actual existence of the Lukan form at Thessalonica is vouched for by inscriptions discovered there, one of which (assigned to the time of Vespasian) mentions among the politarchs for the time being Sosipater, Secundus, and Gains — names occurring also as those of com- panions of St. Paul (Boeckh, CIG 1067, quoted by Conybeare and Howson, and by Alford). iluch fresh light is thrown on this subject in a paper by Prof.

Burton of Chicago, in the American Journal of Theology for July 1898, entitled ' The Politarchs,' in which he has carefully collected, and commented on, the inscriptions which attest the u.se of the noun iroXa-apxns or of the verb iroXi- Tapxio). The following is a summary of his results : — There are seventeen inscriptions which attest the existence of the office of politarch in ancient cities, to which other two may be added, if we accept recent probable restorations.

Eleven con- tain the verb, always in the present participle, and mostly in the genitive plural ; seven contain the noun, giving in all eleven instances of it. There is itacistic variation between ei and i in the second syllable of both noun and verb. While isolated examples occur from Thrace, liithyiiia, the lios- poran kingdom, and Egypt, no fewer than thirteen belong to Macedonia, and live of these without much doubt to Thessalonica itself. None have apparently been di.

scovered from Greece proper, and there is no re.ason to believe that the ollieo existed south of Macedonia. Its presence in the latter province so largely was probably due to Roman inlluence in its municipal organization. The five Thessalonian inscriptions extenil from the beginning of the 1st to the middle of the 2nd cent. A.D. As regards number, Thessalonica had five politarchs in the reign of Augustus and six under Antoninus Pius and Marcus Auielius.

Burton gives a full bibliography, mentioning as the most recent book that of Dimitzas : 'H Macf- bovla iv \lOois ^Oeyyopi^vois Kal fMvtj/xclois (Fta^ofj.{voi$, 2 vols., Athens, 189(i. William P. Dickson. RULER(S) OF THE SYNAGOGUE.— See SvNA- aoc.UK. RUMAH {m^n; B Kpov/xd, A 'Pi-Mi).— The home of Pedaiah, the maternal grandfather of king Jelioiakim, 2 K 23^". losephus, in the parallel passage. Ant. X. v.

2, has 'Ajiovni, no tfoubt ft copyist's error for 'Apov/id, wliich may lie the Arumaii of Jg 9*', which lay in the neighbourhood of Shechcm. Another Rumah (in Galilee) is named in Jos. BJ III. vii. 21, which tna;/ have been the birthplace of Pedaiah (see Neubnuer, Giog. du Talm. 203 ; GuArin, GaliUe, i. 367 f . ; 316 RUNNERS RYE Bnhl, GAP 220f.), if we may suppose that con- nubium still subsisted between the Northern and Koutbern kingdoms.

The reading non for non in Jos 15'^, although supported by tlie LXX (B 'Fe/Mvi, A 'Poi;/;td), is probably a copyist's error. See Dumah, No. 2. According to Jerome, there was a various reading, Itumnh (i.e. Home) for Dumnh in Is 21", which is said also to have been found in a manuscript belong- ing to R. Meir. J. A. Selbie.