🔼The name Armoni: Summary
- Meaning
- Belonging To The Palace
- Etymology
- From the noun ארמון ('armon), citadel, from the verb רום (rum), to be high.
🔼The name Armoni in the Bible
Armoni is a son of king Saul and his concubine Rizpah, and full brother of Mephibosheth (2 Samuel 21:8). These two sons of Rizpah, along with the five sons of Saul's daughter Merab, are hanged by the men of Gibeon to retaliate Saul's massacre of their people. This mass execution happened with the consent and even cooperation of David.
🔼Etymology of the name Armoni
The name Armoni comes from the word ארמון ('armon), meaning citadel or palace. The instances of this word in the Bible are largely limited to the frequently returning message that God will burn up the "palaces" of certain nations (Amos 1:3, 1:7, 1:10, 1:12). Palaces were typically built on elevations, but symbolically they denoted the apices of nations, quite literally their capitals.
The name Armoni is the word armon post-fixed with the letter yod, which indicates possession.
Our word armon comes from an assumed root ארם, which is identical to the name Aram. Scholars assume that these words in turn have to do with the word רם (rum), meaning height (Proverbs 25:3) or haughtiness (Isaiah 10:12, Jeremiah 48:29). This word comes from the verb רום (rum), meaning to be high or lofty:
רום
The verb רום (rum) means to be high or high up in either a physical, social or even attitudinal sense, and may also refer to the apex in a natural process: the being ripe and ready-for-harvest of fruits. Subsequently, our verb may imply a state beyond ripe (higher than ripe, overripe), which thus refers to rotting and being maggot riddled. This means that to the ancients, higher did not simply mean better, and an arrogant political status that was higher than it should be equaled rot and worms (Acts 12:23).
Derived nouns, such as רום (rum) and related forms such as רמה (rama), describe height or pride. Noun רמות (ramut) describes some high thing. The noun ארמון ('armon) refers to a society's apex: a citadel or palace. The noun ראם (re'em) describes the wild ox, which was named possibly for the same reason why we moderns call a rising market a "bull" market. The similar verb ראם (ra'am) means to rise.
The important noun רמון (rimmon) means pomegranate and the pomegranate became the symbol for harvest-ready fruit (see our full dictionary article for more on this). Overripe items might suffer the noun רמה (rimma), worm or maggot, or the verb רמם (ramam), to be wormy.
🔼Armoni meaning
For a meaning of the name Armoni, NOBSE Study Bible Name List reads Belonging To The Palace. Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names has the similar Belonging To A Palace. BDB Theological Dictionary suggests the Latin equivalent Palatinus, a word that exists in English as Palatine, meaning of or belonging to a palace.