🔼The name Rehum: Summary
- Meaning
- Beloved, Merciful
- Etymology
- From the verb רחם (raham), to love deeply or have mercy.
🔼The name Rehum in the Bible
There two to four men named Rehum in the Bible. Some Rehums come without genealogy, so it's difficult to distinguish them. The members of the following list probably overlap somewhat:
- One of the men who returned from the Babylonian exile together with Zerubbabel (Ezra 2:2), who may be the same as the priest named Rehum who Nehemiah mentions among the priests who returned with Zerubbabel (Nehemiah 12:3).
- A commander who had dictated a letter to king Artaxerxes of Persia, expressing his suspicions that when Jerusalem would be restored, the rebellious nature of the Jews would follow suit. That would be bad for business, thought also Artaxerxes, who promptly had the restorations stopped (Ezra 4:8-23).
- A son of Bani, who had charge of a contingent of Levites that carried out repairs to Jerusalem (Nehemiah 3:17).
- One of the ratifiers of the Sealed Document (Nehemiah 10:25).
🔼Etymology of the name Rehum
The name Rehum comes from the verb רחם (raham) meaning to love or have mercy:
רחם
Verb רחם (raham) means to love deeply or have mercy, and commonly reflects the attentions of a superior toward an inferior (parents to children, God to people). It appears to derive from the noun רחם (rehem), womb.
Noun רחמים (rahamim) means compassions or tender mercies and adjective רחום (rahum) means compassionate.
🔼Rehum meaning
For a meaning of the name Rehum, NOBSE Study Bible Name List reads Beloved. Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names reads the same as for the name Raham, namely Merciful. BDB Theological Dictionary deems the names Raham and Rehum the same name, just spelled slightly different, and reads for both Compassion, and adds: or Softness, Gentleness?