Christian Pure

What Does a Ram Symbolize in the Bible? A Sacrifice in Our Place

Christian Pure Team

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Summary

  • In the Bible the ram stands above all for a sacrifice offered in someone else’s place, beginning with the ram God provided for Abraham instead of Isaac.
  • Abraham “offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son” (Genesis 22:13), and named the place Jehovahjireh, the LORD will provide.
  • Rams were offered to consecrate Israel’s priests, as trespass offerings and on the Day of Atonement.
  • Samuel and Micah taught that obeying God matters more than offering thousands of rams.
  • In Daniel’s vision a two-horned ram stands for the kings of Media and Persia.
  • The shofar blown on Rosh Hashanah is usually a ram’s horn, and the Talmud says it recalls the ram sacrificed in Isaac’s place.
  • From Melito of Sardis in the second century, Christians have read the ram in the thicket as a picture of Christ, the Lamb of God.

God provided a ram in Isaac’s place, and in Scripture the ram stands for a sacrifice offered for another. Abraham took it from a thicket and “offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son” (Genesis 22:13). Rams were later offered to ordain priests and to atone; in Daniel’s vision a ram is an empire. The story that gives the ram its meaning begins with a boy’s question. Isaac walked up the mountain carrying the wood,…

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Bibliography (Click to show)
  • The Holy Bible, King James Version (1769 text), via BibleGateway: Genesis 22:1–19; Exodus 12:5, 15:15, 26:14, 29:15–22; Leviticus 5:15–16, 8:22–24, 16:3–5, 25:9–10; Joshua 6:4–5; 1 Samuel 15:20–22; 2 Kings 3:4; Psalm 114:1–7; Isaiah 53:7; Ezekiel 17:13, 34:17; Daniel 8:3–8, 8:15–16, 8:20–21; Micah 6:6–8; John 1:29; Hebrews 10:4, 11:17–19; Revelation 5:6.
  • Brown-Driver-Briggs and Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, Strong’s Hebrew 352, ayil, 3104, yobel and 3070, Yehovah yireh, Bible Hub.
  • Melito of Sardis, Fragment V, from the Catena on Genesis, trans. B. P. Pratten, Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 8, Christian Classics Ethereal Library.
  • A. MacErlean, St. Melito, The Catholic Encyclopedia vol. 10 (1911), New Advent.
  • Mishnah, Rosh Hashanah 3:2, William Davidson Edition (Koren, commentary by Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz), Sefaria.
  • Babylonian Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 16a, William Davidson Edition (Koren Noé Talmud, commentary by Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz), Sefaria.

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