to send something flying with force: to hurl a body, or to shoot arrows from a bow
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
This verb pictures a single motion: something leaves a hand or a bowstring and travels through the air with force. Hebrew has commoner words for both halves of that picture, שָׁלַךְ for throwing something away and יָרָה for loosing an arrow, and this rarer word sits between them.
It surfaces in only two settings. One is the song Israel sings at the Red Sea, where God has hurled horse and rider into the water: not merely defeated them at a distance, but thrown them bodily into the sea. The other is the battlefield, where the word names the men who work a bow. In Psalm 78 and Jeremiah 4 it appears in the phrase "shooters of the bow," a standing description of archers rather than a report of any single shot.
Nuances
1ato hurl someone bodily, throwing them where they cannot climb back out
Exo 15:1Exo 15:21
1bto shoot with the bow, used of the men who carry and work one
Psa 78:9Jer 4:29
2
to fool someone who trusted you: to break faith by trickery
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
Notice who speaks this word. Almost every time it is on the lips of the person who has just been fooled, usually as a stunned question:
Jacob asks it of Laban the morning after the wedding.
Saul asks it of his own daughter Michal, who let David escape.
The woman at Endor asks it of the disguised king standing in her house.
Joshua asks it of the Gibeonites, who came to him in worn out sandals.
That pattern points to what the word actually names. It is not the general term for saying what is false: Hebrew has כָּחַשׁ for the plain lie and נָכַל for the cold scheme. This word names the sting of a trust turned against you, and it lives inside relationships, whether with a father in law, a wife, a household servant, a treaty partner, or a neighbor.
At its far end the word does not even require an active trick. When Jerusalem says her lovers failed her, and when David warns the fighters arriving at his stronghold that they had better not be coming to hand him over, it carries the whole weight of betrayal: someone counted on you, and you were not there.
Nuances
2ato trick someone into acting on something false, when they had every reason to trust you
Gen 29:25Jos 9:221Sa 19:171Sa 28:122Sa 19:26(27)Pro 26:19
2bto betray an ally: to hand over or abandon someone who was counting on you
the deceiver is always someone the victim had every reason to trust, whether a father in law, a daughter, or a household servantGen 29:251Sa 19:172Sa 19:26
the word usually arrives as an accusation from the person who has just been fooled, not as a neutral description by the narratorJos 9:221Sa 28:12
Both
both describe getting someone to act on something that is not trueJos 9:22Pro 26:19
Only deceive
English "deceive" works just as well for strangers, advertisements, and even fooling yourself, none of which requires a relationship to break
the Hebrew word also covers a trick with no handing over in it at all, such as swapping one bride for another on the wedding nightGen 29:25
Both
both describe failing someone who was counting on you, whether by handing them over or simply by not being there1Ch 12:17Lam 1:19
Only betray
English "betray" leans toward delivering someone to an enemy or letting a secret slip, and it can be said of a face or a voice that gives a person away without anyone intending it
the same Hebrew word also covers loosing arrows from a bow, which "hurl" would never describePsa 78:9Jer 4:29
Both
both describe throwing something hard enough that it lands where it was sentExo 15:1Exo 15:21
Only hurl
"hurl" in English suggests raw muscle and often anger, while the Hebrew says only that something was sent flying
“throw”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“beguile”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“archers”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How ramah differs from similar Hebrew words
יָרָהthe ordinary word for shooting: it covers arrows, but also casting lots and setting a foundation stone, and it is the everyday term a writer reaches for when someone lets an arrow fly
It is the verb for betraying someone who was relying on you: what they were shown looked solid enough to act on, and acting on it is what ruined them.Jos 9:22Pro 26:19
The betrayal it names almost always comes from inside the circle of trust, from a father in law, a wife, a servant, or a sworn ally, never from a declared enemy.Gen 29:251Sa 19:172Sa 19:26Lam 1:19
Both
Both mean to hurl something so that it lands where it was aimed, and the Song of the Sea reaches for each of them in turn for Pharaoh's army going into the water.Exo 15:4Exo 15:1Exo 15:21
Both are used of archers letting arrows fly, so either can stand behind an English phrase about shooting a bow.1Sa 20:362Ki 19:32Psa 78:9Jer 4:29
Its most common use is teaching: God or a person sets instruction in front of someone so they can live by it, which is why the Hebrew word for law and teaching grows out of this verb.Exo 4:12Deu 17:111Sa 12:23Psa 25:8
It also covers simply pointing someone the right way, showing them the road ahead or the remedy in front of them rather than laying down a rule.Gen 46:28Exo 15:25
It can mean setting something down so that it stays put: laying a cornerstone, standing a memorial pillar, dropping the lots that settle a decision.Job 38:6Gen 31:51Jos 18:6
שָׁלַךְthe common word for throwing or casting something away, used of tossing a rod to the ground or flinging a body into a pit, without the sense of aiming at a target
It carries a second, entirely non-physical meaning: to fool someone who had every reason to trust you. Jacob asks Laban why he cheated him after the wedding night, Saul asks his own daughter why she tricked him, and Joshua confronts the Gibeonites for the worn sandals that won them a treaty. שָׁלַךְ never means anything of the kind.Gen 29:251Sa 19:17Jos 9:22
Its throwing sense can be aimed at a target: it is the word behind the standing description of archers, the men who work a bow, in the picture of Ephraim turning back on the day of battle and of the bowmen who empty the towns of Judah. שָׁלַךְ is never used of loosing a weapon at someone.Psa 78:9Jer 4:29
Both
Both describe hurling someone into deep water, with no way back out. The song at the Red Sea says God hurled horse and rider into the sea, and Jonah says God cast him into the deep, into the heart of the seas.Exo 15:1Jon 2:3
Both take God as the one doing the throwing in poetry of judgment, where the throw itself is the sentence: Israel sings that he threw horse and rider into the sea, and Ezekiel has him throwing a proud ruler to the ground.Exo 15:21Ezk 28:17
It is the ordinary narrative verb for throwing everyday objects, whatever the scene requires: a staff thrown down before Pharaoh, the stone tablets flung at the foot of the mountain, a millstone dropped from a wall, a stick tossed into the water, salt thrown into a spring. רָמָה never handles mundane objects like these.Exo 4:3Exo 32:19Jdg 9:532Ki 6:62Ki 2:21
It develops a settled figurative sense of casting off, meaning to reject or abandon: the prayer not to be cast away from God's presence or discarded in old age, the LORD putting a people out of his sight, a nation throwing his instruction behind its back. רָמָה never means to discard.Psa 51:11Psa 71:92Ki 17:20Psa 50:17
It is the standard word for the dishonoring disposal of a corpse, a body left where it was thrown instead of buried: the king of Ai dumped at the city gate, Absalom pitched into a pit in the forest, a prophet's body flung into a common grave, a king given a donkey's burial outside Jerusalem.Jos 8:292Sa 18:17Jer 26:23Jer 22:19
It also covers the throwing that assigns a share: casting lots before the LORD to divide the land among the tribes, and casting the measuring line that marks out a portion. This procedural use has no counterpart in רָמָה.Jos 18:8Jos 18:10Mic 2:5
בָּגַדto break faith openly, the word for a husband, a nation, or a friend who simply abandons an obligation; it names the broken loyalty itself, while this word names the trickery that broke it
Names the concrete trick that did the damage: a substituted bride, a disguise with worn-out sacks, an idol propped up in a bed to look like a sleeping man.Gen 29:25Jos 9:221Sa 19:17
Can be brushed off by the one who did it as harmless fun, which fits a single stunt rather than a life of disloyalty.Pro 26:19
The same spelling also carries a purely physical sense with no wrongdoing at all, hurling a body into the sea or working a bow.Exo 15:1Jer 4:29Psa 78:9
Both
Both describe a wrong done by someone the victim had every reason to trust, a relative or a household insider rather than an outside enemy.Gen 29:25Jer 12:6
Both are used of allies and friends who fail a person at the moment he is counting on them.1Ch 12:17Job 6:15
Both appear in the same lament over fallen Jerusalem, for the friends and lovers who turned on her.Lam 1:19Lam 1:2
Names the broken loyalty itself, with no trick involved: the offense is simply that an obligation was abandoned, as when a man sends away the woman he was bound to, or a husband turns on the wife he made promises to.Exo 21:8Mal 2:14
Hardens into a standing label for a whole class of people, "the treacherous," set against the upright: it describes a settled character rather than one act.Psa 25:3Pro 11:3Isa 24:16
Its most common victim is God: this is the standard word for a people who break faith with the LORD they were bound to.Hos 6:7Jer 5:11Mal 2:11
כָּחַשׁto lie or to deny, the plain act of saying what is not true, as Sarah does when she denies laughing; no prior trust is required, and often nobody is even harmed
Its center is the trick that moves the victim to act, a scheme that works precisely because the victim never sees it while it is running.Gen 29:25Jos 9:22Pro 26:19
It carries the sting of betrayal from inside a bond, handing a person over to enemies or abandoning an ally who counted on you.1Ch 12:172Sa 19:26Lam 1:19
The same spelling also carries a completely separate sense of hurling or shooting, used of horse and rider thrown into the sea and of fighters armed with the bow.Exo 15:1Exo 15:21Psa 78:9Jer 4:29
Both
Both name deliberate deceit worked on someone who had every reason to trust the deceiver.1Ki 13:18Gen 29:25
In both, the lie can be carried by a disguise or a false appearance rather than by words alone.Zec 13:41Sa 28:12
Both show up as an accusation thrown back at the guilty party once the deception comes to light.Jos 7:111Sa 19:17
Its center is flat denial: saying that a thing did not happen, or that a person one is bound to has no claim on you.Gen 18:15Pro 30:9Jer 5:12Job 31:28
It is the legal word for lying about property: swearing falsely over a neighbor's deposit or over something lost and quietly kept.Lev 6:2Lev 6:3Lev 19:11
It stretches past speech to things that let a person down, so a crop or a body can "lie" by failing to yield what it promised.Hab 3:17Hos 9:2Psa 109:24
It also describes beaten enemies putting on a false show of submission, going through the motions of loyalty to a victor they do not truly serve.Deu 33:292Sa 22:45Psa 66:3Psa 81:15
נָכַלto scheme craftily against someone, the cold plotting of harm from a distance; it stresses the cunning plan rather than the moment a trusted person turns out to have been lying
Carries a plain physical sense with no deceit in it at all, used of hurling horse and rider into the sea and of the archer who lets an arrow fly.Exo 15:1Psa 78:9Jer 4:29
Names the breaking of a bond already in place: a father in law swapping one daughter for another after seven years of service, neighbors who swear a treaty on a false story, men suspected of coming over to David only to hand him to his enemies.Gen 29:25Jos 9:221Ch 12:17
Sits in the victim's mouth as an accusation once the trick is exposed, the wounded question "why have you deceived me?" or the complaint that those counted on gave nothing back.1Sa 19:171Sa 28:12Lam 1:19
Covers the trick played on a neighbor and then laughed off, the deceiver excusing himself with "I was only joking."Pro 26:19
Both
Both describe harm worked by cunning rather than open force, so the person targeted is taken in before there is any sign of danger.Gen 37:18Gen 29:25
Both can describe one people taking in a whole community, deceit worked at the level of nations and sworn agreements rather than between two individuals.Num 25:18Jos 9:22
Names the plotting itself, the scheme laid before any harm is carried out: Joseph's brothers spot him in the distance and work out how to kill him while he is still walking toward them.Gen 37:18
Describes a sustained hostile campaign by one people against another, craft kept up over time rather than a single trick, as with Midian's harassment of Israel and Egypt's turning against the Israelites living among them.Num 25:18Psa 105:25
Labels a person a cheat in dealings with God: the worshiper who has a sound male animal in his flock and still offers a damaged one.Mal 1:14
נָשָׁאto lure someone into a false confidence, the word Eve uses of the serpent and the prophets use of a promise that will not hold; it points at the false hope, not at a broken bond
Betrays a trust already given: the treachery of double-crossing someone who had relied on you, so the victim protests that faith placed in the deceiver was broken.Gen 29:252Sa 19:261Ch 12:17
Often surfaces as the wounded cry "why have you deceived me?" from one who acted on an assurance and was then betrayed by the very person trusted.1Sa 19:171Sa 28:12Jos 9:22
Both
Both lead a person to believe something false that ends in harm, so English Bibles render each with "deceive."Gen 3:13Gen 29:25
Lulls a person into false confidence: talking someone into a sense of safety or belief that is not real, so the classic warning is not to let a persuasive voice make you feel secure when you are not.2Ki 18:29Isa 36:14Jer 29:82Ch 32:15
Can be a false confidence that rises from within, where a person's own pride or a self-flattering hope lulls them into a security that will fail.Oba 1:3Jer 49:16
פָּתָהto talk someone around, to coax or entice them into doing what you want, which can be gentle persuasion rather than a lie; this word always leaves the other person cheated
Betrayal by someone who was counted on, found out only afterward, which is why it so often surfaces in the wounded question "why have you deceived me?"Gen 29:25Jos 9:221Sa 19:171Sa 28:12
Operates by staging a false appearance or swapping one thing for another, not by talking anyone into a decision: the wrong bride handed over in the dark, worn out supplies produced to pass as travelers from far away.Gen 29:25Jos 9:22
Reaches into questions of loyalty and treachery: handing an ally over to his enemies, or deserting the person who depended on you.1Ch 12:172Sa 19:26Lam 1:19
The same spelling also carries an unrelated sense of hurling or shooting, so its verses include horses thrown into the sea and archers drawing the bow.Exo 15:1Psa 78:9Jer 4:29
Both
Both describe deliberately misleading another person for the deceiver's own advantage, which is why English Bibles render each of them "deceive".2Sa 3:25Gen 29:25
Both turn up in wisdom sayings as a warning against wronging the neighbor who trusts you, and both treat the excuse that it was only words as no excuse at all.Pro 24:28Pro 16:29Pro 26:19
Both can voice a bitter complaint by the one who was taken in, addressed to the very party they had relied on.Jer 20:7Lam 1:19
Works through the mouth: coaxing, flattery, and sweet talk that argues a person around to what the speaker wants.Jdg 14:15Pro 20:19Psa 78:36
Can be honest or even tender persuasion rather than trickery, so winning someone over is not automatically a wrong done to them.Pro 25:15Hos 2:14
Names the victim's own gullibility as a settled trait: the wide open person with no sense, who can be talked into anything.Job 5:2Hos 7:11
Covers sexual seduction and the luring away of the heart, where the target is drawn by desire rather than fooled about the facts.Exo 22:16Job 31:9
God himself can be the one who does it, sending a spirit to lure a king to his death or overpowering a prophet who did not want the job.1Ki 22:201Ki 22:22Jer 20:7
מִרְמָהthe standard noun for deceit or fraud, the settled quality of a crooked person or a rigged scale; this word is the verb for a specific act of fooling one particular person
Reports the act itself, with a named betrayer and a named victim, and it surfaces most often in the wounded question a person asks after the trust has broken: why have you done this to me?Gen 29:25Jos 9:221Sa 19:171Sa 28:12
Covers betrayal by the people closest to someone, the servant, the ally, or the friend who was expected to help and did the opposite.2Sa 19:261Ch 12:17Lam 1:19
Is spelled the same as a completely separate verb meaning to hurl or to shoot, used of horse and rider flung into the sea and of men who handle the bow, a use the noun for deceit never has.Exo 15:1Exo 15:21Psa 78:9Jer 4:29
Both
Both describe the betrayal of someone who had every reason to trust, not merely a false sentence, so both fit the classic family swindles of Genesis.Gen 27:35Gen 29:25
Both are used of a neighbor who misleads the person next to him, and both treat that as wrongdoing rather than cleverness.Psa 35:20Pro 26:19
Names deceit as a settled quality of a person, especially of the mouth: a tongue, lips, or heart that is simply made of it, condemned as a trait rather than reported as one act.Psa 34:13Psa 52:4Isa 53:9Psa 5:6
Is the standard word for crooked business, attached to weights, scales, and the merchant's bag so that the scales themselves are called scales of deceit.Pro 11:1Pro 20:23Amo 8:5Mic 6:11Hos 12:7
Works as the label for a plot already carried out, the one word a speaker can throw at a whole scheme without naming who did what to whom.2Ki 9:23Gen 34:13Dan 8:25Dan 11:23
רְמִיָּהthe noun built on this same root, covering both treachery and plain slackness, so that a slack hand and a deceitful tongue share one word; the verb never carries the sense of laziness
This is the doing word of the pair: it names deceiving as something one person does to another, and it usually surfaces in the mouth of the person who was taken in, as an accusation after the fact ("why have you deceived me?").Gen 29:251Sa 19:171Sa 28:122Sa 19:26
It covers going back on trust already given: breaking a sworn agreement, handing an ally over to his enemies, or abandoning someone who was counting on you.Jos 9:221Ch 12:17Lam 1:19
It also carries a plainly physical sense with no dishonesty in it at all, hurling or shooting something: the horse and rider thrown into the sea, and men who let arrows fly.Exo 15:1Exo 15:21Psa 78:9Jer 4:29
Both
Both name a betrayal of trust between parties who owed each other better, and both are turned on God's own people and their leaders.Jos 9:22Psa 78:57
Both live in the world of misleading speech, the false word aimed at a neighbor and the tongue that keeps producing it.Pro 26:19Mic 6:12
This one names deceit as a quality rather than an act, and it attaches to the parts of a person that produce it: the tongue, the lips, the inner spirit.Job 27:4Psa 32:2Psa 120:2Psa 120:3Mic 6:12
Because it is a quality, it can be produced or practiced as a settled habit, so a person is described as one who works deceit, and such a person is barred from the king's household.Psa 52:2Psa 101:7Job 13:7
It supplies the picture of the weapon that lets its owner down, a bow that twists in the hand so the shot goes wide, applied to a people who cannot be relied on.Psa 78:57Hos 7:16
It stretches to a sense the verb never has: slackness. A hand, an appetite, a hunter, or a job done this way simply fails to deliver, whether or not anyone was lied to.Pro 10:4Pro 12:24Pro 12:27Pro 19:15Jer 48:10
Reports one act of betrayal between named people, and usually surfaces in the stunned question the victim asks the moment the trust breaks: why have you done this to me?Gen 29:25Jos 9:221Sa 19:171Sa 28:12
Lives in ordinary household and political life, where the betrayer is a father in law, a daughter, a household servant, or a treaty partner, rather than in the prophets' indictments.Gen 29:252Sa 19:26Jos 9:22
Reaches as far as failing an ally who was counting on you, where no trick is even reported and the charge is simply that you were not there.1Ch 12:17Lam 1:19
Is spelled the same as a completely separate verb meaning to hurl or to shoot, used of horse and rider flung into the sea and of the men who work a bow, a use the noun for deceit never has.Exo 15:1Exo 15:21Psa 78:9Jer 4:29
Both
Both name deliberate misleading of someone else, treated as wrongdoing rather than as cleverness worth admiring.Jos 9:22Psa 119:118
Both are at home in misleading speech, whether the words a neighbor says and then laughs off or the tongue that trades in what is not true.Pro 26:19Zep 3:13
Both aim the wrong at the party with the strongest claim to faithfulness, so the offense is broken trust inside a bond and not the fooling of a stranger.Gen 29:25Jer 8:5
Names the deceit itself as something people take hold of and will not let go, a settled course of life rather than a single incident.Jer 8:5Psa 119:118
Carries the prophets' charge against false prophets, naming what their own minds manufacture and then pass off as a message from God.Jer 14:14Jer 23:26
Can be attached to a part of the body as a quality it has, so a tongue is called a tongue of deceit and promised to be absent from the people God keeps.Zep 3:13
Turns up once outside the prophets and the Psalms in a spelling so unusual that readers still dispute whether it means deceit at all or is the name of a place.Jdg 9:31
ramah in the other biblical languages
παραλογίζομαιGreek“to deceive”the Greek verb for talking someone into a false conclusion, warned against in Colossians and James; it is the closest match to the way this word cheats a person who was listening in good faith
The deceiving is typically staged by action rather than argument: a bride swapped in the dark, worn out clothes and stale bread, an idol laid in a bed to fake a sick man.Gen 29:25Jos 9:221Sa 19:17
It regularly names betrayal inside a bond of trust, where the injury is that a relative, a servant, an ally, or a lover was the one who did it.2Sa 19:261Ch 12:17Lam 1:19
The same spelling carries a wholly separate sense of hurling or shooting, used of horse and rider flung into the sea and of men who handle the bow, a range the Greek word has nothing of.Exo 15:1Psa 78:9Jer 4:29
Both
Both name misleading a person about the real state of things, so that the one deceived goes on to act on a false picture.Gen 29:25Col 2:4
Both belong to the language of confrontation and warning rather than neutral report: the deceiving is named in order to expose it or to head it off.Jos 9:22Jas 1:22
The deceiving is done with words and reasoning: someone is talked out of the truth by an argument that sounds convincing, so the danger lies in the plausible line of talk itself.Col 2:4
It can be turned back on the deceiver: a person misleads himself, drawing a false conclusion about his own standing when hearing the word without doing it.Jas 1:22
ἀπατάωGreek“to trick”the plain Greek verb for deceiving someone, used of sin, of riches, and of empty words; it does not carry the assumption that the deceiver was trusted
Carries a wholly physical meaning alongside the deceiving one: hurling horse and rider bodily into the sea, and working a bow on the battlefield.Exo 15:1Psa 78:9
The trickery happens inside a standing bond, so it lands as betrayal rather than as a general hazard: a father-in-law at his daughter's wedding, a daughter shielding her husband from her father, neighbors who swore a treaty.Gen 29:251Sa 19:17Jos 9:22
Almost always spoken afterward by the one who was fooled, thrown back at the deceiver's face as a stunned accusation once the trick has come to light.Gen 29:251Sa 28:122Sa 19:26
Stretches as far as plain abandonment, where no active trick was played at all: allies who did not stand by the one counting on them.1Ch 12:17Lam 1:19
Both
Both name leading a person into a false picture of things so that they act on it, and both treat the result as real damage done to the one taken in.Eph 5:6Gen 29:25
Both are commonly worked through speech: smooth talk that promises what will not come, or a neighbor's claim that the trick was only a joke.Eph 5:6Pro 26:19
Neither is a neutral report: wherever either word appears the deceiver is in the wrong, and the text says so plainly.Jas 1:26Jos 9:22
Can be turned back on the person himself: someone who talks religiously while never controlling his tongue deceives his own heart, so the deceiver and the victim are one and the same.Jas 1:26
The deceiver can be anyone at all, a stranger or a passing teacher, so the warning is against a danger loose in the air rather than against someone the hearer already knows and trusts.Eph 5:6
Can describe the bare condition of having been misled, with no trickster named and no relationship in view: Adam "was not deceived," while the woman was.1Ti 2:14
ῥίπτωGreek“to throw/lay down”the Greek verb for hurling or flinging something down, the closest counterpart to the throwing meaning rather than the deceiving one
Its most common use is not physical at all but moral: to trick someone by a false appearance, so that the victim asks afterward why he was fooled.Jos 9:221Sa 19:171Sa 28:12Pro 26:19
That deceiving is usually a betrayal inside a bond of trust: a father-in-law with his son-in-law, a servant with his king, would-be allies, a city's own lovers.Gen 29:252Sa 19:261Ch 12:17Lam 1:19
It is the word for shooting a bow, so its participle simply names the archer, the man who sends arrows at a target.Psa 78:9Jer 4:29
Both
Both name the plain physical act of hurling something away with force, so that it lands where the thrower means it to land.Exo 15:1Mat 27:5
Both are used of throwing into the sea as a final disposal, whether horse and rider drowned by God or cargo and gear pitched over a ship's side.Exo 15:21Act 27:19Luk 17:2
It reaches the gentle end of the action too: crowds carry the sick and set them down at Jesus' feet, where the verb means to deposit someone carefully rather than hurl them.Mat 15:30
It can describe a condition rather than an act, picturing people as already flung down and left lying there, worn out and without a shepherd.Mat 9:36
It covers a crowd's gesture of outrage, the flinging off of cloaks and the tossing of dust into the air.Act 22:23
It is used of one being throwing another to the ground by force, as when the unclean spirit slams the man down before leaving him.Luk 4:35
Only the Hebrew word means to trick or betray a person, and that is its most frequent use. Jacob wakes to the wrong bride and asks Laban why he was cheated, Joshua confronts the Gibeonites for the ruse that won them a treaty, Michal claims David forced her hand, and the man who lies to his neighbor and then says he was only joking is described with this word. The Aramaic word never carries this sense at all.Gen 29:25Jos 9:221Sa 19:17Pro 26:19
The Hebrew word stretches to the betrayal of someone who trusted you, where the harm is a broken bond rather than a clever lie. Ziba is accused of misleading his master, Mephibosheth; David warns that he will not tolerate being handed over by men who came to him in peace; and Jerusalem grieves that the allies she loved played her false.2Sa 19:261Ch 12:17Lam 1:19
In Hebrew the throwing can be the launch of an arrow, so the word doubles as the ordinary term for archers. Ephraim's troops are the ones "armed with bows" who turned back on the day of battle, and the sound of horsemen and bowmen empties the cities in Jeremiah. Nothing in the Aramaic use involves a weapon.Psa 78:9Jer 4:29
Both
Both words describe hurling a person or thing into a place where it will be destroyed. The Hebrew song celebrates horse and rider thrown into the sea; the Aramaic account reports men thrown into a blazing furnace and into a den of lions.Exo 15:1Dan 3:6Dan 6:16
In both, the one doing the throwing is an overwhelming power and the one thrown has no say in it. The Lord flings Pharaoh's horse and rider into the water, and the king's strongest soldiers bind the three men and pitch them into the fire.Exo 15:21Dan 3:20Dan 3:21
Only the Aramaic word is used for laying a burden or obligation on someone by official order, with no physical throwing involved. Artaxerxes' letter forbids anyone to "impose" tax, tribute, or toll on the temple staff.Ezr 7:24
The Aramaic word can also mean simply to set something in position, quietly and without force. In Daniel's night vision the thrones are "placed" and then the Ancient of Days takes his seat.Dan 7:9
In Aramaic this is the fixed courtroom formula for a death sentence carried out by throwing, repeated word for word in the royal decrees. Whoever will not bow to the statue is to be "cast" into the blazing furnace, whoever prays to anyone but the king is to be "cast" into the lions' den, and the same wording turns back on the accusers when they are thrown in themselves.Dan 3:11Dan 6:7Dan 6:12Dan 6:24
What scholars say about ramah
The standard lexica treat this spelling as two roots. HALOT, BDB, and DCH each list רמה I, attested in the qal with the sense of throwing or shooting (Exod 15:1, 21) and in the construct participle רוֹמֵי / רֹמֵה קֶשֶׁת for archers (Ps 78:9;Jer 4:29), separately from רמה II, attested only in the piel with the sense of deceiving or betraying. The piel is generally connected with the nouns רְמִיָּה and מִרְמָה, which cluster around treachery and slack dealing. The distribution of רמה II is worth noting: seven of its eight occurrences stand in first or second person speech, four of them in the reproachful question לָמָּה רִמִּיתַנִי and its variants (Gen 29:25;Josh 9:22;1 Sam 19:17; 28:12), and in 1 Chr 12:17 the verb governs לְ with the party to whom the speaker would be handed over, which is the construction behind the rendering "betray." Commentators on Exod 15:1 note that the qal here is the only finite use of רמה I in the Hebrew Bible, the remaining two instances being the archer participle.
Sources
HALOT, s.v. רמה I, רמה IIlexicon
BDB, s.v. רָמָה I, רָמָה IIlexicon
DCH, s.v. רמה I, רמה IIlexicon
TWOT, s.v. רמהtheological-dictionary
NIDOTTE, s.v. רמהtheological-dictionary
William H. C. Propp, Exodus 1-18, Anchor Bible 2 (Doubleday, 1999), on Exodus 15:1commentary
Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 16-50, Word Biblical Commentary 2 (Word, 1994), on Genesis 29:25commentary