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( àִéì , dyil; êñéüò ). As this animal, fattened, was a favorite article of food (Gen_31:38; Eze_39:18), it was considered, when offered as sacrifice, of higher value than sheep and lambs (Gen_15:9, Num_15:5-6; Num_23:1 sq.; Num_28:11 sq., Num_28:28 sq.; Mic_6:7), and the legal ritual gave exact directions on the sacrifice of them. The rams were sometimes burnt-offerings (Lev_8:18; Lev_8:21; Lev_9:2; Lev_16:3; Num_7:15; Psalm 46:15; Isa_1:11; Eze_45:23, etc.), sometimes thank-offerings (Lev_9:4; Lev_9:18; Num_6:14; Num_6:17; Num_7:17; Num_28:11, etc.), sometimes trespass-offerings (Lev_5:15; Lev_18:25; Lev_6:6; comp. Lev_19:21; Num_5:8; Ezr_10:19, etc.). The ram, too, appears not only in public and private offerings in general, but especially in the purifying sacrifices of the Nazarite (Num_6:14) and the sacrifices of Priestly Consecration. It was not used as a sin-offering. In 2Ch_29:21 only the seven he-goats belong to the sin-offering, as 2Ch_29:23 shows; the rams, with the other animals, forming the burnt- offering. The use of the ram as thank- and trespass-offering is pointed out in Exo_29:22 (comp. Lev_8:16; Lev_9:19; Isa_34:6). The Greeks and Romans used rams for sacrifice only exceptionally; yet comp. Pliny, H. N. 34:19, 19. In Egypt this was more frequent (Wilkinson, v, 191 sq.); only in the Thebais it was prohibited, save at the great annual festival of Amman (Herod. ii, 42). On the symbolic use of the ram in Daniel to signify the Persian empire, SEE CATTLE, No. II; and on the SEE BATTERING-RAM, see s.v. The use of ram's skins for covering is alluded to in Exo_25:5; Exo_26:14; Exo_36:19; Exo_39:34, and is still common in Palestine, where they are also "dyed red" (Exo_25:5) for the use of the shoemakers (Thomson, Land and Book, i, 139). SEE SHEEP.