Abiram

Abiram (Heb. av-ram, father of height — the same root as *Abram and Abraham*) is the name of two distinct men in scripture, both of whom died as signs of divine judgment.

**1. The Reubenite who rebelled with Korah (Numbers 16).** Son of Eliab; together with his brother Dathan and with Korah the Levite, Abiram led an uprising against the leadership of Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The complaint was twofold — Korah's grievance was that the priesthood should not be limited to Aaron's house; Dathan and Abiram's was that Moses had not delivered them into a land flowing with milk and honey but instead into the wilderness to die. When Moses called for the LORD's judgment, the ground opened beneath Korah, Dathan, Abiram, and their households, and they were swallowed up alive into Sheol. Their fate became proverbial: Numbers 26:9-10, Deuteronomy 11:6, and Psalm 106:17 all return to it as a memory of rebellion against the LORD's appointed leaders.

**2. Firstborn son of Hiel the Bethelite (1 Kings 16:34).** When Hiel rebuilt Jericho during the reign of Ahab, his firstborn son Abiram died as he laid the foundation, and his youngest son Segub died when he set up the gates — fulfilling the curse Joshua had pronounced five centuries earlier over the ruined city: Cursed be the man before the LORD, that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho: he shall lay the foundation thereof in his firstborn, and in his youngest son shall he set up the gates of it (Joshua 6:26). The note in 1 Kings is one verse long; it is also one of scripture's most chilling examples of a long-deferred curse coming due.