2 Kings 5:18. When my master goeth into the house of Rimmon to worship there, and he leaneth on my hand.
1. Rimmon is supposed to have been a prominent deity of the Syrians. Traces of the name are found in Tabrimon, the father of Benhadad, king of Syria (1 Kings 15:18) and perhaps in Hadadrimmon (Zech. 12:11). Nothing definite is known of this deity or of the nature of his worship, and the derivation of the word is uncertain. Some suppose it to be the application to a deity of the word rimmon. a pomegranate. Stollberg in his History of Religion, (cited by Rosenmuller, Morgenland, vol. 3, p. 231,) says that the Orientals consider apples as symbols of the sun, and on this account certain court servants of the king of Persia carried a staff with a golden apple on the point. Others derive the word from ramam, to be high, or lifted up. This again would point to the sun; and it is highly probable that the worship of Rimmon had some connection with that adoration of the sun so common among the heathen nations of the East.
2. It was probably a part of the court etiquette that the king should lean on the arm of one of his chief officers. The king of Israel had this custom as well as the king of Syria (2 Kings 7:2,17). The Jews have a tradition that two young women waited on Esther when she was queen of Persia, one to hold up her train, and the other for her to lean upon.