Biblical Hebrew Forum

[jimstinehart AT aol.com]

Isaac Fried:

You wrote:  

“Not mighty but lofty.”

There were three small villages near “lofty” or “mighty” trees west of Bethel 
whose names reflected those “lofty”, “mighty” trees, and which were 
historically dominated by an Amorite princeling that the Bible aptly refers 
to as Mamre.  Here are the three village names:

1.  )LWN.  Allon.  I Samuel 10: 3:  Allon of Tabor.  [This was the most 
important village.]

2.  )YLWN.  Elon.  Joshua 19: 43:  Elon.  [Not the famous city of Aijalon at 
Joshua 19: 42.  The tent-dwelling Patriarchs sojourned in a rural paradise, 
not near a big city.]

3.  )YLWN.  Elon.  I Kings 4: 29:  Elon-Beth-Hanan.

The $64,000 question is:  how does one refer to these three villages 
dominated by Mamre, with their “lofty”, “mighty” names that refer to oak 
trees, in masculine construct plural?  How do you say “Allons/Elons of 
Mamre”, with the accent on )LWN/Allon, in describing the Patriarchs’ favorite 
place to sojourn in southern Canaan?  Doesn’t Genesis 13: 18 say it all?

)LNY MMR)

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois



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