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  • From: Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>
  • To: jimstinehart AT aol.com
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Mighty
  • Date: Wed, 11 May 2011 22:49:17 -0400

One needs to be very careful about Hebrew names as they lack context.
Evidently, ALON refers to something lofty or tall, possibly (but not necessarily) a tree, as is the ELAH, said to be HA-GDOLAH, 'the big one', in 2S 18:9, and HA-ABUTAH, 'the thickety one' in Ez. 6:13. If the biblical ALON is the 'oak' of today, only God knows.
TABOR is a TABUR as in Judges 9:37 and Ez. 38:12, being a kind of a CABUR, 'pile up'.
I am not sure as to what is the meaning of AYALON and EYLON.
I am sorry, but all I can say about ELONEY MAMRE of Genesis 13:18 is that it appears to be a place name near XEBRON. Is it an oak grove? Possibly.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On May 11, 2011, at 9:15 PM, jimstinehart AT aol.com wrote:

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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