OAK
- Easton's
- Nave's
- Torrey's
| EASTON'S BIBLE DICTIONARY |
There are six Hebrew words rendered "oak."
1. 'El occurs only in the word El-paran (Genesis 14:6). The LXX.
renders by "terebinth." In the plural form this word occurs in Isaiah 1:29; 57:5 (A.V. marg. and
R.V., "among the oaks"); 61:3 ("trees"). The word
properly means strongly, mighty, and hence a strong tree.
2.'Elah, Genesis
35:4, "under the oak which was by Shechem" (R.V. marg., "terebinth"). Isaiah 6:13, A.V.,
"teil-tree;" R.V., "terebinth." Isaiah 1:30, R.V. marg.,
"terebinth." Absalom in his flight was caught in the branches of a "great oak"
(2 Samuel 18:9; R.V.
marg., "terebinth").
3.'Elon, Judges
4:11; 9:6 (R.V.,
"oak;" A.V., following the Targum, "plain") properly the deciduous species of
oak shedding its foliage in autumn.
4.'Elan, only in Daniel 4:11,14,20,
rendered "tree" in Nebuchadnezzar's dream. Probably some species of the oak is
intended.
5.'Allah, Joshua
24:26. The place here referred to is called Allon-moreh ("the oak of Moreh,"
as in R.V.) in Genesis
12:6 and 35:4.
6.'Allon, always rendered "oak." Probably the evergreen oak (called also ilex
and holm oak) is intended. The oak woods of Bashan are frequently alluded to (Isaiah 2:13; Ezekiel 27:6). Three
species of oaks are found in Palestine, of which the "prickly evergreen oak"
(Quercus coccifera) is the most abundant. "It covers the rocky hills of
Palestine with a dense brushwood of trees from 8 to 12 feet high, branching from
the base, thickly covered with small evergreen rigid leaves, and bearing acorns
copiously." The so-called Abraham's oak at Hebron is of this species. Tristram
says that this oak near Hebron "has for several centuries taken the place of the
once renowned terebinth which marked the site of Mamre on the other side of the
city. The terebinth existed at Mamre in the time of Vespasian, and under it the
captive Jews were sold as slaves. It disappeared about A.D. 330, and no tree now
marks the grove of Mamre. The present oak is the noblest tree in Southern
Palestine, being 23 feet in girth, and the diameter of the foliage, which is
unsymmetrical, being about 90 feet."
(See HEBRON; TEIL TREE.)
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