Judges 9:37

37 Then Gaal spoke up again, “Look, people are coming down from the center of the land, [a] and one company is coming by way of the Diviners’ Oak. [b]

Judges 9:37 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 9:37

And Gaal spake again, and said
Looking towards the mountains, and taking another view of what he before saw, for further satisfaction:

see, there come people down by the middle of the land;
either in the valley between the two mountains; or rather those he first saw on the top of the mountains were now come down about the middle of them, called in the Hebrew text the navel, from the prominence of the mountains thereabout, or because the navel is in the middle of the body, as this part of them was the middle on which he saw them. R. Isaiah interprets it, between the two cities:

and another company come along by the plain of Meonenim;
of which we read nowhere else. Montanus renders it, "the oak of Meonenim"; or of the soothsayers; oaks being had in great esteem with idolaters for their oracles and divinations; and perhaps this was a place, whether an oak or, a plain, where such persons used to meet to make their divinations.

Judges 9:37 In-Context

35 Now Gaal son of Ebed went out and stood at the entrance of the city gate just as Abimelech and his men came out from their hiding places.
36 When Gaal saw the people, he said to Zebul, “Look, people are coming down from the mountains!” But Zebul replied, “The shadows of the mountains look like men to you.”
37 Then Gaal spoke up again, “Look, people are coming down from the center of the land, and one company is coming by way of the Diviners’ Oak. ”
38 “Where is your gloating now?” Zebul replied. “You said, ‘Who is Abimelech that we should serve him?’ Are these not the people you ridiculed? Go out now and fight them!”
39 So Gaal went out before the leaders of Shechem and fought against Abimelech,

Footnotes 2

  • [a]. Literally the navel of the earth
  • [b]. Or the Diviners’ Terebinth or the diviners’ tree
The Berean Bible and Majority Bible texts are officially placed into the public domain