Judges 9:37

37 {And Gaal spoke again} and said, "Look, people [are] coming down from Tabbur-erez, and one division [is] coming from the direction of Elon-meonenim."

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 Gaal son of Ebed went out and stood [at] the entrance of the city gate, and Abimelech and the army that [was] with him got up from the ambush.
36 When Gaal saw the army, he said to Zebul, "Look, people [are] coming down from the top of the mountains!" And Zebul said to him, "{The shadows of the mountains look like people to you}."
37 {And Gaal spoke again} and said, "Look, people [are] coming down from Tabbur-erez, and one division [is] coming from the direction of Elon-meonenim."
38 And Zebul said to him, "Where then {is your boast}, [you] who said, 'Who [is] Abimelech that we should serve him?' [Is] this not the army that you rejected? Please, go out now and fight against them."
39 So Gaal went out before the lords of Shechem and fought against Abimelech.

Footnotes 3

  • [a]. Literally "And he did again again Gaal to speak"
  • [b]. Or "company"
  • [c]. Or "[the] Sorcerer's Oak"
Scripture quotations marked (LEB) are from the Lexham English Bible. Copyright 2012 Logos Bible Software. Lexham is a registered trademark of Logos Bible Software.