Judges 9:37

37 Gaal spoke again, "No, there are troops coming down from Tabbur Haares. One company is coming along the road by the Fortunetellers' Tree."

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 to the city. Then Abimelech and his troops rose from their ambush.
36 When Gaal saw the troops, he said to Zebul, "Look, troops are coming down from the mountaintops!" Zebul replied, "The shadows of the mountains look like men to you."
37 Gaal spoke again, "No, there are troops coming down from Tabbur Haares. One company is coming along the road by the Fortunetellers' Tree."
38 Then Zebul said to him, "Where is your big mouth now? You were the one who said, 'Who's Abimelech that we should serve him?' Aren't these the troops [whose ruler] you despised? Now go out and fight him."
39 Then Gaal led citizens of Shechem out to fight Abimelech.
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