f) 
162 
SACKED BOTANY. 
Intrrli HGntnnti.— €{1? '(ErrtliiDtli— JSuts. 
KWHOUGH unnamed in the authorized version of the Scriptures, except in the Apocryphal book of 
IX Ecolesiasticus, the Terebinth tree is, according to the concurrent testimony of the ablest biblical 
critics, irequently alluded to in the original text. In many of the passages, in which our translation 
reads " oak," it is held that the Terebinth is intended — an error of ti'anslation having originated, pro- 
bably, in the near resemblance of the Hebrew names, -which are supposed to indicate these two trees, 
that of the Oak being Allon, and that of the Terebinth Alah, or 
Ailah. The Hebrew Alah is, in many instances, translated by 
" plaia," and, in these passages, the proper rendering seems also to 
be Terebinth. In one text, Alah is translated " Tiel tree," (Isaiah 
vi. 13); a name belonging to the Linden or Lime {Tilia ettropcea); 
but there seems no good reason for preferring tliis reading, in the 
present instance, and the Terebinth again should rather be under- 
stood. In one other passage in our version, it is rendered Elm, 
(Hosea iv. 13). The word also occurs in the masculine singular, 
in the name i'?-Paran, (Gen. xiv. 6), for which our marginal read- 
ings substitute. Plain of Paran, and which we may understand to 
mean the Terebinth, or Turpentine tree of Paran. If the two isolated 
passages above mentioned are thus allowed to have reference to the 
Terebinth ti-ee, then neither the Lime tree, nor the Ebn are men- 
tioned in the Bible. 
Taking, therefore, the current interpretation, and understanding 
the Terebinth to be intended by Alah, we shall briefly glance at the 
allusions of the texts in which it occurs. These passages convey 
strongly the impression, that the shelter and shade of the Terebinths 
constituted them the homes, or resting-places of the nomade wan- 
derers of the patriarchal age ; and, in after times, when their de- 
scendants became a settled community, a degree of sanctity became 
attached to the aged shelterers of their forefathers : and, perhaps, 
also, to the trees generally, on that account, irrespective of then- 
age or history. That the tree was well adapted for sheltering, the 
temporary, or periodical homestead of these " dwellers in tents," is 
e-vident,fromEcclus. xxiv. 16, where the writer, in a figure of speech, 
refers to its ■\vide-spread branches. " As the turpentine tree I 
stretched forth my branches, and my branches are the branches of 
honour and grace." It was, moreover, the thick boughs of a great Oak, (Terebinth), wliich canght 
hold of the flowing tresses of the rebelhous Absalom, when fleeing on his mule before liis father's vic- 
torious army, (2 Sam. xviii. 9, 10, 14). In accordance -with the -view we have taken, we find, that 
when the patriarch Abram, left the laud of bus fathers, to sojom-n in that land wliich God should show 
him, his first recorded halting-place was the Plain (Terebinth tree) of Moreh, in the place of Sichem, (Gen. 
xii. 6) ; and afterwards he came and dwelt in the Plain (Terebinth grove) of Mami-e, which is in Hebron, 
and bmlt there an altar unto the Lord, (Gen. xiii. 18). It was here, we read, that " the Lord appeared 
unto Abraham, in the Plain (Terebinth grove) of Moreh ; and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the 
day" (Gen. x-viii. 1). In this case, the patriarch, as we learn from the context, desired the heavenly 
messengers to rest themselves under the tree. A venerable Terebinth, which, about the commencement 
of the Christian era, existed at Mamre, near Hebron, was, by a tradition, old in the time of Josephus, 
alleged to be that under which Abraham pitched his tent, as referred to in the texts above quoted. 
According to another tradition, this venerable tree sprang from the staft' of one of the angels who ap- 
peared there to Abraham. There are recorded in the Bible, other instances of the pitching of tents, 
and of sitting, or resting, under Terebinth trees, (Judges iv. 11 ; vi. 11-19 ; 1 Kings xiii. 14). 
Besides overspreading and sheltering the patriarchal sanctuaries, and halting-places, the Tere- 
binths also cast their venerable shade around the burying-places of their dead. The men of Jabesh 
GHead, when they had rescued the remains of Saul and Jonathan from their Philistine conquerors, 
"buried their bones under the Oak, (Terebinth^, in Jabesh" (1 Chi-on. x. 12). Jacob also, we are in- 
formed, buried, or hid the strange Gods found among his company, under the Oak, (Terebinth), which 
was by Sheohem, (Gen. xxxv. 4), where was probably an altar, or sanctuary, which marked the previous 
PI5T.\CXA T£REBI>'THTJS. 
