elah

Five men in the Bible are called Elah, and nothing connects them beyond the name. The Hebrew gives each one a father or a clan, and that is the only way to tell them apart:

• a king of Israel, the son of Baasha, killed by one of his own officers
• the father of Hoshea, the last king Israel ever had
• a chief in the Edomite lists of Esau's descendants
• a son of Caleb in the family records of Judah
• a man of Benjamin living in Jerusalem, the son of Uzzi

The name is simply the Hebrew word for a large tree, the kind that stands out on an open hillside (אֵלָה). Some Bibles print that word "terebinth" and others "oak," because the Hebrew does not pin down a species. Naming a child after a tree or a plant was ordinary in Israel and among its neighbors, in the same way as Tamar, which means "date palm."

The best known bearer of the name is the king. He reigned two years at Tirzah and was murdered by Zimri, one of his own chariot commanders, and his death ended his father's short royal line. The second best known is barely a character at all: Elah the father of Hoshea, whose name comes up only because the Bible dates events to the reign of Hoshea son of Elah.

Nothing in any of these verses plays on what the name means, so the tree behind it is a piece of background rather than a clue to the story.

This is a place, not a person. It is the valley where Saul's army and the Philistines camped on facing slopes, where Goliath came out morning after morning, and where David went to meet him. All three times the Bible names the valley, that fight is what is in view.

The Hebrew is a description rather than a bare name. It attaches "the" to the tree word, so the phrase reads "the valley of the terebinth," naming the valley for a tree that grew there, much as English names Oak Ridge or Elm Street. Most English Bibles keep the Hebrew sound and print "the Valley of Elah"; a few translate it and print "the Valley of the Terebinth."

The tree suited the ground. This valley runs through the chalky low hills where the Philistine plain climbs toward the hills of Judah, drier and more open country than the wooded slopes higher up, and a stand of big trees there was the obvious landmark to name a valley by.

The men called Elah get their name from the same tree word, but none of them has anything to do with this valley, and the Bible never links them to it.