Teil Tree: (an old name for the lime-tree, the tilia),
(Isaiah 6:13) the terebinth,
or turpentine-tree, the Pistacia terebinthus of botanists. The Hebrew
word here used (elah) is rendered oak (q.v.) in
(Genesis 35:4; Judges 6:11,19)
(Isaiah 1:29) etc. In
(Isaiah 61:3) it is rendered in the plural "trees;"
(Hosea 4:13) "elm" (R.V., "terebinth").
(Hosea 4:13) "elm" (R.V.,
"terebinth"). In
(1 Samuel 17:2,19) it is taken as a proper name, "Elah"
(R.V. marg., "terebinth"). "The terebinth of Mamre, or its lineal
successor, remained from the days of Abraham till the fourth century of
the Christian era, and on its site Constantine erected a Christian
church, the ruins of which still remain." This tree "is seldom seen in
clumps or groves, never in forests, but stands isolated and weird-like
in some bare ravine or on a hill-side where nothing else towers above
the low brushwood" (Tristram).
