PLAIN OF THE PILLAR

('elon mutstsbh; Codex Vaticanus reads pros te balano te heurete tes staseos tes en Sikimois; Codex Alexandrinus omits te heurete, and the second tes): With the Revised Version margin we must read "terebinth of the pillar," the place where the men of Shechem and Beth-millo made Abimelech king (Judges 9:6). This was one of the sacred trees of which there seem to have been several near Shechem. See MEONENIM, OAK OF. "The pillar" may possibly have been the great stone which Joshua set up "under the oak that was by the sanctuary of Yahweh" (Joshua 24:26).

W. Ewing

or rather "oak of the pillar" (that being the real signification of the Hebrew word elon), a tree which stood near Shechem and at which the men of Shechem and the house of Millo assembled to crown Abimelech the son of Gideon. (Judges 9:6)