🔼The name Ela: Summary
- Meaning
- Terebinth
- Etymology
- From the noun אלה, terebinth, from the verb אלל ('alal), to protrude.
🔼The name Ela in the Bible
The name Ela occurs only one time in the Bible. He is the father of Shimei, who served king Solomon as deputy in the territory of Benjamin (1 Kings 4:18).
🔼Etymology of the name Ela
The sources all agree: the name אלא (Ela) is a variant spelling of the word אלה, meaning terebinth:
אלל
The root אלל ('alal) predominantly describes a protruding or sticking out. This may be positive (when one leads a collective), neutral (when one is a tree), or negative (when one fails convention). The latter sense in particular describes foolishness, or at least a failure to live up to cognitive standards or common codes of conduct.
Nouns אלון ('allon), אלה ('alla) and אלה ('elah) refer to oaks or terebinths but note the similarities with the demonstrative pronoun אלה ('elleh), "these," and אלה ('eloah) meaning god or God.
Nouns אליל ('elil) and אלול ('elul) mean worthlessness or a worthless thing (a thing that sticks out of the economy of useful things). Adjectives אויל ('ewil) and אולי ('ewili) mean foolish, and noun אולת ('iwwelet) means foolishness or folly. Noun אול ('ul) may mean belly or leading man.
Nouns אולם ('ulam) and אילם ('elam) mean porch. The former is identical to an adverb that means "however" or "but." Another adverb אולי ('ulay) means "perhaps."
Noun איל ('ayil), "protruder," refers in the Bible to a ram, a pillar, a chief and, yet again, a terebinth. Noun איל ('ayyal) means stag or deer — hence the panting deer of Psalm 42 also describes an ignoramus longing for instruction — and its feminine counterpart אילה ('ayyala) means doe.
The verb יאל (ya'al) means to be foolish, gullible or even simply compliant and pleased to go along in no particularly negative way.
🔼Ela meaning
Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names regards the name אלא as an alternatively spelled version of the name Elah, which makes perfect sense, and reads Terebinth for both. BDB Theological Dictionary simply reads Terebinth but adds its signature question mark to indicate that nothing is certain. NOBSE Study Bible Name List, by exception, does not offer an interpretation.