And Gaal spake again and said, See there come people down by the middle of the land, and another company come along by the plain of Meonenim.

Again Gaal said: Behold there cometh people down from the middle of the land, and one troop cometh by the way that looketh towards the oak.

Ga'al spoke again and said, |Look, men are coming down from the center of the land, and one company is coming from the direction of the Diviners' Oak.|

And Gaal addeth yet to speak, and saith, 'Lo, people are coming down from the high part of the land, and another detachment is coming by the way of the oak of Meonenim.'

And Gaal said again, See! people are coming down from the middle of the land, and one band is coming by way of the oak-tree of the Seers.

And Gaal spoke again and said: 'See, there come people down by the middle of the land, and one company cometh by the way of Elon-meonenim.'

Gaal spoke again and said, 'Look, there are people coming down by the central part of the land, and one company comes by the way of the Diviners' Oak.'

Again, Gaal said, "Behold, a people is descending from the middle of the land, and one company is arriving by the way that looks towards the oak."

The plain of Meonenim - Translate "the oak of the soothsayers" (see the margin). Some well-known oak, so called, but which is not mentioned elsewhere.

By the plain of Meonenim - Some translate, by the way of the oaks, or oaken groves; others, by the way of the magicians, or regarders of the times, as in our margin. Probably it was a place in which augurs and soothsayers dwelt.

And Gaal spake again, and said,.... Looking towards the mountains, and taking another view of what he before saw, for further satisfaction:
see, there come people down by the middle of the land; either in the valley between the two mountains; or rather those he first saw on the top of the mountains were now come down about the middle of them, called in the Hebrew text the navel, from the prominence of the mountains thereabout, or because the navel is in the middle of the body, as this part of them was the middle on which he saw them. R. Isaiah interprets it, between the two cities:
and another company come along by the plain of Meonenim; of which we read nowhere else. Montanus renders it, "the oak of Meonenim"; or of the soothsayers; oaks being had in great esteem with idolaters for their oracles and divinations; and perhaps this was a place, whether an oak or, a plain, where such persons used to meet to make their divinations.

But Gaal said again, "Behold, people come down from the navel of the land," i.e., from the highest point of the surrounding country, "and a crowd comes by the way of the wizard's terebinths," - a place in the neighbourhood of Shechem that is not mentioned anywhere else, and therefore is not more precisely known.