🔼The name Allon: Summary
- Meaning
- Oak
- Etymology
- From the noun אלון (allon), oak, from the verb אלל ('alal), to protrude.
🔼The name Allon in the Bible
The name Allon is ascribed to one man and quite a few locations in the Bible, although these locations are in translated versions of the Bible usually referred to by the translation of this name. The one person named Allon is mentioned in a genealogy of Simeon: Allon is the son of Jedaiah and the father of Shiphi (1 Chronicles 4:37).
🔼Etymology of the name Allon
The name Allon is identical to the masculine noun אלון (allon), meaning oak. But there's something funny about this word because it has two distinct etymologies. It almost reminds of Jesus who has, after all, two separate genealogies.
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.
🔼Allon meaning
The latter noun is also identical to the name Allon as used in Joshua 19:33, but whatever the etymology and underlying symbolic structure, it's pretty sure that the name Allon means Oak (and BDB Theological Dictionary, NOBSE Study Bible Name List and Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names agree).