And Saul and the men of Israel were gathered together, and pitched by the valley of Elah, and set the battle in array against the Philistines.
Saul and the men of Israel ... pitched by the valley of Elah х bª`eemeq (H6010)] - a long, broad, depressed plain, lying between two parallel ranges of hills. х haa-'Eelaah (H425), of the terebinth, the shittim-wood (the butm of the Arabs); probably some remarkable tree of this species which grew there (now Wady es-Sumt, valley of the acacia tree, with which at present it abounds.] This valley, formed by the junction of three lateral ones-namely, Wady el-Musurr from the east, Wady es-Sur from the south, and another, name unknown, from the north-opens into the great Wady Surar, anciently the valley of Sorek. It is a fertile plain, flanked on the north and south by lowly hills, and abounding with grain produce, except 'in the spots covered by ancient thickets and olive plantations.' Robinson states that the largest terebinth he saw in all the country was in Wady es-Sur, a little above the spot where it emerges into Wady es-Sumt. On the slopes of the opposite hills the hostile armies were encamped.