And Abraham planted a grove in Beersheba, and called there on the name of the LORD, the everlasting God.
Abraham planted a grove - [Hebrew, 'eshel (H815)]. The tarfa or tamarisk, used here collectively and without the article-a wood or grove of tamarisks. The Septuagint improperly has [aroura], a field. The tamarisk is an evergreen, with a light feathery foliage. Its hardy nature fits it to grow in the desert; and accordingly M. Bovet, a French naturalist, states that the region south of Beer-sheba is full of tamarisks, which seem to flourish in that scanty soil and breezy climate-neither of which is adapted for the produce of the terebinth or the palm, and that many of them were of considerable size, measuring three or four yards in circumference, and from twelve to fifteen yards in height. Such roofless temples as groves were common in Palestine and other countries, into which a more artificial architecture had not been introduced in early ages, before they had become perverted to the rites of an impure superstition; and the circumstance of the patriarch planting a grove in Beer-sheba, instead of contenting himself with a simple altar of turf or stones, as at Sichem and Bethel (Genesis 12:7-8), shows that it was designed for permanent worship.
Although it is said that Abraham planted the grove in Beer-sheba, "it is probable that he would choose a more sequestered spot than the well, which must have been a place of common resort-the scene of merriment and often of contentions-and the preposition bª- is frequently used in our version as denoting a loose indefinite contiguity.' Thus, in Deuteronomy 34:3, "the south, and the plain of (Hebrew, in) the valley of Jericho;" and in Joshua 5:13, "Joshua was by Jerico;" while it appears from Genesis 21:10 that he was at some distance from that town, (cf. 24:26; Judges 9:6, etc.)