| JEZREEL |
1. A celebrated city of Issachar, Jos 19:18, lying westward of Bethshean, 2Sa 4:4. Ahab had here a palace; and this city became famous on account of his seizure of Naboth's vineyard, 1Ki 21:1-29; and the vengeance executed on Ahab, 2Ki 9:10,14-37 10:1-11. Jezreel was called Esdraela in the time of the Maccabees, and is now replaced by a small and ruinous Arab village, called Zerin, at the northwest point of mount Gilboa. Its elevated site gives one a fine view of the great plain of Esdraelon on the west, and the hills that border it; and towards the east it overhangs the wide and fertile "valley of Jezreel," Jos 17:16 Jud 6:33 Ho 1:5, which runs down east-south-east from the great plain to the Jordan, between Gilboa and little Hermon. In this valley, below and east of Zerin, is the copious "fountain of Jezreel," near which Saul perished, 1Sa 29:1 31:1
2. The great plain lying between Jezreel and Acre, called from two cities on its border in one part, "the valley of Megiddo," 2Ch 35:22, and in its western part or branch the "plain or valley of Jezreel," afterwards Esdraelon. The body of this beautiful plain forms a triangle, rising gradually from the Mediterranean four hundred feet, and being about thirteen or fourteen miles long on the north side, seventeen on the east, and twenty on the south-west. The western part is level; on the east it is more undulating, and is at length broken by mount Gilboa and "little Hermon" into three valleys two or three miles wide, which sink down into the valley of the Jordan. Of these, the middle valley, described above, is the proper "valley of Jezreel." The river Kishon traverses this plain. It was formerly well watered and astonishingly fertile, but is now under the blight of tyranny and insecurity, comparatively uncultivated and deserted. The highways are unoccupied, the villages have ceased in Israel, Jud 5:6. There are a few small hamlets, particularly on the higher grounds that border it; and the abundant crops that it yields, even with poor cultivation, show that it might again be made the granary of Syria. Across this plain, from Carmel to Jezreel, Elijah ran before the chariot of Ahab, 1Ki 18:46. It has been the chosen battleground of many armies. Here the hosts of Sisera were swept away, Jud 4:1-24; and here Josiah fell, fighting against Pharaohnecho, 2Ki 23:29. Battles were fought here in the later periods of the Romans, and of the Crusaders; and in our own century, near mount Tabor, fifteen hundred French under General Kleber sustained the assault of twenty-five thousand Turks for half a day, and were succored by Napoleon. |