harosheth of the gentiles Summary and Overview

(Judg. 4:2) or nations, a city near Hazor in Galilee of the Gentiles, or Upper Galilee, in the north of Israel. It was here that Jabin's great army was marshalled before it went forth into the great battlefield of Esdraelon to encounter the army of Israel, by which it was routed and put to flight (Judg. 4). It was situated "at the entrance of the pass to Esdraelon from the plain of Acre" at the base of Carmel. The name in the Hebrew is "Harosheth ha Gojim", i.e., "the smithy of the nations;" probably, as is supposed, so called because here Jabin's iron war-chariots, armed with scythes, were made. It is identified with el-Harithiyeh.

So called from the mixed races that inhabited it. A city in Naphtali W. of the lake Merom (El Huleh), from which the Jordan passes in an undivided stream. Sisera, captain of Jabin II king of Canaan, resided there (Judges 4:2). Jabin's own residence and seat of government was Hazor, N.W. of Harosheth. To Harosheth Barak pursued Jabin's routed army. Joshua (Joshua 11:6; Joshua 11:10) had 150 years before routed the confederate kings of northern Canaan, headed by Jabin I, at the waters of Merom, the first occasion of Israel's having to encounter "chariots and horses." Joshua "houghed (hamstrung) their horses and burned their chariots with fire" in firm faith and obedience to God's prohibition against their fighting the foe with his own weapon (Deuteronomy 17:16). Unbelieving fear subsequently altered Israel's policy, so that they shrank from battling with the enemy's chariots in plains such as the Jordan valley, beside which Harosheth stood (Joshua 17:16-18; Judges 1:19), and at last adopted chariots in their armies under the kings: 2 Samuel 8:4, David; 2 Samuel 15:1, Absalom; 1 Kings 1:5, Adonijah; 1 Kings 4:26, Solomon. Hazor was rebuilt in the interval between Jabin I and Jabin II; the latter of whom was the first who threw off Israel's yoke and oppressed Israel in turn (for their previous oppressors, the kings of Mesopotamia and Moab, Chushan Rishathaim and Eglon, were outside not within the promised land, as Jabin II). After the defeat by Barak, Hazor and Harosheth and northern Canaan remained permanently in Israel's hand.