jezreel Summary and Overview

God scatters. (1.) A town of Issachar (Josh. 19:18), where the kings of Israel often resided (1 Kings 18:45; 21:1; 2 Kings 9:30). Here Elijah met Ahab, Jehu, and Bidkar; and here Jehu executed his dreadful commission against the house of Ahab (2 Kings 9:14-37; 10:1-11). It has been identified with the modern Zerin, on the most western point of the range of Gilboa, reaching down into the great and fertile valley of Jezreel, to which it gave its name. (2.) A town in Judah (Josh. 15:56), to the south-east of Hebron. Ahinoam, one of David's wives, probably belonged to this place (1 Sam. 27:3). (3.) A symbolical name given by Hosea to his oldest son (Hos. 1:4), in token of a great slaughter predicted by him, like that which had formerly taken place in the plain of Esdraelon (compare Hos. 1:4, 5).

1. A city situated in the plain of the same name between Gilboa and Little Hermon, now generally called Esdraelon. [ESDRAELON] It appears in #Jos 19:18| but its historical importance dates from the reign of Ahab, B.C. 918-897, who chose it for his chief residence. The situation of the modern village of Zerin still remains to show the fitness of his choice. Int he neighborhood, or within the town probably, were a temple and grove of Eastward, with an establishment of 400 priests supported by Jezebel. #1Ki 16:33; 2Ki 10:11| The palace of Ahab, #1Ki 21:1; 18:46| probably containing his "ivory house," #1Ki 22:39| was on the eastern side of the city, forming part of the city wall. Comp. #1Ki 21:1; 2Ki 9:25,30,33| Whether the vineyard of Naboth was here or at Samaria is a doubtful question. Still in the same eastern direction are two springs, one 12 minutes from the town, the other 20 minutes. The latter, probably from both its size and its situation, was known as "the spring of Jezreel." With the fall of the house of Ahab the glory of Jezreel departed. 2. A town in Judah, in the neighborhood of the southern Carmel. #Jos 15:56| Here David in his wanderings took Ahinoam the Israelites for his first wife. #1Sa 27:3; 30:5| 3. The eldest son of the prophet Hosea. #Ho 1:4|

JEZ'REEL (God hath planted, or scattered). 1. A name in the genealogies of Judah. 1 Chr 4:3. 2. The eldest son of the prophet Hosea. Hos 1:4.

Jezreel = God has sown. Esdraelon. Now Zerin at the foot of Mount Gilboa, ten miles S.E. of Nazareth. In Issachar: <061918> Joshua 19:18. Ahab's royal residence was on the E. of the city, and near it was the Jezreelite Naboth's vineyard; whereas Samaria (in the sense of the city) was his capital (1 Kings 18:46; 21:1; 22:10; 2 Kings 9:15). By the fountain of Jezreel Israel pitched before the battle of Gilboa (1 Samuel 29:1). A large fountain still flows out of a cavern in the conglomerate rock at the northern base of Mount Gilboa. Zerin commands an extensive view to the mountains E. of Jordan and along the great plain to Mount Carmel. On the N.E., the hill on which Jezreel stood, is a steep descent of rock, 100 ft. high. Strong and central, the site was admirable for a city. Jezebel's apartments were on the city wall, with a window facing E., and a watchtower for noticing arrivals from the Jordan quarter. An old square tower still standing may occupy its site. The city's eastern gateway was the palace gateway, in front of which was the open space, usual in Eastern cities, called "the mounds," where the dogs, their scavengers, devoured Jezebel's carcass. see HOSEA 'S oldest son by Gomer was named Jezreel (Hosea 1:4) (see JEZEBEL ), to imply that as Ahab's family miserably perished there, so would their destroyer Jehu's family perish, because the latter had retained the sin which he had been elevated in order to root out. God saith "I will avenge the blood of Jezreel (2 Kings 9; 10:11,14) upon the house of Jehu," because the blood so shed by Jehu was not with a view to doing God's will, but to further his own ambition; this he proved by soon disobeying God when the retaining of the calf worship seemed to him politic. Jezreel means both "God scatters" and "God sows." As He "scattered" them under Jehu,and finally by the Assyrian deportation, so He will "sow" them again; and so Jezreel will represent the similarly sounding Israel; "great shall be the day of Jezreel" when "Judah and Israel shall be gathered together, and appoint (unto) themselves one head, and shall come up out of the land" (of the Gentiles) where God. sowed them ( Zechariah 10:9; Hosea 1:11). They shall then be the seed of God sown in their own land (Hosea 2:23; <263609> Ezekiel 36:9; Jeremiah 31:27; 32:41; Amos 9:15). T HE V ALLEY O F J EZREEL (or E SDRAELON , as it is called in Judith 3:9) stretches across the center of Israel from the Mediterranean to the Jordan, separating Carmel and Samaria's mountain ranges from those of Galilee. The western portion is the plain of Accho. The main body is an irregular triangle, its base stretching from Engannim to the hills below Nazareth, about 15 miles: one side formed by the Galilee hills, about 12 miles; the other 18, running on the northern side of the Samaritan range. The top of the triangle is the pass, half a mile wide, opening into Accho plain. It is the ancient Megiddo plain, the see ARMAGEDDON of Revelation 16:16. The Kishon drains it, flowing W. by Accho into the Mediterranean. From this triangular plain's base three branches stretch E., divided by bleak Mount Gilboa and Little Hermon. (See Porter, Handbook to Syria.) Though rich and luxuriant in spring, only about a sixth of it is cultivated, and there is not an inhabited village in the main portion, chiefly owing to the insecurity from Bedouin marauders. It mainly belonged to Issachar, which, exposed to every incursion, lived in a nearly nomadic state and sought David's protection (Genesis 49:14,15 "tents," 1 Chronicles 12:32,40), and formed Zebulun's frontier (Deuteronomy 33:18). It was Israel's great field of battle with invaders: Sisera, Judges 4 and 5; Midian, Judges 7; the Philistines at Gilboa, 1 Samuel 29,31; Pharaoh Necho at Megiddo,2 Kings 23:29.