Jezreel - location profile

Location and Setting

• Jezreel lies at the western end of Mount Gilboa, where it slopes down to the level of the Valley of Jezreel. The city overlooks the whole plain to the north and west.
• The city’s name, meaning "God sows," was perhaps a reference to the fertility of the region. Subsequent events would provide another kind of reference for the name: the sowing of the seeds of idolatry for which Ahab and Jezebel would reap the awful fruit of their bloody deaths.
• The surrounding valley, or plain, which bears the name of the city, is the largest in Israel. Its fertility and abundant water made it "the breadbasket" of the land, supplying local needs and producing enough grain and vegetables for export. It was this fruitfulness that made the area desirable to invaders like the Midianites in the period of the Judges.
• Jezreel also attracted Ahab, a king of the Northern Kingdom in the mid-ninth century B.C., and his wife Jezebel. Its location on the road that linked the International Coastal Highway in the plain to Ramoth-gilead on the Transjordanian Highway provided a strategic base for Ahab’s wars with the Arameans (Syrians) of Damascus.

Historical and Biblical Significance

• Jezreel was allotted to the tribe of Issachar (Josh 19:18).
• Saul and his army camped near Jezreel in preparation for their battle with the Philistines, who had stationed themselves across the Harod Valley near Shunem (1 Sam 28:4). Saul had led his men to that strategic place on the eastern branch of the International Coastal Highway to try to retake it from the Philistines. Their control of this route had effectually cut off the northern tribes from Saul’s control and protection.
• Saul and three of his sons died on Mount Gilboa, probably on the western slope to the south of Jezreel. If he had hoped that God would intervene for him, as He had for Gideon there, he was disappointed. Gideon was a man obedient to God; Saul was self-ruled.
• Some two hundred years later, Ahab built a summer palace at Jezreel. His neighbor, Naboth, owned a fruitful vineyard nearby on land he had inherited from his ancestors. The king coveted that vineyard, craving it for his vegetable garden (1 Kings 21). His queen from Sidon, Jezebel, devised a conspiracy that led to Naboth’s death and gave the vineyard to Ahab. Elijah’s prophecy of God’s judgment on each of the royal pair was fulfilled in gruesome detail, dogs licking the king’s blood from his battle chariot and dogs crunching the bones of the queen (1 Kings 22:37-38; 2 Kgs 9:30-37).
• At Ramoth-gilead, another drama was unfolding. Commanded by God, Elisha had anointed Jehu, a captain in Israel’s army as king. His assignment was to destroy the line of Ahab and eliminate Baal worship (2 Kings 9:1-10). As he rode "furiously" down from Gilead, across the Jordan, and up the Harod Valley, he was quickly identified by the watchman guarding Jezreel. From an observation post, the watchman would have had a clear view down the valley along the northern slopes of Mount Gilboa. This herald of Jehu’s approach was the beginning of an eventual change of Israel’s dynasties (2 Kgs 9:16-20).

Bibliography

1. Alden, R.L. "Jezreel" The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible. Ed. Merrill C. Tenney. 5 vols. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1976.