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Jabesh-gilead - location profile

Location and Setting

• Although not conclusive, evidence suggests that Jabesh-gilead (also called Jabesh) was located north of the Wadi Yabis and one and a half miles east of the Jordan River, approximately nine miles southeast of Beth-shan.
• Artifacts from the Monarchy period have been recovered from Tell Abu Kharaz, a mound at this site. The open plains that surround this tell could have served as the assembling place for the Ammonite army that besieged Jabesh-gilead (1 Sam 11:1).

Historical and Biblical Significance

• During the period of the Judges, the tribe of Benjamin fell under God’s judgment, because the men of Gibeah had murdered a Levite’s concubine (Judg 19:22-30). As a result, the other eleven tribes of Israel annihilated the Benjaminites, except for six hundred men who escaped (Judges 20). After the carnage, however, Israel mourned the possibility of Benjamin’s eventual extinction, if the remaining men were not given wives. Part of the solution involved the people of Jabesh-gilead. Since they had neglected to join in the attack on Benjamin, the tribes determined that they needed to be punished. Thus, 12,000 Israelites attacked Jabesh-gilead, killing everyone except four hundred virgins. These were given to the men of Benjamin to repopulate the tribe. (Judg 21:1-15).
• Soon after Samuel had anointed Saul as the first king of Israel, Nahash the Ammonite besieged Jabesh-gilead. Nahash’s condition for sparing the city was that he would put out the right eyes of all the men, a means of ensuring that they could not fight. He allowed them a week to consider this option. When he heard this ultimatum, Saul was enraged. He cut up a yoke of oxen and sent the pieces to the tribes with the threat that he would do the same to every man’s oxen who did not join him against the Ammonites. Saul then led the 330,000 men who responded to attack Nahash at Jabesh-gilead. Israel won a mighty victory and Saul gained credibility as a leader, confirming to the people the Lord’s anointing upon him as king of Israel (1 Samuel 11).
• After the death of Saul and his sons at the hands of the Philistines on Mount Gilboa, the men of Jabesh-gilead remembered Saul’s earlier valiant act on their behalf. They marched all night to Beth-shan and removed the bodies of Saul and his sons from the city wall, which the Philistines had placed there to shame the Israelite king and exalt their victory. The bodies were brought to Jabesh-gilead, where they were burned and buried (1 Sam 31:8-13; 1 Chr 10:8-12). Later, King David commended the men from Jabesh-gilead for their bravery and the honor they showed their former king (2 Sam 2:4-6).

Bibliography

1. Alden, R.L. "Jabesh-gilead" The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible. Ed. Merrill C. Tenney. 5 vols. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1976.
2. Kent, Charles Foster. Biblical Geography and History. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1920.
3. Lilley, J.P.U. "Jabesh-gilead" The New Bible Dictionary. 2^nd ed. Ed. J.D. Douglas. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1982.