1 Samuel 29:1

1 Samuel 29:1-5. The Philistine lords" distrust of David

1. Now the Philistines, &c. The narrative of 1 Samuel 28:1-2 is resumed, with a further description of the positions of the armies before the battle.

Aphek This cannot be the Aphek of 1 Samuel 4:1, in the neighbourhood of Bethhoron, for in that case there would be no reason to account for Saul's army being already encamped at Jezreel. Possibly it is to be identified with Fûleh, about two miles to the W. of Shunem: or, as Lieut. Conder thinks, with Fukûa, 6 miles S.E. of Jezreel. In the latter case, the Philistines had shifted their camp from Shunem, and turned the strong position of Jezreel on the side where it is most assailable: but this seems less probable, and does not agree with the account of the flight of the Israelites to Mount Gilboa (1 Samuel 31:1).

a fountain which is in Jezreel " The fountain in Jezreel" was probably the present Ain Jâlûd, less than two miles E.S.E. of Zerîn. "It is a very large fountain, flowing out from under a sort of cavern in the wall of conglomerate rock, which here forms the base of Gilboa. It spreads out at once into a fine limpid pool, forty or fifty feet in diameter. A stream sufficient to turn a mill flows off eastwards down the valley." Robinson, Bibl. Res. II. 323. It may have been the identical "spring of Harod" at which Gideon tested his men (Judges 7:1 ff.). The modern name of Jezreel is Zerîn: the feeble initial j(y) having been dropped, and the termination elchanged to în, as in Beitînfor Bethel.

Jezreel was a strong and central position. It stood upon the brow of a steep rocky descent of at least 100 feet to the N.E., at the opening of the middle branch of the three eastern forks of the plain of Esdraelon, commanding the broad and fertile valley which slopes eastward to the Jordan, and all the extent of the great plain reaching westward to the long blue ridge of Carmel. See Robinson, Bibl. Res. II. 318 ff. Jezreel was the favourite residence of Ahab (1 Kings 21:1 ff.); there Jezebel established a temple of Astarte with 400 priests (1 Kings 18:19); here was enacted the tragedy of Naboth's judicial murder (1 Kings 21:13); and here Jezebel met with her end (2 Kings 9:30 ff.).