Jabesh-Gilead, the whole of whose inhabitants were put to the sword,
except four hundred maidens, whom they brought as prisoners and sent to
“proclaim peace” to the Benjamites who had fled to the crag Rimmon.
These captives were given to them as wives, that the tribe might be saved
from extinction (Judges 21).
This city was afterwards taken by Nahash, king of the Ammonites, but
was delivered by Saul, the newly-elected king of Israel. In gratitude for this
deliverance, forty years after this, the men of Jabesh-Gilead took down the
bodies of Saul and of his three sons from the walls of Beth-shan, and after
burning them, buried the bones under a tree near the city (1 Samuel
31:11-13). David thanked them for this act of piety (2 Samuel 2:4-6), and
afterwards transferred the remains to the royal sepulchre (21:14). It is
identified with the ruins of ed-Deir, about 6 miles south of Pella, on the
north of the Wady Yabis.
- JABEZ affiction. (1.) A descendant of Judah, of whom it is recorded that
“God granted him that which he requested” (1 Chronicles 4:9, 10).
(2.) A place inhabited by several families of the scribes (1 Chronicles
2:55).
- JABIN discerner; the wise. (1.) A king of Hazor, at the time of the
entrance of Israel into Canaan (Joshua 11:1-14), whose overthrow and that
of the northern chief with whom he had entered into a confederacy against
Joshua was the crowning act in the conquest of the land (11:21-23; comp.
14:6-15). This great battle, fought at Lake Merom, was the last of Joshua’s
battles of which we have any record. Here for the first time the Israelites
encountered the iron chariots and horses of the Canaanites.
(2.) Another king of Hazor, called “the king of Canaan,” who overpowered
the Israelites of the north one hundred and sixty years after Joshua’s
death, and for twenty years held them in painful subjection. The whole
population were paralyzed with fear, and gave way to hopeless
despondency (Judges 5:6-11), till Deborah and Barak aroused the national
spirit, and gathering together ten thousand men, gained a great and decisive
victory over Jabin in the plain of Esdraelon (Judges 4:10-16; comp. Psalm
83:9). This was the first great victory Israel had gained since the days of
Joshua. They never needed to fight another battle with the Canaanites
(Judges 5:31).