ABSTRACT
The mound of ancient Jezreel is about eight miles east of Megiddo in the eastern end of the Valley of Jezreel (later to become the Esdraelon Valley – though this name is not used in the Bible; see Figure 56). This Israelite Jezreel should not be confused with another place of the same name located in Judah ( Josh. 15: 56) and, according to some authorities, the town from which came one of the wives of David, Ahinoam (1 Sam. 25: 43; 27: 3; etc.). According to the tradition preserved in Joshua 19: 18, Israelite Jezreel was part of the
scholars date the Joshua story no earlier than the tenth century The claim in 1 Kings 4: 12, that Jezreel was in one of the districts in Solomon’s time, would also be tenth century, if historically accurate. Perhaps the best-known story in the Bible associated with Jezreel is that of Naboth’s dispute with Ahab, the king of Israel, over a plot of land that belonged to the former’s family.
