IABES. – Name of two cities and two persons of the Old Testament.
I. An Israelite trans-Jordanian city, called also I
Galaad (Judg. 21, 8. 10. 12. 41; I Sam. 11, 9; 31, 11; II Sam. 2, 4. 5; 21, 12; I Par. 10, 11), sometimes simply I. (I Sam. 11, 3. 5. 18 etc.).A force of 12,000 Israelites exterminated its inhabitants in punishment for their failure to take part in the war against the tribe of Benjamin, provoked by the infamous lust of Gibeah (Judg. 21, 8-14). The 400 virgins spared were given as wives to the surviving Benjamites. Besieged by Nahash, king of the Ammonites, it was delivered by Saul (I Sam. 11, 1-11). Later, the men of I. made it their duty to retrieve the corpse of Saul, beheaded and hung by the Philistines on the walls of Beth-shan, and then to cremate it and bury it together with those of his sons under a well-known tree at I. (I Sam. 31, 13; I Par. 10, 12).
It was situated one league from Beth-shan. St. Jerome (Onom., 110, 11 ss., 268) places it about six miles from Pella, on the mountain towards Gerasa. Many identify it with ed-Dejr, imposing ruins near Ialāwāh, on the Wādi Jabīs; 12 km. from Fahil; N. Glueck proposes Tell el-Meqberch, at the mouth of the Wādi Jabīs.
2. A southern city of Judah, seat of the families of scribes (sōphērīm) descended from Hammat (the Vulgate renders “de Calore”), ancestor of the Rechabites (v.), of the stock of the Kenites (I Par. 2, 55). It has not yet been identified.
3. Father of Shallum, king of Israel (II Reg. 15, 10. 13. 14).
4. A descendant of Judah (I Par. 4, 9-10).