IEZRAEL (“God sows,” an allusion to the fertility of the soil). - A city in the territory of Issachar (Ios. 19, 18), furnished with walls, towers, and gates (II Reg. 9, 17; 10, 8), at the foot of Mount Gelboe and not far from Bethsan (I Sam. 31, 1, 10).
Before the battle of Gelboe, King Saul encamped with his army “by the spring near I.,” while the Philistines positioned themselves at Sunam in the district of I. (I Sam. 29, 11; II Sam. 4, 4). Chosen as a second AMORI (v.), King Achab built himself a palace east of the city, adjoining a vineyard whose owner, Naboth, having refused to surrender it, was, at the instigation of Queen Iezabel, condemned and killed (I Reg. 21). But later, as the prophet Elia had announced, the possession unjustly acquired became the field of death of Iezabel and of the entire royal family (II Reg. 9, 25, 30). After the great slaughter carried out by Iehu, the city no longer appears in Israelite history. In the fourth century A.D. it was a large village (Onom., 108, 13), identified with present-day Zer'in, an Arabicized form of the Crusader parnum Gerinum, 11 km south of Genin, magnum Gerinum. The village, situated on the hill, corresponds to the requirements of the biblical narrative: the view Esdrelon (v.) and the valley of the Giordano; it lies at the foot of Mount Gelboe (Gebel Fuqu'ah), on the road to Bethsan, and is near the abundant spring of 'Ajn Gālid. To the east of the city the vineyards must have extended, as is shown by the ancient presses cut into the rock; in the village there are various fragments from the Roman period as well as from the third phase of the Bronze Age.