JEZREEL ("God sows", an allusion to the fertility of its soil). - A city in the territory of Issachar (Josh. 19:18), fortified with walls, towers and gates (II Kings 9:17; 10:8) at the foot of Mount Gilboa and not far from Bethshan (I Sam. 31:1, 10).
Before the battle of Gilboa, King Saul encamped with his army "at the spring near I.," while the Philistines drew up at Shunem in the region of I. (I Sam. 29:11; II Sam. 4:4). Chosen as a second capital by the family of Omri (v.), King Ahab built himself a palace to the east of the city, adjoining a vineyard whose owner, Naboth, having refused to give it up, was condemned and killed at the instigation of Queen Jezebel (I Kings 21). But later, as the prophet Elijah had announced, the unjustly acquired possession became the field of death of Jezebel and of the whole royal family (II Kings 9:25, 30). After the great slaughter carried out by Jehu, the city no longer appears in Israelite history. In the 4th century A.D. it was a large village (Onom., 108, 13) identified with present-day Zer'in, the Arabized form of the crusader parnum Gerinum, 11 km south of Jenin, magnum Gerinum. The village situated on the hill meets the requirements of the biblical narrative; the view extends over the plain of Esdraelon (v.) and the Jordan valley; it lies at the foot of the mountain of Gilboa (Gebel Fuqu'ah) on the road to Bethshan and is close to the abundant spring of 'Ajn Gālid. To the east of the city the vineyards must have stretched, as the ancient oil presses cut into the rock show; in the village there are various fragments from the Roman period as well as from the third phase of the Bronze Age.