or JABESH-GILEAD, the name of a city in the half tribe of Manasseh, east of Jordan. Naash, king of the Ammonites, besieged Genesis 2 :1Sa 11:1, &c. The inhabitants were friendly to Saul and his family, 1Sa 31:11-12.
Ja´besh or Jabesh Gilead, a town beyond the Jordan, in the land of Gilead.
Jabesh belonged to the half-tribe of Manasseh, and was sacked by the Israelites for refusing to join in the war against Benjamin (Jdg 21:8). It is chiefly memorable for the siege it sustained from Nahash, king of the Ammonites, the raising of which formed the first exploit of the newly-elected king, Saul, and procured his confirmation in the sovereignty. The inhabitants had agreed to surrender, and to have their right eyes put out (to incapacitate them from military service), but were allowed seven days to ratify the treaty. In the meantime Saul collected a large army, and came to their relief (1 Samuel 11). This service was gratefully remembered by the Jabeshites; and, about forty years after, when the dead bodies of Saul and his sons were gibbeted on the walls of Bethshan, on the other side of the river, they made a forced march by night, took away the bodies, and gave them honorable burial (1 Samuel 31).
Jabesh still existed as a town in the time of Eusebius, who places it six miles from Pella towards Gerasa; but the knowledge of the site is now lost, unless we accept the conclusion of Mr. Buckingham, who thinks it may be found in a place called Jehaz or Jejaz, marked by ruins upon a hill, in a spot not far from which, according to the above indications, Jabesh must have been situated.
A city in the half-tribe of Manasseh east of the Jordan generally called Jabesh-gilead because situated within the territory commonly called Gilead. Eusebius places it six miles from Pella, towards Gerasa. It was sacked by the Israelites for refusing to aid in chastising the Benjamites, Jdg 21:8-10 \par At a later day, it was besieged by the Ammonites, and relieved by Saul; in gratitude for which service the men of Jabesh-gilead rescued the dead bodies of Saul and his sons from the insults of the Philistines, 1Sa 11:1-15 31:11-13 2Sa 2:5 .\par
Ja’besh. (dry).
1. Father of Shallum, the fifteenth king of Israel. 2Ki 15:10; 2Ki 15:13-14.
2. Jabesh-gilead, or Jabesh in the territory of Gilead. In its widest sense, Gilead included the half tribe of Manasseh, 1Ch 27:21, as well as the tribes of Gad and Reuben, Num 32:1-42, east of the Jordan; and of the cities of Gilead, Jabesh was the chief.
It is first mentioned in Jdg 21:8-14. Being attacked, subsequently, by Nahash, the Ammonite, it gave Saul an opportunity of displaying his prowess in its defence. 1Sa 11:1-15. Eusebius places it beyond the Jordan, six miles from Pella on the mountain road to Gerasa; where its name is probably preserved in the Wady Yabes.
("dry".) Gilead. 1Sa 11:1; 1Sa 11:9, etc. Chief of Gilead’s cities. For not having come to Mizpeh at Israel’s command, under an imprecatory oath against all defaulters, when the tribes began war with Benjamin (Jdg 20:1-3; Jdg 21:5), its males were all killed, and its virgins, 400 in number, were given in marriage to the 600 Benjamites who survived the war with Israel (Jdg 21:1; Jdg 21:8-14). The carrying into execution the oath at the close of the war was mainly influenced by the desire to provide wives for Benjamin, as their oath precluded themselves from giving their daughters. Subsequently it recovered itself, and being threatened by the Ammonite king, Nabash, with the excision of its citizens’ right eyes as a reproach upon Israel, was rescued by Saul.
In gratitude the inhabitants, when he and his three sons were slain by the Philistines (1Sa 31:8; 1Sa 31:13), took down by night their corpses from the walls of Bethshan, where they had been exposed; then burnt the bodies and buried the bones under a tree, and kept a funeral fast seven days. David, in generous forgetfulness of his own wrongs from Saul, blessed them for their kindness to their master, praying the Lord to requite it, and promising to requite it as if it were a kindness to himself (2Sa 2:5-6); afterwards he removed the bones to the sepulchre of Saul’s father Kish at Zelah (2Sa 21:13-14). The name survives in the wady Yates, flowing from the E. into the Jordan below Bethshan; the ruin ed Deir, S. of the wady, is on the site (Robinson, Biblical Research 3:319). It was six miles from Pella, on a mountain toward Gerasa.
Jabesh and Jabesh-Gilead (jâ’besh-gĭl’e-ad), dry Gilead. A city east of the Jordan; destroyed by the Israelites, Jdg 21:8-14; delivered from Nahash by Saul, 1Sa 11:1-11, and in gratitude therefor, its people brought the bodies of Saul and his sons, which the Philistines hung upon the walls of Bethshan, to Jabesh, and caused them to be buried in a wood near by. 1Sa 31:11-13. David blessed them, 2Sa 2:4-6, but afterward removed the bones to Saul’s ancestral burying-place. 2Sa 2:4-6; 2Sa 21:12-14. Robinson identifies it with ed-Deir, 23 miles southeast of the Sea of Galilee on the south side of Wady Yabis. Merrill, however, would identify Jabesh with the ruins of a town found about 7 miles from Pella and about 2300 feet above the Jordan valley. This seems to conform to the Biblical statements concerning the place.
[Ja’besh]
Father of Shallum king of Israel. 2Ki 15:10; 2Ki 15:13-14.
(more fully Jabesh-gilead [
, 
= "dry"]):
By: Emil G. Hirsch, M. Seligsohn
Principal city of Gilead, east of the Jordan. It is first mentioned in connection with the war between the Benjamites and the other tribes of Israel (Judges xxi. 8-24). Because its inhabitants had refused to march against the Benjamites, 12,000 Israelites were sent against it. All the people of the city were slain except 400 virgins, who were spared to be given as wives to the surviving Benjamites. In the beginning of the reign of Saul the city was attacked by Nahash, King of Ammon, and was forced to apply to Saul for help (I Sam. xi. 1-10). The inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead remained grateful to Saul for his assistance, and when he and his three sons were killed by the Philistines on Mount Gilboa, they went by night, took the bodies from the wall of Beth-shan, brought them to Jabesh, burned them, buried the remains, and fasted seven days (ib. xxxi. 2, 6, 11-13). For this deed Jabesh-gilead was afterward highly lauded (II Sam. ii. 4-6).
Josephus ("Ant." vi. 5, § 1) calls Jabesh the metropolis of the Gileadites. Eusebius ("Onomasticon") speaks of it as of a village six Roman miles from Pella on the road to Gerasa. The name is preserved in the modern Wadi Yabis; and Robinson ("Researches," 2d ed., iii. 319) holds the ruins of Al-Dair to be the site of Jabesh-gilead.
JABESH.—Father of Shallum, who usurped the kingdom of Israel by the assassination of king Zechariah (2Ki 15:10; 2Ki 15:13-14).