Jabesh Gilead
יָבֵשׁ גִּלְעָד · “Yabesh Gilead” on the map
Where was biblical Jabesh Gilead? At Tell el-Maqlub, above Wadi el-Yabis, in Jordan, about 45 km south of Tiberias. I mark it probable.
Saul saved this town from the Ammonites. Years later its men marched through the night to take his body down from the wall of Beit She'an.
By Aaron Shaffier, licensed Israel tour guide and mapmaker · About the mapmaker
- Site today
- Tell el-Maqlub, above Wadi el-Yabis, in Jordan
- How sure
- Probable The best case we have, with real alternatives.
- Other names
- Jabesh-gilead, Yavesh Gilad, Jabesh, Iabeis Galaad, Tell el-Maqlub
- Location
- 32.3990° N, 35.6801° E (Google Maps)
How we know where it was
The town's story runs through two debts. Nahash the Ammonite besieged Yabesh and offered terms: he would let the men live if he could gouge out every man's right eye. Saul, newly anointed, cut a yoke of oxen into pieces, sent them through Israel, and fell on the Ammonites at dawn. When the Philistines later hung Saul's body on the wall of Beit She'an, the warriors of Yabesh remembered. They walked all night, brought him home and buried him. David blessed them for it.
The stream that drains these hills is still called Wadi el-Yabis. That is Yabesh, kept in Arabic.
Eusebius gives a precise address. He describes the village "on the mountains six miles from Pella on the road to Gerasa." That fits Tell el-Maqlub, a large walled Iron Age town on a hill above the wadi. Pottery on its surface runs from the Early Bronze Age to Roman and Byzantine times.
No one has excavated the site, so no inscription confirms it. That keeps it at probable.
Some prefer Tell Abu al-Kharaz, lower down the same wadi in the Jordan Valley. It was a strong Iron Age town, and from there a night's march to Beit She'an is easy. The map stays with Eusebius and the hilltop above the wadi.
Visiting today
Tell el-Maqlub is an unexcavated hill in northern Jordan, with traces of ancient walls above Wadi el-Yabis. It is best seen from the local roads.
Read it in the Bible
Verse numbers follow the Hebrew Bible. In a handful of chapters English Bibles count one verse off.
See Yabesh Gilead on the interactive map →
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- Succoth 24 km south
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