Page:02.BCOT.KD.HistoricalBooks.A.vol.2.EarlyProphets.djvu/1400

 ==Verses 27-29== When Ahaziah saw this, he fled by the way to the garden-house, but was smitten, i.e., mortally wounded, by Jehu at the height of Gur near Jibleam, so that as he was flying still farther to Megiddo he died, and was carried as a corpse by his servants to Jerusalem, and buried there. After הכּהוּ, “and him also, smite him,” we must supply ויּכּהוּ, “and they smote him,” which has probably only dropped out through a copyist’s error. The way by which Ahaziah fled, and the place where he was mortally wounded, cannot be exactly determined, as the situation of the localities named has not yet been ascertained. The “garden-house” (הגּן בּית הגּ) cannot have formed a portion of the royal gardens, but must have stood at some distance from the city of Jezreel, as Ahaziah went away by the road thither, and was not wounded till he reached the height of Gur near Jibleam. מעלה־גוּר, the ascent or eminence of Gur, is defined by Jibleam. Now, as Ahaziah fled from Jezreel to Megiddo past Jibleam, Thenius thinks that Jibleam must have been situated between Jezreel and Megiddo. But between Jezreel and Megiddo there is only the plain of Jezreel or Esdrelom, in which we cannot suppose that there was any such eminence as that of Gur. Moreover Jibleam or Bileam (1Ch 6:55, see at Jos 17:11) was probably to the south of Jenin, where the old name בּלעם has been preserved in the well of Arab. bl'mh, Belameh, near Beled Sheik Manssûr, which is half an hour’s journey off. And it is quite possible to bring this situation of Jibleam into harmony with the account before us. For instance, it is a priori probable that Ahaziah would take the road to Samaria when he fled from Jezreel, not only because his father’s brothers were there (2Ki 10:13), but also because it was the most direct road to Jerusalem; and he might easily be pursued by Jehu and his company to the height of Gur near Jibleam before they overtook him, since the distance from Jezreel (Zerîn) to Jenin is only two hours and a half (Rob. Pal. iii. p. 828), and the height of Gur might very well be an eminence which he would pass on the road to Jibleam. But the wounded king may afterwards have altered the direction of his flight for the purpose of escaping to Megiddo, probably because he thought that he should be in greater safety there than he would be in Samaria. -