Abel-meholah standard

the Midianites in their first panic fled down the valley of Jezreel and the Jordan "toward Zererah" (Jud 7:22). Zererah (Zeredah) is Zarethan (2Ch 4:17; compare 1Ki 7:46), separated from Succoth by the clay ground where Solomon made castings for the temple. The wing of the Midianites whom Gideon pursued crossed the Jordan at Succoth (Jud 8:4 ff). This would indicate that Abel-meholah was thought of as a tract of country with a "border," West of the Jordan, some miles South of Beth-shean, in the territory either of Issachar or West Manasseh.

Abel-meholah is also mentioned in connection with the jurisdiction of Baana, one of Solomon's twelve commissary officers (1Ki 4:12) as below Jezreel, with Beth-shean and Zarethan in the same list. Jerome and Eusebius speak of Abel-meholah as a tract of country and a town in the Jordan valley, about ten Roman miles South of Beth-shean. At just that point the name seems to be perpetuated in that of the Wady Malib, and Abel-meholah is commonly located near where that Wady, or the neighboring Wady Helweh, comes down into the Jordan valley.

Presumably Adriel the Meholathite (1Sa 18:19; 2Sa 21:8) was a resident of Abel-meholah. Willis J. Beecher

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a'-bel-miz'-ra-im ('abhel mitsrayim, "meadow of Egypt"): A name given to "the threshing floor of Atad," East of the Jordan and North of the Dead Sea, because Joseph and his funeral party from Egypt there held the

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