Bible Synapse
Tel Jezreel
Site · 9th century BC · Israel and Judah · also called Jezreel, Zir’in
See it on the map and timeline
- Date
- 9th century BC (the royal enclosure)
- Found
- Tel Jezreel, Israel, 1990. Excavated in 1990–1996 by David Ussishkin of Tel Aviv University and John Woodhead of the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem, after bulldozing in 1987 exposed walls. The Jezreel Expedition led by Norma Franklin and Jennie Ebeling resumed work in 2012.
- Now
- At the site, Jezreel Valley, Israel
- Passages
- 1 Kings 18:45–46, 1 Kings 21:1, 2 Kings 9:30–37, 2 Kings 10:11, Hosea 1:4
What it is
On the hill above the eastern Jezreel Valley the excavators found a large rectangular enclosure of the Iron Age, covering about 4.5 hectares, with a casemate wall, towers at the corners, a gate and a rock-cut moat on three sides. It was destroyed not long after it was built. A winery cut into the rock has been excavated on the slope below.
How it connects to the Bible
The Bible makes Jezreel a royal residence of Ahab and Jezebel, the setting of Naboth’s vineyard and of Jehu’s bloody coup (1 Kings 21; 2 Kings 9–10). The excavators date the enclosure to the dynasty of Omri; it seems to have been destroyed soon afterwards, possibly by the Aramaeans late in the 9th century BC. Hosea 1:4 still remembers “the blood of Jezreel”.
What scholars debate
The Omride date rests mainly on the biblical account, since the pottery could not fix it precisely, and Norma Franklin, of the renewed excavation, asks whether the enclosure or an earlier phase belongs to Ahab’s time. Linking the winery with Naboth’s vineyard is speculative.