Jezreel

Zerin, the modern representative of this noted place, is briefly described in the Memoirs accompanying the Ordnance Survey (2:88), but more graphically by Conder (Tent Work, 1:124):

"Crossing the valley, we see before us the site of Jezreel, on a knoll five hundred feet high. The position is very peculiar, four while on the north and north-east the slopes are steep and rugged, on the south the ascent is very gradual, and the traveller coming northwards is astonished to look down suddenly on the valley, with its two springs, one ('Ain Jalud) welling out from a conglomerate cliff, and forming a pool about one hundred yards long, with muddy borders: the other ('Ain Tub'aun), the Crusaders' Fountain of Tubania, where the Christian armies were fed 'miraculously' for three days on the fish which still swarm in most of the great springs near.

⇒Bible concordance for JEZREEL.

"The main road ascends from near these springs and passes by the 'Dead Spring,' which was reopened by the governor of Jenin, and now forms a shallow pool between rocks of black basalt, covered with red and orange-colored lichen; and also full of little fish; thence it passes on the east side beneath the knoll of Zerin (Jezreel) to the plain on the south. Climbing up to the village, we are again struck by the absence of any traces of antiquity: the buildings, including the central tower, are all modern, and only the great mound beneath, and perhaps some of the innumerable cisterns, seem ancient; yet the site is undoubted, and has never been really lost. Here, from a tower, perhaps standing where the modern one is erected, tusa watchman could see down the broad valley of Jezree as far as Bethshau, and watch the dust and the gleam of the armor advancing. The course of the two horseman and of Jehu's chariot was distinctly seen beneath the hill, and the distances are sufficiently extensive to give time for the succession of events.

"On the east and south-east there are rock-cut winepresses on the rugged hills, where no doubt the 'portion of the field of Naboth' and his vineyard are to be placed a good instance of the decay of vine cultivation in Palestine."