1Sa 29:1 | KD | STEP | The account of this is introduced by a fuller description of the position of the hostile army. “ The Philistines gathered all their armies together towards Aphek, but Israel encamped at the fountain in (at) Jezreel .” This fountain is the present Ain Jalûd (or Ain Jalût , i.e., Goliath’s fountain, probably so called because it was regarded as the scene of the defeat of Goliath), a very large fountain, which issues from a cleft in the rock at the foot of the mountain on the north-eastern border of Gilboa, forming a beautifully limpid pool of about forty or fifty feet in diameter, and then flowing in a brook through the valley (Rob. Pal . iii. p. 168). Consequently Aphek , which must be carefully distinguished from the towns of the same name in Asher ( ; Jdg 1:31) and upon the mountains of Judah ( ) and also at Ebenezer ( ), is to be sought for not very far from Shunem , in the plain of Jezreel; according to Van de Velde’s Mem ., by the side of the present el Afûleh , though the situation has not been exactly determined. The statement in the Onom ., “near Endor of Jezreel where Saul fought,” is merely founded upon the Septuagint, in which בּעין is erroneously rendered ἐν Ἐνδώρ.

‏ 1 Samuel 29:1

The account of this is introduced by a fuller description of the position of the hostile army. “The Philistines gathered all their armies together towards Aphek, but Israel encamped at the fountain in (at) Jezreel.” This fountain is the present Ain Jalûd (or Ain Jalût, i.e., Goliath’s fountain, probably so called because it was regarded as the scene of the defeat of Goliath), a very large fountain, which issues from a cleft in the rock at the foot of the mountain on the north-eastern border of Gilboa, forming a beautifully limpid pool of about forty or fifty feet in diameter, and then flowing in a brook through the valley (Rob. Pal. iii. p. 168). Consequently Aphek, which must be carefully distinguished from the towns of the same name in Asher (Jos 19:30; Jdg 1:31) and upon the mountains of Judah (Jos 15:53) and also at Ebenezer (1Sa 4:1), is to be sought for not very far from Shunem, in the plain of Jezreel; according to Van de Velde’s Mem., by the side of the present el Afûleh, though the situation has not been exactly determined. The statement in the Onom., “near Endor of Jezreel where Saul fought,” is merely founded upon the Septuagint, in which בּעין is erroneously rendered ἐν Ἐνδώρ.