And it shall some to pass at that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. Here we have a prediction of a most momentous event, with express statement of the place where it should occur, as also the time of its occurrence.
The event itself was more than the downfall of a dynasty; it was the destruction of a kingdom. The date of that destruction is defined simply as the period when God would punish the sins of both the princes and people of Israel The close of Jehu's dynasty was at once the preparation for and the commencement of the cessation of the kingdom of Israel.
The place of this calamity was the Valley of Jezreel. This famous valley was the cockpit of Palestine. There Israel conquered the host of King Jabin; there Gideon overthrew the Midianites; there Saul was defeated by the Philistines, when driven up the slopes of Gilbea "the beauty of Israel was slain in thy high places;" there a defeat equally sorrowful and not less disastrous was aggravated by the death of good King Josiah, and proved fatal to the kingdom of Judah; there, too, in later times, the last conflict took place between the Crusaders and the Moslems, in which victory crowned the arms of Saladin; there, also, was fought the battle, as we learn from this passage, which decided the fate of the kingdom of Israel.
The situation of this valley was admirably suited for such scenes. This plain, or valley, broad as it is beautiful, begins where the maritime plain, interrupted by the ridge of Carmel, turns aside and extends across the center of the country from the Mediterranean Sea on the west to the Jordan valley on the east, and from the hills of Galilee on the north to those of Ephraim or Samaria on the south.
The form of this plain is triangular; its eastern side or base is fifteen miles, reaching from Engannim, now Jenin, to the hills below Nazareth; the north side along the hills of Galilee is twelve miles; the southern, formed by the hills of Samaria, is eighteen miles; while the apex of this somewhat irregular triangle is a narrow pass through which the river Kishon—"that ancient river, the river Kishon"—with its winding stream makes its way to the sea.
On the east there are three branches in the direction of the Jordan, which bear a remote resemblance to the fingers of a hand. The northern branch passes between Tabor and Little Hermon, or Jebel ed-Duhy; the central one, which is the Valley of Jezreel proper, runs between Shunem and Jezreel, now Zerin; the southern between Mount Gilboa and En-gannim, now Jenia—this branch, having no outlet, loses itself among the eastern hills.
The name of this plain was derived from the city of Jezreel, situated near its eastern extremity on a spur of Mount Gilboa, which Ahab chose as a royal residence, and which remained so for three successive reigns, though in the time of Jeroboam II.
Samaria had again, as in the days of Omri, become the royal city. In this great plain, called by the Greeks Esdraelon, the bow of Israel was to be broken. The bow (qesheth, rad. qashah, hard, stiff, unbending) was the warrior's weapon of offence and defense—strong and powerful; the breaking of his bow deprived him of his chief weapon, and left him at the mercy of the enemy to conquer or to kill; thus we read, "His bow abode in strength;" and again, "My glory was fresh in me, and my bow was renewed in my hand."
But while such general references prove the bow to have been an emblem of strength and power, as Kimchi explains it, still there is something very special and suitable in the expression of the prophet here.
"In one important respect," says the author of the 'Jewish Church,' "the ancient military glory of Israel was, if not confined to the northern kingdom yet regarded as eminently characteristic of it. Judah, with all its warlike qualities, had never been celebrated for its archery.
The use of the bow was there a late acquisition (2 Samuel 1:18). But in Benjamin and Ephraim it had been an habitual weapon. The bow of Jonathan was known far and wide. The children of Ephraim were characterized as 'carrying bows.'
And so the chief weapon of the captain of the host of Israel was his bow. The King of Israel had always his bow and arrows with him. The sign of the fall of the kingdom was the breaking of the bow of Israel."
The language employed by the prophet was thus singularly appropriate. An historical basis, though denied by some and pronounced precarious by others, is, we have little doubt, found for this prediction in Hosea 10:14 of this very book.
The bow, that is, the archery in which Israel excelled so much, was broken in the Valley of Jezreel, when Shalmon, identified with Shalmanezer, King of Assyria by Pusey and Stanley, spoiled Beth-Arbel, or Arbela, the city between Sepphoris and Tiberias, and near the middle of the valley, and thus crushed Israel in an overwhelming defeat.
If the identification be sustained, that day of battle was most calamitous to Israel, and as cruel as calamitous, for neither the helplessness of infancy nor the tenderness of womanhood was spared; the infants were dashed to death against the stones, and the mothers then hurled in mortal agony upon the dead bodies of their little ones.
Kimchi explains it generally: "On that day when I shall visit the blood of Jezreel, I shall break the bow of Israel, that is to say, their might and power."