PLAIN OF, in the tribe of Issachar, extends east and west
from Scythopolis to Mount Carmel; called, likewise, the Great Plain, the
Valley of Jezreel, the Plain of Esdrela. Dr. E. D. Clarke observes, it
is by far the largest plain in the Holy Land; extending quite across the
country from Mount Carmel and the Mediterranean Sea to the southern
extremity of the Sea of Galilee; about thirty miles in length, and
twenty in breadth. It is also a very fertile district, abounding in
pasture; on which account it has been selected for the purposes of
encampment by almost every army that has traversed the Holy Land. Here
Barak, descending with his ten thousand men from Mount Tabor, which
rises like a cone in the centre of the plain, defeated Sisera, with his
“nine hundred chariots of iron, and all the people that were with him,
gathered from Harosheth of the Gentiles unto the river of Kishon; and
pursued after the chariots and after the host unto Harosheth of the
Gentiles; and all the host of Sisera fell upon the edge of the sword;
and there was not a man left,” Judges iv. Here Josiah, king of Judah,
fell, fighting against Necho, king of Egypt, 2 Kings xxiii, 29. And here
the Midianites and the Amalekites, who were “like grasshoppers for
multitude, and their camels without number as the sand of the sea,”
encamped, when they were defeated by Gideon, Judges vi. This plain has
likewise been used for the same purpose by the armies of every conqueror
or invader, from Nabuchodonosor, king of Assyria, to his imitator,
Napoleon Buonaparte, who, in the spring of 1799, with a small body of
French, defeated an army of several thousand Turks and Mamelukes. Jews,
Gentiles, Saracens, Christians, crusaders, and antichristian Frenchmen,
Egyptians, Persians, Druses, Turks, and Arabs, warriors out of every
nation which is under heaven, have pitched their tents in the Plain of
Esdraelon; and have beheld the various banners of their nations wet with
the dews of Tabor and of Hermon. And it is to this day generally found
to be the place of encampment of large parties of Arabs.
from Scythopolis to Mount Carmel; called, likewise, the Great Plain, the
Valley of Jezreel, the Plain of Esdrela. Dr. E. D. Clarke observes, it
is by far the largest plain in the Holy Land; extending quite across the
country from Mount Carmel and the Mediterranean Sea to the southern
extremity of the Sea of Galilee; about thirty miles in length, and
twenty in breadth. It is also a very fertile district, abounding in
pasture; on which account it has been selected for the purposes of
encampment by almost every army that has traversed the Holy Land. Here
Barak, descending with his ten thousand men from Mount Tabor, which
rises like a cone in the centre of the plain, defeated Sisera, with his
“nine hundred chariots of iron, and all the people that were with him,
gathered from Harosheth of the Gentiles unto the river of Kishon; and
pursued after the chariots and after the host unto Harosheth of the
Gentiles; and all the host of Sisera fell upon the edge of the sword;
and there was not a man left,” Judges iv. Here Josiah, king of Judah,
fell, fighting against Necho, king of Egypt, 2 Kings xxiii, 29. And here
the Midianites and the Amalekites, who were “like grasshoppers for
multitude, and their camels without number as the sand of the sea,”
encamped, when they were defeated by Gideon, Judges vi. This plain has
likewise been used for the same purpose by the armies of every conqueror
or invader, from Nabuchodonosor, king of Assyria, to his imitator,
Napoleon Buonaparte, who, in the spring of 1799, with a small body of
French, defeated an army of several thousand Turks and Mamelukes. Jews,
Gentiles, Saracens, Christians, crusaders, and antichristian Frenchmen,
Egyptians, Persians, Druses, Turks, and Arabs, warriors out of every
nation which is under heaven, have pitched their tents in the Plain of
Esdraelon; and have beheld the various banners of their nations wet with
the dews of Tabor and of Hermon. And it is to this day generally found
to be the place of encampment of large parties of Arabs.