=Ancient Jezreel.= Jezreel, Ahab's northern capital, is ordinarily identified with the present town of Zerin,^{(11)} although the absence of ancient ruins at this point renders the identification exceedingly doubtful. The village lies on a broad elevation rising three hundred feet above the plain and is encircled by fertile fields which extend for miles in almost every direction. The statement in I Samuel 29:1 that "the Israelites encamped by the fountain in Jezreel" implies that the ancient site was either further east near the copious spring now known as 'Ain el-Meiyiteh, or else to the southeast under the northwestern end of Mount Gilboa beside 'Ain Jalûd which is probably the famous Spring of Harod of Judges 7:1. Jezreel was on the central highway from Northern to Southern Israel and guarded the entrance to the Valley of Jezreel. Under royal patronage this fertile land would quickly be transformed into a paradise of gardens and vineyards. Ancient Jezreel, however, was a paradise in which a man listened to the tempting voice of his wife to his undoing. In reaching out and taking with his ruthless hand the vineyard of Naboth, Ahab condemned his family to exile and death. The voice of the dauntless prophet of Gilead pronounced his doom. Near this same vineyard the dogs licked the blood of Ahab, as his body was borne back across the Plain of Jezreel from the scene of his last battle with the Arameans. =Situation of Ramoth-Gilead.= Like many of the east-Jordan sites, the identification of the famous city of Ramoth-Gilead, which was the scene of so many battles between the Hebrews and their northern foes, is uncertain. By some it has been identified with Reimun, a few miles west of Jerash, on one of the northern branches of the Jabbok, but this is on no important highway and has neither water nor the ruins of an ancient city. Eusebius apparently identifies Ramoth in Gilead with Es-Salt, fifteen miles west of Rabbath-Ammon, but this is too far south to satisfy fully the biblical references and has no large plain near by where chariots could manœuvre. Possibly the modern Jerash, which lies on a northern confluent of the Jabbok, was the site of the famous stronghold.^{(44)} The name Ramoth implies that it was on a broad height and its prominence as a frontier town in the Aramean wars indicates that it was in northern Gilead. It may have been situated on the site of the modern Remtheh in northeastern Gilead. The modern town is to-day occupied by a Turkish garrison and stands near the point where the main road from Bethshean and the upper Jordan valley joined the great pilgrim highway on the edge of the desert. This identification would be in accord with the statement in I Kings 4:13, that Solomon's prefect, who resided in Ramoth-Gilead, collected taxes not only from the Manassite towns of Jair in Gilead, but also in the region of Argob, which is in Bashan. The latter region probably lay to the north and east of the upper waters of the Yarmuk.