Spring of Harod

Spring of Harod (Hebrew En Harod, "spring of trembling") is the spring beside which Gideon's army camped and was cut down from 32,000 men to 300 before the night attack on the Midianite camp (Judges 7:1). It lies at the northern foot of Mount Gilboa, on the southern edge of the eastern arm of the Valley of Jezreel, and is usually identified with the large spring known in Arabic as Ain Jalud. The episode belongs to the Period of the Judges.

Biblical Account

The name occurs once as a place. After the Midianites, Amalekites and people of the East crossed the Jordan and camped in the Valley of Jezreel (Judges 6:33), Gideon and the men with him rose early and camped beside the spring of Harod, with the camp of Midian to the north of them, "by the hill of Moreh, in the valley" (Judges 7:1). At the spring the Lord told Gideon that his force was too large, "lest Israel boast over me, saying, My own hand has saved me" (Judges 7:2). Twenty two thousand went home when the fearful were invited to leave, and the remaining ten thousand were taken down to the water, where the 300 who lapped with their hands to their mouths were kept and the rest were sent to their tents (Judges 7:3-8). The instruction that the fearful depart "from Mount Gilead" (Judges 7:3) is a long standing puzzle, since Gilead lies east of the Jordan; commentators have proposed either a local name for the Gilboa ridge or a very early scribal slip. The attack itself and the pursuit to the Jordan are told in the entry Gideon and the Midianites.

Harod also appears in the roll of David's mighty men, where Shammah and Elika are each called "of Harod" (2 Samuel 23:25); the parallel list has Shammoth "of Harod" (1 Chronicles 11:27), where the Hebrew consonants read Harorite. Because the Hebrew letters r and d are nearly identical in shape, the two forms are generally taken as the same word, and the men are probably natives of a settlement at or near the spring.

Geography and Identification

Ain Jalud rises from a rocky cave at the base of Gilboa's northern cliffs about 3 km east southeast of Zerin, the village standing on the site of biblical Jezreel. The clear, cold water forms a large pool in front of the cave and drains eastward as the Nahr Jalud (Nahal Harod) down the valley past Beth Shean to the Jordan River. The hill of Moreh (Jebel Dahi) stands directly across the valley to the north, so a force posted on the slope above the spring would command the water and look down on any army camped on the valley floor, which fits the note that "the camp of Midian was below him in the valley" (Judges 7:8). Since the spring is the largest water source on this side of the valley, the ISBE and others have also taken it to be "the spring that is in Jezreel" where Saul's army camped before the battle on Gilboa (1 Samuel 29:1), though that verse does not name it Harod.

The identification with Ain Jalud is probable rather than established. It rests on the fit between the terrain and the narrative, not on an inscription or a surviving form of the name; the Arabic name, traditionally understood as "spring of Goliath" and first recorded in the twelfth century, is not a recognisable form of Harod, though some writers have suggested it is a corruption of Harod or of Gilead. The smaller spring Ain el Meiyiteh just north of Zerin is judged too small to rival it, and a minority view, argued by G. F. Moore and revived by some recent writers, seeks the hill of Moreh near Shechem and so places the spring in that region. A twentieth century survey recorded flour mills and an aqueduct of the Islamic periods beside the spring, together with a tomb and an oil press, and the spring is best known outside Scripture as the field of the Mamluk victory over the Mongols in AD 1260. Today it lies within Ma'ayan Harod National Park.

Theological Significance

The narrative binds the name to the event: harod means "trembling," and it is the trembling men who leave (Judges 7:3). The stated purpose of the reduction is that the victory be seen as the Lord's rather than Israel's (Judges 7:2), and the rest of the account, from the overheard dream to the deaths of Oreb at the rock of Oreb and Zeeb at the winepress of Zeeb, is written to show that purpose fulfilled (Judges 7:9-25).