Verse 1
1. Aphek Supposed by some to be the modern el Afuleh, a little to the northwest of Shunem, but it has not been identified with certainty. More likely it is the same as the Aphek of chap. 41, somewhere northwest of Jerusalem, and this gathering of the Philistines is to be understood as occurring before they “came and pitched in Shunem.” 1 Samuel 28:4. The historian goes back in this chapter to narrate events that took place before the two armies approached very near to each other. This is the more likely, since the Philistine lords would have objected to David’s presence before he had gone with them as far as Shunem.
A fountain which is in Jezreel The modern Ain Jalud, situated about six miles south of Shunem, at the base of the mountains of Gilboa. It is “a very large fountain, flowing out from under a sort of cavern in the conglomerate rock which here forms the base of Gilboa. The water is excellent, and, issuing from crevices in the rocks, it spreads out at once into a fine limpid pool, forty or fifty feet in diameter, in which great numbers of small fish were sporting. From the reservoir, a stream sufficient to turn a mill flows off eastward down the valley. There is every reason to regard this as the ancient fountain of Jezreel, where Saul and Jonathan pitched before their last fatal battle.” Robinson.
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