Gilboa

Meaning: boiling spring

a mountain range, now Jebel Fukua', memorable as the scene of Saul’s disastrous defeat by the Philistines

Here also King Saul’s three sons were slain, and he himself died by his own hand (1 Samuel 28:4; 31:1-8; 2 Samuel 1:6-21; 21:12; 1 Chronicles 10:1, 8). It was a low barren range of mountains bounding the valley of Esdraelon (Jezreel) on the east, between it and the Jordan valley. When the tidings of this defeat were conveyed to David, he gave utterance to those pathetic words in the “Song of the Bow” (2 Samuel 1:19-27).