Jabin

Jabin (Hebrew: יבין‎) (ja'-bin) is a Biblical name meaning 'discerner', or 'the wise'. It may refer to:

• A king of Hazor, at the time of the entrance of Israel into Canaan (Joshua 11:1-14), whose overthrow and that of the northern chief with whom he had entered into a confederacy against Joshua was the crowning act in the conquest of the land (11:21-23; comp 14:6-15). This great battle, fought at Lake Merom, was the last of Joshua's battles of which we have any record. Here for the first time the Israelites encountered the iron chariots and horses of the Canaanites.

According to Norman Gottwald, Joshua had nothing to do with the incident, which probably reflects a tradition of the late 13.century BCE destruction of the city by part of a group later identified with the Israelite tribe of Naphtali.

• Another king of Hazor, called "the king of Canaan," who overpowered the Israelites of the north one hundred and sixty years after Joshua's death, and for twenty years held them in painful subjection. The whole population were paralyzed with fear, and gave way to hopeless despondency (Judges 5:6-11), until Deborah and Barak aroused the national spirit, and gathering together ten thousand men, gained a great and decisive victory over Jabin in the plain of Esdraelon (Judges 4:10-16; Compare Psalms 83:9). This was the first great victory Israel had gained since the days of Joshua.

References

This article incorporates text from Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897), a publication now in the public domain.