Horvat Mount Bezeq (BibleWalks.com)

Nahal Bezeq, Wadi Shubash in Arabic, is an intermittent stream that serves as the prominent geographical divider between the southern slopes of Mount Gilboa and the northeastern hills of Samaria. The stream originates near Mount Bezeq at an altitude of 713 meters. Bezeq served as the critical staging area for Israel's first unified military campaign under King Saul (1 Samuel 11). To rescue the besieged inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead from the Ammonites, Saul gathered and counted a massive force of 300,000 men from Israel and 30,000 from Judah right at Bezeq before launching a successful surprise dawn attack across the Jordan River. The site’s geographical position—nestled between Samaria and the Jordan Valley—made it the perfect assembly point for launching campaigns into the east. Standing at Mount Bezeq you are positioned on a highly strategic topographical high point. From this single summit, you can monitor major movement across both the central hill country and the entire northern Jordan Valley crossing points. Directly below the southern slopes, you look down onto the ancient rolling agricultural lands, the deep-set wadi of Upper Nahal Bezeq, and the nearby Palestinian villages of Tayasir and Tubas. The Upper peak site (Khirbet Ibziq al-Fauqa is where the earliest remains are concentrated. Surface surveys and localized excavations on the high ridges have yielded significant pottery fragments dating precisely to Iron Age Ic (the end of period of the Judges and early settlement, roughly 1100–1000 BC) and Iron Age IIa (the Monarchic period). The archaeological profile fits the biblical narrative perfectly. Rather than a massive, heavily fortified permanent Iron Age city on the absolute peak, the summit shows evidence of a smaller, strategic stronghold and watchpoint. The massive open terraces and plateaus below the peak provided the exact type of expansive space needed for a massive military assembly—like King Saul's emergency mobilization of troops before crossing the Jordan to save Jabesh-Gilead. The presence of these early Iron Age remains on the strategic high ground confirms that during the exact era of Saul and the early Israelite monarchy, this ridge was actively occupied, monitored, and utilized to control the vital pass between the central highlands and the Jordan Rift Valley. The physical Iron Age structures on the absolute peak are difficult to piece together fully because later Byzantine and medieval builders extensively cleared, reused, and built over the foundations to construct their own mountain outposts, agricultural installations, and burial caves. To the North you get a clear, sweeping look at the rugged southern slopes of Mount Gilboa (including the nearby peak of Mount Avner). On clear days, the vista stretches past the Gilboa to the hills of the Lower Galilee, Mount Tabor, the Carmel range, and the distant, snow-capped silhouette of Mount Hermon. The academic researcher for this excavation, Ayelet Keidar, described the archaeological project on Mount Bezeq and the findings so far. The work, headed by Tal Orenstein of the Staff Officer of Archaeology, is still in progress. For more information: https://www.biblewalks.com/bezeq/