J: The symbol employed to designate the Jehovistic (Yahwistic, Judean) document which, according to the critical school, is one of the components of the Hexateuch (q.v.). See HEBREW LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE, II., § 4.
JABAL. See CAIN, KENITES.
JABIN, ję'bin: A Canaanitic king who appears in two narratives in the Old Testament (Josh. xi. 1-15, and Judges iv. 1 sqq.). In the first he appears as overlord of the Canaanitic kings of the region of Mt. Naphtali, with his capital at Hazor, and as conquered by Joshua at the "waters of Merom." This narrative purports to give the account of the conquest of northern Canaan as Josh. x. to give that of the south. In Judges iv. the history of Jabin is peculiarly bound up with that of Sisera in the narrative of Deborah and Barak's campaign. Verses 2 and 7 make Sisera Jabin's general, though in the song in chap. v. Sisera is king and in command of kings. Similarly in iv. 12-22 Sisera is the chief personage, while Jabin hardly appears, verse 17b being an editorial addition, so that the narrative concerning Sisera is in chap. iv. the basis of the story. Two hypotheses have been held concerning this Jabin: that the two accounts refer to different persons, and that they refer to the same person. Judges iv. still retains a trace of the correct tradition that after the time of Joshua a war was conducted against Jabin, king of Hazor.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Besides H. Guthe, Geschichte des Volkes Israel, pp 51-52, Freiburg, 1899; DB, ii. 524; EB, ii. 2302-03, 2636-37; and C. F. Kent, Student's Old Testament, vol. i., 1904, the commentaries on Joshua and Judges should be consulted, particularly those on Judges by Budde and Moore, and the works on the history of Israel, especially those of Ewald, Kittel, and Wellhausen.
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