Smote. — The portion smitten now, as hereafter in the Assyrian invasion (2 Kings 15:29), is the mountain country near the source of the Jordan, which lay most exposed to the great approach to Israel from the north by “the entering in of Hamath,” through the wide valley between Lebanon and Ante-Lebanon, called by the Greeks Cœle-Syria.
Ijon is only mentioned in these two passages as belonging to the territory of Naphtali. It is supposed to have stood not far from Dan, close to the nearer, but fuller, source of the Jordan, in a position of great natural beauty and some strength, identified with the modern Tel-Dibbin.
Abel-beth-Maachah (see 2 Samuel 20:14-15) (“the meadow of the house of Maachah”), or (2 Chronicles 16:4) Abel-maim (“the meadow upon the waters”), lay probably in the marshy ground north of the water of Merom.
Cinneroth or Chinneroth, is the name afterwards corrupted into Gennesareth, signifying evidently a region in the neighbourhood of the lake.