1 Kings 4:12 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

The fifth division must have been large and important, including much of the great plain of Esdraelon or Jezreel, the garden and battle-field of Northern Palestine, and extending to the Jordan valley. Taanach, Megiddo, and Beth-shean are all named as Canaanitish cities not taken by Manasseh, but made tributary (Joshua 17:11; Judges 1:27). Taanach and Megiddo are referred to in the song of Deborah (Judges 5:19). Megiddo is the place of the death of Ahaziah (2 Kings 9:27) and the fall of Josiah (2 Kings 23:29). Beth-shean is the city in which the body of Saul was exposed in triumph (1 Samuel 31:12). Abel-meholah, the birth-place of Elisha (1 Kings 19:16), lies south of Beth-shean, and is mentioned in the record of the rout of the Midianites by Gideon (Judges 7:22). Jokmeam (for such is the right reading) is a Levitical city in Ephraim (1 Chronicles 6:68), apparently called Kibzaim in Joshua 21:22, and must have been an outlying part of this division.