Jeremiah 41:12 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

By the great waters that are in Gibeon. — Johanan and his friends had been unable to prevent the slaughter of which they had warned Gedaliah (Jeremiah 41:15), but they were not too late to avenge it. Gibeon, retaining its name with little alteration in the modern El-jibe, lay about two miles from Mizpah; so that Ishmael must have halted on thinking himself safe against attack. On the east side of the hill on which it stands there are the remains of a large tank, about 120 feet by 100. It appears as the “pool of Gibeon” in 2 Samuel 2:13, as the scene of a conflict between Joab and Abner. Josephus (Ant. x. 9-15) places the attack on Ishmael at “the pool in Hebron,” which is mentioned in 2 Samuel 4:12. This, however, would hardly have been in Ishmael’s route to the country of the Ammonites.