Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible (1898)
JA'BESH, and JA'BESH-GIL'EAD (dry Gilead), a city east of the Jordan; destroyed by the Israelites, Jud 21:8-14; delivered from Nahash by Saul, 1 Sam 11:1-11, and in gratitude therefor its people brought the bodies of Saul and his sons, which the Philistines hung upon the walls of Bethshan, to Jabesh, and caused them to be buried in a wood near by. 1 Sam 31:11-13. David blessed them, 2 Sam 2:4-6, but afterward removed the bones to Saul's ancestral burying-place. 2 Sam 2:4-6; 2 Sam 21:12-14.
Robinson identifies it with ed-Deir, 23 miles south-east of the Sea of Galilee on the south side of Wady Yabis. Dr. S. Merrill, however, questions this as not conforming to the location assigned to it by Eusebius. He would identify Jabesh with the ruins of a town found about 7 miles from Pella, on the north side of Wady Yabis, on the mountain Jebel Aijlun, about 2300 feet above the Jordan valley. This seems to conform to the biblical statements concerning the place.