HEBREW / ARAMAIC · H1052
בֵּית שְׁאָן
bet she.an — Beth-shean
§ Beth-shean or Beth-Shan = "house of ease" a place in Manasseh, west of the Jordan
8 tagged verse occurrences · see every occurrence →BIBLE DICTIONARY + WORD STUDY
Beth-shean
Original Hebrew / Aramaic / Greek connected to this term
How to read this: there is rarely one magic “true meaning” hidden behind an English word. A lexicon records a word’s semantic range. The intended meaning is narrowed by grammar, sentence, author, historical usage and context.
Historical dictionary entry
House of security or rest, a city which belonged to Manasseh (1 Chr. 7:29), on the west of Jordan. The bodies of Saul and his sons were fastened to its walls. In Solomon’s time it gave its name to a district (1 Kings 4:12). The name is found in an abridged form, Bethshan, in 1 Sam. 31:10, 12 and 2 Sam. 21:12. It is on the road from Jerusalem to Damascus, about 5 miles from the Jordan, and 14 from the south end of the Lake of Gennesaret. After the Captivity it was called Scythopolis, i.e., “the city of the Scythians,” who about B.C. 640 came down from the steppes of Southern Russia and settled in different places in Syria. It is now called Beisan.
Scripture references
Source: Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897). Historical dictionary wording reflects the scholarship and language of its era.