' For *X\ he taught the tender ymp was but To b&uiBb oowardlxe and bastarti feare.'
J. Hastings. BASTHAI (BaaBci, AV Bastal), 1 Es 5" = BesaI, Ext 2" Neh 7".
BAT (']''9B 'dfalUph, rvrrriplt, vesvtrtUio). — The bat is placed at the end of tne unclean fowls (I>v 11» Dt 14"), but in Lv 11» the explanatory clause, ' all winged creeping things that go upon sJl four,' makes it perfectly plain that the oat is intended. The Arab, popular name for the bat is tcitwdt, and the classical name is khuffdsh. The Heb. name, 'd{allpph, signifies the nightjlier, in allusion to the habits of the animal. The Arab, name signifies the weak-sighted, referring to the fact of the small eyes of bats, which see poorly by day. A man who has day-blindness is called alchfcuh, i.e. bat-eyed, from this circumstance. Bats are mammals, with a very light skeleton and body, and large membranous wings, spread be- tween the elongated phalanges, and from them and the bones of the forearm and arm to the body and legs. They are nocturnal in their habits, spending their day in sleep, with their wibgs folded up, and suspended by a nook at the tip of the forearm, caught in some crevice of the roof of the cavern, or the ceiling of the tomb or ruin (Is 2"") where they have made their home, or fixed to the branch of a tree. The mousy smell of their haunts 1b overpowering where they are numerous. When not asleep, they are constantly squeaking like mice and rats. When disturbed they fly in rapid circles around their dark abode, or sweep in a cloud out of its exit. At night they fly forth noiselessly, and circle around houses and gardens. They pluck large quantities of apricots, dates, and other fruits, and bring them to the porches of bouses and devour them, leaving quantities of the seeds and skins on the pavements, and spotting with their ordure the walls of the house as they fly. It is eustomary to protect the clusters of dates, and of many other fruits, by a sort of basket or bag tied over them, and sometimes the whole tree by a net, lest all the fruit should be eaten by these rapacious feeders. The bats of the Holy Land vary from the size of a mouse to that of a rat. They swarm everywhere in the caves, tombs, and ruins. When a cavern or tomb is being explored the bats often ex- tinguish the torch or candle as the traveller passes through a narrow opening. Tristram gives a list of fifteen bats found in Palestine. The bats of the coast and mountains hibernate. But Tristram says that those of the Jordan Valley seem to be always active. G. E. Post.
BATH.— See Weights and Mbasurks.
VOU I. — 17
BATH, BATHING.— 1. In contradistinction to the Wtt.shing («h. aee) of particular parts of the body, hands, feet, etc., bathing is used in this article of the washing of the whole body,* and that either by the application of water, by pouring or otherwise, to the body, or by the immersion of the body in water, which alone is bathing in the strict sense of the term. The Heb. of the OT does not distinguish between the processes, both of which are expressed by m to wash (the body, as opp. to D33 to wash clotlies) ; for washing by immersion "^jp is once employed in OT (2 K 5", AV 'dippe^l himself,' but pT in 5'°). In later times it became the usual expression for bathing. The new-bom infant among the Hebrews was bathed in water (Ezk IG'') before being dressed. Some scholars have seen a reference to this custom in Ex 1", where they detect in the mysterious word d'j^^j the name of the stone basm or bath in which the infants were bathed (Ges. Thes.; Siegfried and Stade's Lex. i.v. ; also Kalisch, Comm. in loc). With this very doubtful exception, there is no mention in OT of a bath, for which later Ileb. used YTT?, '■".pp. etc. (see below). In the everyday life of the ordinary Heb. there would be neither the water nor the privacy — nor, for that matter, the inclination — necessary for bathing in the ordi- nary sense. The few instances of bathing in Scripture are in connexion with a river, as in the case of Pharaoh's daughter (Ex 2°), and Naaman (2 K 5", L.XX iflairrlaaTo) ; a fountain (Jth 12') ; or a pool {birket), as at Samaria (1 K 22**), Bethesda (Jn 5'), and in Joakim's garden (Sus"). No doubt in the palaces of royalty and the houses of the wealthy there were, even in ancient times, as at Nineveh, Tiryns, and elsewhere, arrangements for the bath, but no reference to such arrangements is found in OT or Apocrypha.
2. In the cases, other than those already cited, where 'bathe' occurs in AV and RV (in the latter more frequently), the process referred to must be understood as the ablution of the body by the application of water, not by bathing in the oroinary sense of the word.t
The prescription Lv 15" 'he shall bathe his flesh in running (Heb. living) water' seems at first sight fatal to the proposition just laid down, that purification from ceremonial and other defilement was originally by a process of ablution and not of immersion ; but it is evident from the context that the words in question are a euphemism for lavabit genitalia stia {see Dillm.,Strack in^c). Such ablu- tions were also practised on the ground of ordinary cleanliness (2 S 11', Sus ""'•), and, in particular, before appearing in the presence of superiors (Ru 3', Jth 10* irepitKXvaaTO, but 12' ipaTrrlaaTO, ' bathed,' as above), and d fortiori in the presence of God for worship (see Dillmann on Gn 35* for parallel passages).