Beam, the rendering in the Auth. Vers, of the fol- lowing words : SIX, e'reg, a web, Judg. xvi, 14 ; "shut- tle," Job ii, 6; Tl3tt, manor', a. yoke, hence a weaver's frame, or its principal beam, 1 Sam. xvii, 7 ; 2 Sam. xxi, 19; 1 Chron. xi, 23; xx, 5; 3.3, neb, a board, 1 Kings vi, 9; CE3, Tcaphis', a cross-beam or girder (Sept. KavStaooQ), Habak. ii, 11; 3>PS, tsela' , a rib, hence a joint, 1 Kings vii, 3; "board," vi. 15, 16; "plank," vi, 15 ; iT^p, hurah' ', a cross-piece or ?-afttr, 2 Kings vi, 2, 5 ; 2 Chron. iii, 7 ; Cant, i, 17 ; 3S, ab, a projecting step, or architectural ornament like a moulding, answering for a threshold, 1 Kings vii, 6 ; "thick plank," Ezek. xli, 25; FiniS, JcerutAoth', hewed sticks of timber, 1 Kings vi, 36; vii, 2, 12; flip (in Piel), to jit beams, hence to frame, Neb. iii, 3, (I ; Psa. civ, 3 ; of no Heb. word (being supplied in italics) in 1 Kings vi, G; Sokoq, a stick of wood for building purposes, Matt, vii, 3, 4, 5 ; Luke vi, 41, 42. In these last passages, Lightfoot shows that the ex- pressions of our Lord were a common proverb among the Jews, having reference to the greater sins of one prone to censure the small faults of another. The "»wfe," Kaptyoc, may be understood as any very small dry particle, which, by lodging in the eye, causes dis- tress and pain, and is here given as the emblem of lesser faults in opposition to a beam for the greater, as also in the parallel proverb, "Strain [out] a gnat and swallow a camel" (Matt, xxiii, 24).
Bean (bi%,pol; Sept. Kva/.ioc') occurs first in 2 Sam. xvii, 28, where beans are described as being brought to David, as well as wheat, barley, lentils, etc., as is the custom at the present day in many parts of the East when a traveller arrives at a village. So in Ezek. iv, 9, the prophet is directed to take wheat, bar- ley, beans, lentils, etc. and make bread thereof. This meaning of the Heb. word is confirmed by the Arabic fitl, which is applied to the bean in modern times, as ascertained by Forskal in Egypt, and as we find in old Arabic works. The common bean, or at least one of its varieties, we find noticed by Hippocrates and The- ophrastus tinder the names of kvcijioq iWrfVtKOC,, or "Greek bean," to distinguish it from jevafiog ai-yinr- Tinc, the "Egyptian bean," or bean of Pythagoras, which was no doubt the large farinaceous seed of Ne- lumbium apeciomm (Theophr. Plant, iv, 9; Athen. iii, 73; comp. Link, I'nnlt, i, 224; Billerbeek, F'.or. Class.
' p 139). Beans were employed as articles of diet by the ancients, as they are by the moderns, and are con-
! sidered to give rise to flatulence, but otherwise to be
BEAN
707
BEAR
wholesome and nutritious (comp. Pliny, xviii, DO). Beans are cultivated over a great part of the Old World, from the north of Europe to the south of India ; in the latter, however, forming the cold-weather culti- vation, with wheat, peas, etc. The}' are extensively cultivated in Egypt and Arabia. In Egypt they are sown in November, and reaped in the middle of Feb- ruary (three and a half months in the ground) ; but in Syria they may be had throughout the spring. The stalks are cut down with the scythe, and these are afterward cut and crushed to fit them for the food of camels, oxen, and goats. The beans themselves, when sent to market, are often deprived of their skins. Basnagc reports it as the sentiment of some of the rabbins t'lat beans were not lawful to the priests, on account of their being considered the appropriate food of mourning and affliction ; but he does not refer to the authority ; and neither in the sacred books nor in the Mishna (see Shebiith, ii, 9) can be found any traces of the notion to which he alludes (see Otho, Lex. Rub. p. 223). So far from attaching any sort of im- purity to this legume, it is described as among the first-fruit offerings ; and several other articles in the latter collection prove that the Hebrews had beans largely in use after they had passed them through the mill (Kitto, Phys. Hist, of Palestine, p. cccxix). The paintings on the monuments of Egypt show that the bean was cultivated in that country in very early times (comp. Strabo, xv, 822), although Herodotus states (ii, 37 ; comp. Diog. Laert. viii, 34) that beans were held in abhorrence by the Egyptian priesthood, and that they were never eaten by the people (but see Wilkinson, Anc. Eg. i, £23 abridgm.); but as they were cultivated, it is probable that they formed an ar- ticle of diet with the poorer classes (comp. Horace, Sat. ii, 3, 182; ii, G, 03) ; and beans with rice, and dhourra bread, are the chief articles of food at this day among the Fellah population. The}' are usually eaten steep- ed in oil. Those now cultivated in Syria and Pales- tine are the white horse-bean and the kidney-bean, called by the natives mash. — Kitto, s. v. Pol.
Be'an, Children of (eioi Baifiv; Josephus, viol roi' Bacivov, Ant. xii, 8, 1), a tribe apparently of pred- atory Bedouin habits, retreating into "towers" (jrvp- yovc) when not plundering, and who were destroyed by Judas Maccabseus (1 Mac. v, 4). The name has been supposed to be identical with Beon (Num. xxxii, 2); but this is a mere conjecture, as it is very difficult to tell from the context whether the residence of this people was on the east or west of Jordan.