BEAUTY OF HOLINESS. See Holiness, Beau- ty of.
Beb'ai, the name of one or two men, and a place.
1. (Heb. Bebay', "U2, from the Pehlvi bob, father; Sept. j3a[3ai, fitifiai, pa/31, and /SjjjSi), the head of one of the families that returned from Babylon with Zerub- babel (B.C. 53G) to the number of 623 (Ezra ii, 11 ; 1 Esdr. v, 13), or 628 by a different mode of reckoning (Neh. vii, 16), of whom his son Zechiriah, with 28 males, returned (B.C. 459) under Ezra (Ezra viii, 11 ; 1 Esdr. viii, 37). Several other of his sons are men- i
version of Num. xxvi, 35. Moreover, which is per- haps the strongest argument of all, in the enumeration of the Benjamite families in Num. xxvi, 38, there is no mention of Becher or the Bachrites, but Ashbel and the Ashbclites immediately follow Bela and the Bela- ites. This last supposition, however, is decidedly neg- atived by the mention (1 Chron. vii, 8) of the distinctive sons of Becher as an individual. Becher was one of Benjamin's five sons that came down to Egypt with Jacob, being one of the fourteen descendants of Rachel who settled in Egypt. See Jacob.
As regards the posterity of Becher, we find neverthe- less the singular fact of there being no family named af- ter him at the numbering of the Israelites in the plains of Moab, as related in Num. xxvi. But the no less tioned in chap, x, 28. He (if the same) subscribed to j singular circumstance of there being a Becher, and a the sacred covenant with Nehemiah ( Ezra x, 15). B.C. I family of Bachrites, among the sons of Ephraim (ver.
gest an explanation. The by the men of Gath, fthe land of Goshen, imed only in Judith xv, 4. It is, perhaps, a mere rep- j m that border affray related in 1 Chron. vii, 21, had etition of the name Chobai (q. v.), ocurring next to it. sadly thinned the house of Ephraim of its males The Beccarelli. See Mysticism ; Quietism. | daughters of Ephraim must therefore have sought hus-
Beccold. See Boccold. | bands in other tribes, and in many cases must have
been heiresses. It is therefore possible that Becher, or his heir and head of his house, married an Ephraim- itish heiress, a daughter of Shuthelah (1 Chron. vii, 20, 21), and that his house was thus reckoned in the tribe of Ephraim, just as Jair, the son of Segub, was reckoned
the sacred covenant with Nehemiah ( Ezra x, 15). B.C. I tamny oi nacnrues, among uie boi
410. Four of this family had taken foreign wives 35) has been thought to suggest an
(Ezra x, 28 ; 1 Esdr. ix, 29). ! slaughter of the sons of Ephraim b
2. (Alex. Bjj/3at,Vat. omits ; Vulg. omits). A place ; who came to steal their cattle out of
Be'cher (Heb. Be'her, 132, perh. first-born, but, according to Gesenius, a young camel ; so Simonis, Ono- mast. p. 399), the name of one or two men.
1. (Sept. Boyop and Bn\i'p.) The second son of Benjamin, according to the list both in Gen. xlvi, 21, and 1 Chr. vii, 6; but omitted in the list of the sons of Benjamin in 1 Chr. viii, 1, 2, as the text now stands, | the ^phraimTtes" viz], just before the entering into tl
the tribe of Manasseh (1 Chron. ii, 22 ; Num. xxxii, •10, 41). The time when Becher first appears among
unless, as seems, on the whole, most probable, he is isod land when the people were numbered by
there called Nohah, the fourth son.^ rhere is also ^nealogies for the express purpose of dividing the in-
heritance equitably among the tribes, is evidently
good reason to identify him with the Ir of 1 Chr. vii 12. B.C. 1856. No one, however, can look at the Hebrew text of 1 Chr. viii, 1 (3b2TX TiVlfi "ja^ia brriX 11132), without at least suspecting that 1132, his first-born, is a corruption of 132, Becher, and that
highly favorable to this view. (See Num. xxvi, 52- 56; xxvii.) The junior branches of Becher' s family would of course continue in the tribe of Benjamin. Their names, as given in 1 Chron. vii, 8, were Zemira, , Joash, Eliezer, Elioenai, Omri, Jerimoth, and Abiah ; the suffix 1 is a corruption of 1, and belongs to the other branchea possePsed the fields around Anathoth following P2EJX, so that the genuine sense, in that ) and Alameth (called Alemeth vi, 60, and Almon Josh, case, would be, Benjam'n begat Bela, Beehr, and Ash- xxi, 18). As the most important of them, being ances- bel, in exact agreement with Gen. xlvi, 21. The enu- tor to King Saul, and his great captain Abner (1 Sam. meration, the second, the third, etc., must then have xiv, 50), the last named, Abiah, was literally Becher's
KECIIORATH
714
BECKET
son, it would Been) that the rest (with others not there named) were likewise. See Jacob. The generations appear to have been as follows : Becher— Abiah ; then (after a long interval, see .Sail) Aphiah (1 Sam. ix, l)_Bechorath— Zeror— Abiel (Jehiel, 1 Chron. ix, 35) — Ner— Kish— Saul. Aimer was another son of Ner, brother therefore to Kish, and uncle to Saul. Abiel or Jehiel seems to have been the first of his house who settled at Gibeon or Gibeah (1 Chron. viii, 29; ix, 35), whicb perhaps he acquired by his marriage with Maa- chah, and which became thenceforth the seat of his family, and was called afterward Gibeah of Saul (1 Sam. xi, 4; Isa. x, 29). From 1 Chron. viii, G, it would seem that before this, Gibeon, orGeba, had been possessed by the sons of Ehud (called Abihud ver. 3) and other sous of Bela. Another remarkable descend- ant of Becher was Sheba, the son of Bichri, a Benjamite, who headed the formidable rebellion against David described in 2 Sam. xx ; and another, probably Shimei, the son of Gera of Bahurim, who cursed David as he lied from Absalom (2 Sam. xvi, 5), since he is said to be "a man of the family of the house of Saul." But if so, Gera must be a different person from the Gera of Gen. xlvi, 21 and 1 Chron. viii, 3. Perhaps therefore ~n~'l""2 is used in the wider sense of trile, as Josh, vii, 17, and so the passage may only mean that Shimei was a Benjamite.