Professor Robinson {Biblioth. Sac. 1843, p. 456 sq.) thinks that Bethel may be identical with the Bether, not far from Jerusalem, where the revolt under Bar- cocheba (q. v.), in the time of Adrian, was finally ex- tinguished (Euseb. Hist. Ecc. iv, 6) ; the Betarum, which lay 18 Roman miles from CVsarea toward Lydda {Itin. Ant. p. 150), and differently named and located by other ancient notices. This place, he shows, is once called Bethel (Jerome, Comment, in Zach. iii, 13) ; and Bethel is once called Bethar (Bourdeaux Pilgrim, Itin. Hieros. p. 588). See Bether.
2. A town in the south part of Judah (1 Sam. xxx, 27, where the collocation of the name is decisive against its being the well-known Bethel ; many copies of the Sept. read RaiOaovp, i. e. Bethzur). Perhaps the same city is denoted in Josh, xii, 16 ; but comp. ch. viii, 17. By comparison of the lists of the towns of Judah and Simeon (Josh, xv, 30 ; xix, 4 ; 1 Chron. v, 29, 30), the place appears to have borne also the names of Chesil, Bethul (q. v.), and Bethuel.
Beth/elite (Ileb. Beythha-EU', "O^ri rl^S; Sept. 6 Bn(3-(/Xir/;c), a designation of Iliel, who rebuilt Jeri- cho, and experienced the curse pronounced long before (1 Kings xvi, 34) ; doubtless a native of Bethel in Ben- jamin.
Beth-e'mek (Heb. Beyth ha-E'mel, pOSri 11^3, house of the valley ; Sept. BaiScnpe k v. r. BaiSpi), a city of the tribe of Asher, apparently near its S.E. border (Josh, xix, 27). Dr. Robinson found a village called Amkah about eight miles X.E. of Akka {Biblioth, Sacra, 1*53, p. 121), which is probably the place in question, although he suggests that the above text seems to requiro a position south of the "valley of Jiphthah-el" or Jefat {Later Bib. Researches, p. 103, i 08 '. The identification proposed by Schwarz {Palest, p. 192) with the modern Amiuka (according to him also no- ticed in the Talmud), 12 miles N.N.W. of Safed, is al- together out of the region indicated.
Be'ther (Ileb. id. "£), the name of certain "mountains" mentioned only in Cant, ii, 17. The word moans, properly, dissection (as in Gen. v, 10; Jer. xxxiv, 18, 19, " piece") ; the mountains of Bether may therefore he mountains of disjunction, of separation, that is, mountains cut up, divided ly ravines, etc. The Sept, gives ppn KoiXioparwi', inountaius of 'hollows.
BETHESDA
V77
BETHESDA
in this sense. They may he the same with those ren- dered "mountains of spices" in viii, 14, from the growth of trees from which odorous gums distilled. See Bitii-
RON.
If it be the name of a place, it may possibly be iden- tical with the Bether where the impostor Barcocheba (q. v.) was at last overcome by Hadrian (sec the Ze- mach DavU, cited by Eisenmenger, Entdeck. Judenth. ii, 65G), a strongly fortified city (see Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. col. 371, where the Heb. form is given "ir"1^, Either, Chald. X1P3, Bithra; the correct pointing being perhaps "irn?i i. e. Baethar, for *iFrrPSl, Beth- Tar, Lat. Bethei; Biter, etc.), not far from Jerusalem (B&Sripa, Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. iv, 6). For the his- tory of the campaign at this place, see Munter, Jud. Krieg. § 20, translated under the title "Jewish War under Adrian," in the Biblioth"ca Sacra, 1843, p. 393 sq. ; and for notices of the place, see the editor's re- marks appended to the translation, p. 456 sq. The locality is thought by Dr. Robinson (Later Bib. Re- searches, p. 26(3-271) to be identical with that of the Benjamite Bethel (q. v.), the modern Beitin; but Wil- liams (Ho'y City, ii, 210) and Stewart (Tent and Khan, p. 347), apparently with better reason, fix it in the present village Bittir, two hours W.S.W. of Jerusalem (Van de Velde, Memoir, p. 295). This latter position also seems to agree with that of a Bether (Bat&r/p, i. e. Bcether, v. r. Qrj^fjp) mentioned by the Sept. in Josh. xv, 59, among the names of an additional group of eleven towns near Bethlehem, in the tribe of Judah (q. v.), thought by some to have accidentally dropped from the Heb. text (see Keil, Comment, in loc).
Evidently different from this place was a Bether (with the same orthography) mentioned in the Talmud as lying four Roman miles from the sea (see Reland, Palcest. p. 639), the Betarum (of the Itin. Anton, and Hieros.) on the way from Cresarea to Antipatris ; now probably the village of Barin, about 1^ hour south of Kakun (Schwarz, Palest, p. 144 ; Van de Velcle, Me- moir, p. 295).
Bethes'da (Bifierred, for Chald. inSH PHS, house of the mercy, q. d. charity-hospital ; or, according to others, for Chald. XTIJX rP3, place of the fuming, sc. of water), the name of a reservoir or tank (koXwjujS^- 6pa, i. e. swimming-pool), with five " porches" (rTroat), close upon the sheep-gate or "market" (ttri ry 7rpo- (iariKy — it will be observed that the word "market" is supplied) in Jerusalem (John v, 2). The porches — i. e. cloisters or colonnades — were extensive enough to accommodate a large number of sick and infirm people, whose custom it was to wait there for the "troub- ling of the water." One of these invalids is re- corded to have been cured by Christ in the above passage, where also we are told that an angel went down at a certain season into the pool and troubled the water, and then whoever first step- ped in was mad i whole. There seems to have been no special medicinal vir- tue in the water itself, and only he who first stepped in after the troubling was healed. It may be re- marked that the evan- gelist, in giving the ac- count of the descent of the angel into the pool and the effects following, does not seem to do any