Shearing-house
(2 Kings 10:12, 14; marg., "house of shepherds binding sheep." R.V., "the shearing-house of the shepherds;" marg., "house of gathering"), some place between Samaria and Jezreel, where Jehu slew "two and forty men" of the royal family of Judah. The Heb. word Beth-eked so rendered is supposed by some to be a proper name.
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Dictionary
Beth-arbel
House of God's court, a place alluded to by Hosea (10:14) as the scene of some great military exploit, but not otherwise mentioned in Scripture. The Shalman here named was probably Shalmaneser, the king of Assyria (2 Kings 17:3).
Dictionary
Bethlehem
House of bread. (1.) A city in the "hill country" of Judah. It was originally called Ephrath (Gen. 35:16, 19; 48:7; Ruth 4:11). It was also called Beth-lehem Ephratah (Micah 5:2), Beth-lehem-judah (1 Sam. 17:12), and "the city of David" (Luke 2:4). It is first noticed in Scripture as the place where Rachel died and was buried "by the wayside," directly to the north of the city (Gen. 48:7). The valley to the east was the scene of the story of Ruth the Moabitess. There are the fields in which she gleaned, and the path by which she and Naomi returned to the town. Here was David's birth-place, and here also, in after years, he was anointed as king by Samuel (1 Sam. 16:4-13); and it was from the well of Bethlehem that three of his heroes brought water for him at the risk of their lives when he was in the cave of Adullam (2 Sam. 23:13-17). But it was distinguished above every other city as the birth-place of "Him whose goings forth have been of old" (Matt. 2:6; comp. Micah 5:2). Afterwards Herod, "when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men," sent and slew "all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under" (Matt. 2:16, 18; Jer. 31:15). Bethlehem bears the modern name of Beit-Lahm, i.e., "house of flesh." It is about 5 miles south of Jerusalem, standing at an elevation of about 2,550 feet above the sea, thus 100 feet higher than Jerusalem. There is a church still existing, built by Constantine the Great (A.D. 330), called the "Church of the Nativity," over a grotto or cave called the "holy crypt," and said to be the "stable" in which Jesus was born. This is perhaps the oldest existing Christian church in the world. Close to it is another grotto, where Jerome the Latin father is said to have spent thirty years of his life in translating the Scriptures into Latin. (See [67]VERSION.) (2.) A city of Zebulun, mentioned only in Josh. 19:15. Now Beit-Lahm, a ruined village about 6 miles west-north-west of Nazareth.
Dictionary
Dagon's house
(1 Sam. 5:2), or Beth-dagon, as elsewhere rendered (Josh. 15: 41; 19:27), was the sanctuary or temple of Dagon. The Beth-dagon of Josh. 15:41 was one of the cities of the tribe of Judah, in the lowland or plain which stretches westward. It has not been identified. The Beth-dagon of Josh. 19:27 was one of the border cities of Asher. That of 1 Chr. 10:10 was in the western half-tribe of Manasseh, where the Philistines, after their victory at Gilboa, placed Saul's head in the temple of their god. (Comp. 1 Sam. 31:8-13).
Dictionary
Jezreel
God scatters. (1.) A town of Issachar (Josh. 19:18), where the kings of Israel often resided (1 Kings 18:45; 21:1; 2 Kings 9:30). Here Elijah met Ahab, Jehu, and Bidkar; and here Jehu executed his dreadful commission against the house of Ahab (2 Kings 9:14-37; 10:1-11). It has been identified with the modern Zerin, on the most western point of the range of Gilboa, reaching down into the great and fertile valley of Jezreel, to which it gave its name. (2.) A town in Judah (Josh. 15:56), to the south-east of Hebron. Ahinoam, one of David's wives, probably belonged to this place (1 Sam. 27:3). (3.) A symbolical name given by Hosea to his oldest son (Hos. 1:4), in token of a great slaughter predicted by him, like that which had formerly taken place in the plain of Esdraelon (comp. Hos. 1:4, 5).
Dictionary
Oil-tree
(Isa. 41:19; R.V. marg., "oleaster"), Heb. etz shemen, rendered "olive tree" in 1 Kings 6:23, 31, 32, 33 (R.V., "olive wood") and "pine branches" in Neh. 8:15 (R.V., "branches of wild olive"), was some tree distinct from the olive. It was probably the oleaster (Eleagnus angustifolius), which grows abundantly in almost all parts of Palestine, especially about Hebron and Samaria. "It has a fine hard wood," says Tristram, "and yields an inferior oil, but it has no relationship to the olive, which, however, it resembles in general appearance."
Dictionary
Rose
Many varieties of the rose proper are indigenous to Syria. The famed rose of Damascus is white, but there are also red and yellow roses. In Cant. 2:1 and Isa. 35:1 the Hebrew word habatstseleth (found only in these passages), rendered "rose" (R.V. marg., "autumn crocus"), is supposed by some to mean the oleander, by others the sweet-scented narcissus (a native of Palestine), the tulip, or the daisy; but nothing definite can be affirmed regarding it. The "rose of Sharon" is probably the cistus or rock-rose, several species of which abound in Palestine. "Mount Carmel especially abounds in the cistus, which in April covers some of the barer parts of the mountain with a glow not inferior to that of the Scottish heather." (See [539]MYRRH [2].)