BET 



490 



Bciii This province was but partly subdued by the Ro- 



. II mans, who had only one colony at Cuclia, now Kilia. 



". Bessarabia is a Sandgiack or government, and the prin- 

 cipal Sandgiack, who resides at Bender, has an annual 

 revenue of three thousand pounds sterling. The 

 principal towns are Bender, Ismail, Akcrman, Kilia, 

 and Kauscher. Bender is now the capital, though 

 Kauschcr was formerly the capital of the part of 

 Bessarabia which belonged to the Khan of Tartary. 



BETA, a genus of plants of the class Pentandria, 

 and order Digynia. See Botany, (io) 



BETEL, an Indian plant of the genus piper, 

 which is employed for the purposes of luxury and 

 health among the oriental nations. The red juice 

 which is pressed out of the leaves by mastication, 

 renders the lips red, and the teeth black, and while 

 it gives sweetness to the breath, it is said to strengthen 

 the teeth and gums, and to be of great use in disorders 

 of the stomach. 



Every person keeps a box of betel, and presents it 

 as we do snuff, as a mark of civility. It is often 

 given as a present among the lower classes ; and in 

 parting with a friend, a purse of betel is generally 

 presented as a token of remembrance, (o.) 



BETHESDA, the Hebrew name of a pool or 

 pond in Jerusalem, near the sheep market. Jo. v. 

 2 7. The word KtXvft^ii^a, which in that passage 

 iB translated pool, signifies a reservoir of water, deep 

 enough to allow a person to swim in it. Formerly 

 there were two pools of that description in Jerusalem, 

 near the mount on which stood the temple ; the one 

 called the upper pool, (2 Kings xviii. 7.) and the 

 other the pool of Siloam by the king's garden, 

 (Neh. iii. 15.) in which our Saviour directed the 

 blind man to wash for the recovery of his sight. 

 (Jo. ix. 7.) Some interpret the word Bethesda as 

 signifying a drain, because the water used for wash- 

 ing the entrails of the beasts which were to be offered 

 in sacrifice in the temple flowed into it ; to which 

 circumstance they very absurdly ascribe a medicinal 

 quality of the pool. But Bethesda has, with greater 

 propriety, been understood to signify the house of 

 mercy, as expressive of the mercy of God to his peo- 

 ple in the healing virtue which the water of that pool 

 possessed. The five porches mentioned by John, are 

 believed to be the remains of five apartments for the 

 accommodation of the great multitude, who came to 

 the pool to be cured of their bodily diseases. And 

 Maundrell tells us, that when he was at Jerusalem, he 

 saw what was supposed to have been the pool of Be- 

 thesda, contiguous on one side to St Stephen's gate, 

 and on the other, to the area of the temple. " It is," 

 says he, " one hundred and twenty paces long, forty 

 broad, and at least eight deep ; but void of water. 

 At its west end it discovers some old arches now 

 damm'd up." 



" In these porches," says the Evangelist John, 

 " lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, 

 "halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. 

 For an angel went down at a certain season into the 

 pool, and troubled the water : whosoever then first, 

 after the troubling of the water, stepped in, was made 

 whole of whatsoever disease he had." Whether the 

 niraclcs performed at the pool of Bethesda, were con- 



BET 



fined to the season of the particular feast mentioned Bethetdn 

 in v. 1st, as the words khtx kxi^ou in v. 4-th would Bethlehem, 

 seem to imply j or whether these words, taken in a * 



more eularged sense, may be explained to signify that 

 the water had its sanative quality at other Jewish fes- 

 tivals, cannot be ascertained. That it had not that 

 quality at all times, but only at certain times, when 

 an angel went down and troubled, that is, agitated, 

 the water, is clear from the words of the Evangelist. 

 In order to account, in a natural way, for the sa- 

 native quality of this pool, Hammond supposes that 

 the water became medicinal in consequence of an im- 

 pregnation from the blood and entrails of the sacri- 

 fices, conveyed thither by the water in which they 

 were washed at the temple ; and that by the y,'iAof, 

 who troubled the water, we are not to understand an 

 angel, but only a messenger, probably a servant of 

 the high priest, who might be sent at a particular 

 season to agitate the pool. But that explanation i> 

 evidently contradicted by the narrative of the Evan- 

 gelist. The Greek word translated angel, is never 

 used in the sense which that interpretation gives it, 

 and is evident, that had there been no divine agency, 

 the virtue of the water would have been confined to the 

 cure of some particular disorder, and would have been 

 found in the water at one time as well as at another ; 

 the very reverse of which John tells us was the case. 

 It cured all, but it cured only one person at one 

 time, namely, the person who first stepped in, after 

 the water was agitated by the descent of an angel. 

 Of whatever use, therefore, this pool might have been 

 in the earliest ages, certain it is that He, who is the 

 sovereign physician of soul and body, made use of it, 

 in the days of the Saviour, for the cure of diseases, in. 

 a way which must have convinced men that these cures 

 were effected, not by a natural, but by a miraculous 

 operation. For the true reason, why the virtue thus 

 communicated to the water, by the descent of an an- 

 gel, was effectual for the cure only of one person, at 

 one particular time, was to manifest the miraculous 

 nature of the cure. Tertullian informs us, that the 

 water of this pool ceased to be beneficial to the Jews 

 upon their obstinate perseverance in their rejection 

 of Christ's divine mission ; another proof that it de- 

 rived its healing quality directly from the agency of 

 the Divine Being, and lost it at the precise time when 

 that divine agency was withdrawn. We may there- 

 fore conclude with the learned Dr Macknight, that 

 Bethesda obtained its miraculous healing quality, in 

 honour of the personal appearance of the Son of God 

 upon earth. See Ant. Univ. Hist. vol. ii. 41-2. ; vol. 

 x. 544. Maundrell's Journey to Aleppo, p. 107. 

 Stackhouse's Hist. vol. v. p. *393. Calmet's Die!. 



(A. F.) 



BETHLEHEM, a city of Judah, generally cal- 

 led Bethlehem of Judah, or Bethlehem Ephratah, to 

 distinguish it from another Bethlehem in Zebulun. 

 Neither eminent for the number, nor the wealth of its 

 inhabitants, it became famous by being the birth- 

 place of the royal Psalmist, hence emphatically 

 named the city of David ; but still more so, by being 

 chosen by Providence to give birth to the Saviour of 

 the world. For that reason, though now reduced to 

 the size of a village, it has always been regarded as a 

 place of high renown ; and at present can boast of a 



