Topic
Bethbasi
2 passages cited, from 1 classic reference work.
These works date from 1915 and are in the public domain. They reflect the Protestant scholarship of their time: their history, archaeology and dates can be out of date, and where they interpret, other traditions read the text differently. The verses are shown in the King James Version, the wording these works were written against.
The verses
The passages the works cite, those cited by more of them first.
- 1 Maccabees 9:62ISBE
Afterward Jonathan, and Simon, and they that were with him, got them away to Bethbasi, which is in the wilderness, and they repaired the decays thereof, and made it strong.
- 1 Maccabees 9:64ISBE
Then went he and laid siege against Bethbasi; and they fought against it a long season and made engines of war.
In the reference works
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915) · 2 references
beth-ba'-si (Baithbasi): The name may mean "place of marshes" = Hebrew beth-betsi. According to G. A. Smith there is a Wady el-Bassah East of Tekoa in the wilderness of Judea. The name means "marsh," which Dr. Smith thinks impossible, and really "an echo of an ancient name." Jonathan and Simon repaired the ruins of the fortified place "in the desert" (1 Macc 9:62,64). Josephus reads Bethalaga, i.e. Beth-hoglah (Ant., XIII, i, 5). Peshitta version reads Beth-Yashan (see JESHANAH), which Dr. Cheyne thinks is probably correct. Thus the origin of the name and the site of the town are merely conjectural.
S. F. Hunter
Texts: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915), from the CrossWire SWORD modules (public domain). Verse references were parsed from the works' own markup and checked against the KJV verse list.