the Read sea, to watch the frontier of Egypt, or if it was a fortified place, we know not, Exod. xiv. 2. pius, from his being worshipped on mount Olympus. Some will have him the same with Chemosh, whom they suppose the sun, or the Comus, BAANAH and RECHAB, the sons or Apollo Chomius, the god of drunk- of Rimmon of Beeroth, Benjamites. ards; and for whom Solomon built Being officers of the army to king an high place on mount Olivet, 1 Ishbosheth, they entered his house at Kings xi. 7; and who was carried off noon; cut off his head as he slept, by the Chaldeans, Jer. xlviii. 7: but and carried it to David, expecting we see no reason to unite these idols. some valuable reward. After repreIn the worship of this dead deity the || senting to them the horrid nature of Hebrews joined themselves, and did this treacherous murder, he ordered eat his sacrifices, and were punished their hands and feet to be cut off, and with the death of 24,000, Num. xxv. these or their bodies to be hanged Psal. cvi. 28.. over the pool at Hebron, 2 Sam. iv. David had á Netophathite hero of this name; and Solomon two noted governors; the one the son of Ahilud, David's secretary, and the other the son of Hushai, 2 Sam. xxiii. 29. 1 Kings iv. 12, 16. BAAL-PERAZIM, a place in the valley of Rephaim, I suppose about three miles south-west from Jerusalem.Here David routed the Philistines, 2 Sam. v. 20. BAAL-TAMAR, a place near Gibeah. It seems the Canaanites had here worshipped Baal, in a grove of palmtrees. Here the other tribes almost utterly destroyed the Benjamites, Judg. xx. 33. BAASHA, the son of Ahijah, not the Shilonite, was commander in chief of the forces belonging to Nadab, the son of Jeroboam the son of Nebat. In A. M. 3051, he treache BAAL-ZEBUB, the idol god of Ek-rously murdered his master and faron. This name, signifying lord of flies, doth not seem to be given him in contempt, since AHAZIAH his adorer called him by it; but either because he was painted as a fly, though others say he was figured as a king on his throne, or because he was supposed to chase off the hurtful swarms of flies; and might be the same as the god Achor at Cyrene, who was reckoned a preserver from flies. As the prince of devils is in the New Testament called by this name BEELZEBUB, one is tempted to suspect he might be the Pluto, or god of hell, of the Greeks, 2 Kings i. Matth. xii. 24. and x. 25.* BAAL-ZEPTION; whether this was an idol erected at the north point of mily, and usurped his crown. He continued in the idolatrous and other wicked courses of his predecessors on the throne. Jehu the son of Hanani, a prophet, was divinely ordered to tell him, that by the concurring, though not approving, providence of God, he had got the crown; but since he continued in the wicked ways of the family, which God had been provoked to deliver into his hand, he and his house should, by and by, be extirpated in like manner, and their unburied carcases given to the beasts to eat. Regardless of this heavenly warning, Baasha made war on Asa, and his kingdom of Judah; took Ramah, a place situated in a noted passage between their kingdoms, and As the gods of the Gentiles were de-bul, for the greater ignominy of idolaters: vils, Psal. cvi. 37. 1 Cor. x. 20. it was na- for Zebul (which seems to be a Syriac tural to give the prince of them, that name word, being corrupted from the Hebrew which had, long amongst idolaters, been word gallal,) signifies dung. The heathen held in the greatest veneration. Zeiub is, idols are Giloulim, dunghill deities. in the New Testament, changed into. Ze Drussius. pious subjects might transport themselves out of his dominions to enjoy the pure worship of God. An invasion of Benhadad and his Syrian troops from the north, diverted him from accomplishing his project; they smote Ijon, Dan, Abel-beth, Maachah, Cinneroth, and all the land of Naphtali. After some years war with Asa, Baasha died a natural death, and was buried in Tirzah his capital, and succeeded by Elah his son, 1 Kings xv. and xvi. began to fortify it, that none of his || they prepared their materials and 22 years they carried on their building. Their haughty and rebellious attempt displeased the Lord; wherefore he, by a miracle, confounded their language, that but few of them could understand one another. This effectually stopped the building, procured it the name of BABEL, or CONFUSION; and obliged the offspring of Noah to disperse themselves, and replenish the world. It is pretended, that the family of Shem did not concur in erecting this structure; but of this we have no certain evidence. What became of this tower we cannot determine; about 1700 years after its. erection, Herodotus saw a structure at Babylon, consisting of 8 towers, raised one above another, and each 75 feet high; above the highest of which was built the temple of Belus, the way to which winded about on the outside, and was so broad that carts could have passed each other; but whether this was that mentioned by Moses, or one built on its foundation, we know not. Modern travellers, who pretend to have seen the ruins of this structure, differ so wide||ly among themselves, with respect to the situation and description thereof, that we can hardly say that any of them have seen the genuine ruins of the famed tower." BABE, a young infant, Luke i. 41. Weak and insignificant persons are called babes, because of their ignorance, folly, frowardness, rashness, stupidity, Matth. xi. 25. Isa. iii. 4. Rom. ii. 20. In commendation, believers are called babes, because they live on the pure milk of gospel truth; and for their innocence, meekness, and humble sincerity in faith, love, profession, obedience, 1 Pet. ii. 2.— In dispraise, some saints are called babes, because of their weakness in spiritual knowledge, power, and experience; and for their stupidity, unteachableness, and readiness to be seduced by Satan, 1 Cor. iii. 1. Heb. v. 13. BABEL. 1. A famous tower. About the time of Peleg's birth, in A. M. 1758, and 102 years after the flood, or perhaps later, the whole race of mankind, having gradually removed to the south-west of Ararat, came to the plain of Shinar. Here, being all of one language and religion, they, perhaps at Nimrod's motion, agreed to erect a tower of prodigious extent and height. Their design was not to secure themselves against a second deluge; otherwise they had built their tower on a high mountain, not in a low valley; but to get themselves a famous character, and to prevent their dispersion to replenish the earth. No quarries they knew of at hand, in that rich soil; they therefore burnt bricks for stone, and SLIME had they for mortar. Three years, it is said, 2. BABEL, OF BABYLON, the capital of Chaldea, was one of the most splendid cities that ever existed. Its form was an exact square built in a large plain; its circumference 480 furlongs or 60 miles, 15 on each side. The walls were in thickness 87 feet, in height 350; on which were built 316 towers, or, according to others, 250, three between each gate, and seven at each corner; at least where the adjacent morass reached not almost to the wall. These walls and towers were constructed of large bricks cemented with bitumen, a glutinous slime, which in that country issues out of the earth, and in a short time grows harder than the very bricks or stones which it cements. two Without moisten the fields that lay below the the wall the city was surrounded by a ditch, filled with water, and lined with bricks on both sides. This behoved to be extremely deep and large, as the whole earth of which the bricks for building the walls were formed, was dug out of it. The gates were an hundred in all, 25 on each side, and all of them of solid brass. From these run 25 streets, crossing one another at right angles, each 150 feet wide, and 15 miles in length. A row of houses faced the wall on every side, with a street of 200 feet between them and it. Thus the whole city was divided into 676 squares, each whereof was four furlongs and an half on every side. All around these squares stood the houses fronting the streets, and the empty space within served for gardens, and other necessary purposes; but it doth not appear that all these squares were ever wholly built and inhabited; though, from Curtius' account of it, when Alexander was there, we cannot safely infer what part might be inhabited in its meridian lustre, before Cyrus took it. A branch, if not the whole current of the Euphrates, running through the city from north to south, divided it into two parts. On each side of the river was a key and high wall of the same thickness with that of the city. In this, over against every street, were brazen gates, and from them a descent by steps to the river. A magnificent bridge, of a furlong or more in length and 30 feet wide, joined the two parts of the city in the middle. To lay its foundation and raise banks, they turned off the river westward into a prodigious lake which they had dug, of about 52 miles square, and 35, or, according to Megasthenes, 75 feet deep. To prevent the Euphrates from endamaging the city, when the melting of the Armenian snows swelled it into an yearly overflow of its banks, part of the current was then diverted into this lake, and afterward, on proper occasions, drawn forth to But nothing was more stupendous than the hanging gardens. To gratify his queen Amyite, with a resemblance of her native mountains of Media, or to have a commanding prospect of the whole city, Nebuchadnezzar built them in his new palace. They contained a square of 400 feet on each side, and consisted of terraces, one above another, carried up to the height of the walls of the city; the ascent from terrace to terrace being by steps ten feet wide. The whole pile consisted of substantial arches upon ar、 ches, and was strengthened with a surrounding wall of twenty-two feet thick. The floors on each terrace |