Eve of Ascension
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Bible Dictionaries
Bethsaida
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
or ("house of fish".) A city of Galilee, W. of and close to the sea of Tiberias, in the land of Gennesareth (Mark 6:45-53; John 6:16-17; John 1:44; John 12:21). Andrew, Peter, and Philip belonged to it, Near Capernaum and Chorazin (Matthew 11:21; Luke 10:13). When Jesus fed the 5,000 on the N.E. of the lake, they entered into a boat to cross to Bethsaida (Mark 6:45), while John says" they went over the sea toward Capernaum." Being driven out of their course, Jesus came to them walking on the sea; they landed in Gennesaret and went to Capernaum; so that Bethsaida must have been near Capernaum.
In Luke 9:10-17 another Bethsaida, at the scene of feeding the 5,000, is mentioned (though the Curetonian Syriac and later Sinaitic omit it), which must have been therefore N.E. of the lake; the same as Julias, called from the emperor's daughter Julia. The miracle was wrought in a lonely "desert place," on a rising ground at the back of the town, covered with much "green grass" (Mark 6:39). In Mark 8:10-22 a Bethsaida on the E. side of the lake in Gaulonitis (now Jaulan) is alluded to; for Jesus passed by ship from Dalmanutha on the W. side "to the other side," i.e. to the E. side. Thus, Caesarea Philippi is mentioned presently after, Bethsaida being on the road to it; and the mount of the transfiguration, part of the Hermon range, above the source of the Jordan (Mark 9:2-3); the snow of Hermon suggested the image, "His raiment became white as snow."
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Fausset, Andrew R. Entry for 'Bethsaida'. Fausset's Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/fbd/b/bethsaida.html. 1949.
