House of mercy, the name of a pool or fountain near the temple in Jerusalem, with an open building over or near it, for the accommodation of the sick who came to try the healing efficacy of the water, Joh 5:2. Tradition locates this pool in what is now a large dry reservoir, along the outside of he north wall of the temple area. Robinson, however, shows the probability that this is but a portion of the trench, which separated Mount Moriah from the adjacent hill on the north. He suggests that the true Bethesda may perhaps be "The Fountain of the Virgin," so called, in the lower part of the valley of Jehoshaphat, eight hundred and fifty feet south of the temple area. This pool is of great antiquity, and seems to be fed from ancient reservoirs under the temple. Two flights of steps, sixteen and thirteen in number, with a platform of twelve feet between them, lead down to the pool; this is fifteen feet long, and five or six feet wide. Its waters rise and fall at irregular intervals, and flow down by a subterraneous channel to the pool of Siloam. It is supposed to be the "king's pool" of Ne 2:14. Bethesda, even if known and accessible to us, has lost its healing power; but the fountain Christ has opened for sin, guilt, and death, is nigh to all and of never failing virtue.

house of mercy, a reservoir (Gr. kolumbethra, "a swimming bath") with five porches, close to the sheep-gate or market (Ne 3:1; Joh 5:2). Eusebius the historian (A.D. 330) calls it "the sheep-pool." It is also called "Bethsaida" and "Beth-zatha" (Joh 5:2, R.V. marg.). Under these "porches" or colonnades were usually a large number of infirm people waiting for the "troubling of the water." It is usually identified with the modern so-called Fountain of the Virgin, in the valley of the Kidron, and not far from the Pool of Siloam (q.v.); and also with the Birket Israel, a pool near the mouth of the valley which runs into the Kidron south of "St. Stephen's Gate." Others again identify it with the twin pools called the "Souterrains," under the convent of the Sisters of Zion, situated in what must have been the rock-hewn ditch between Bezetha and the fortress of Antonia. But quite recently Schick has discovered a large tank, as sketched here, situated about 100 feet north-west of St. Anne's Church, which is, as he contends, very probably the Pool of Bethesda. No certainty as to its identification, however, has as yet been arrived at. (See Fountain; Gihon.)

Illustration: Pool of Bethesda

("house of mercy".) A water reservoir, or swimming pool (as Joh 5:2, kolumbeethra, means), with five porches, or colonnades, close to the sheep gate (Ne 3:1) in Jerusalem. The porches accommodated those waiting for the troubling of the waters. Joh 5:4, as to the angel troubling the water, is omitted in the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus manuscripts, but is found in the Alexandrinus, and Joh 5:7 favors it. The angels, in a way unknown to us, doubtless act as God's ministers in the world of nature. Many curative agencies are directed by them (Ps 104:4). God maketh His angelic messengers the directing powers, acting by the winds and flaming lightning.

The angelic actings, limited and fitful, attested at that time that God was visiting His people, throwing into the brighter prominence at the same time the actings of the divine Son (compare Hebrew 1), who healed not merely one exceptionally but all who came to Him, whatever might be their disease, and instantaneously. Now Birket Israil, within the walls, close by Stephen's gate, under the N.E. wall of the Haram area. Eusebius, in the 3rd century, describes it as consisting of two pools and named Bezatha, answering to the N.E. suburb Bezetha in the gospel times. Robinson suggested that "the pool of the Virgin" may answer to "the pool of Bethesda," "the king's pool" in Nehemiah. Ganneau identifies with the church of Anne, mother of Mary, Beit Hanna, really actually Bethesda, "house of grace."

A reservoir at Jerusalem, remarkable (according to a gloss inserted in the text in some authoritative MSS) for a periodic disturbance of the water which was supposed to give it healing properties. Here were five porches. It was 'by the sheep-gate.' An impotent man, one of the many who waited for the troubling of the water, was here healed by Christ (Joh 5:2). The only body of water at Jerusalem that presents any analogous phenomenon is the intermittent spring known as the Virgin's Fountain, in the Kidron valley, but it is not near the Sheep-gate. There is little that can be said in favour of any other of the numerous identifications that have been proposed for this pool.

R. A. S. Macalister.

Bethes'da

Pool at Jerusalem, near the sheep market or gate, into which an angel occasionally descended and troubled the water. The person who first stepped in after this, was cured of whatever disease he had. Joh 5:2. This was a marvellous witness of God's mercy still left to Israel, though it met the need of those only who had sufficient strength to avail themselves of it, and did not reach the most weakly and destitute, whose condition truly sets forth the state of man spiritually. In contrast to the law, which was 'weak through the flesh,' the Son of God was there with life and liberty in His gift. The name signifies 'house of mercy:' cf. Ex 15:26, "I am Jehovah that healeth thee."

The large pool, called 'Birket Israil,' near St. Stephen's Gate is the traditional Pool of Bethesda, but its identity is refused by most. There are other tanks in the city, and some prefer the 'fountain of the Virgin' outside of the city; but there is no certainty that any one of them is the pool mentioned in scripture.

Bethes'da

(house of mercy, or the flowing water), the Hebrew name of a reservoir or tank, with five "porches," close upon the sheep-gate or "market" in Jerusalem.

Joh 5:2

The largest reservoir - Birket Israil - 360 feet long, 120 feet wide and 80 feet deep, within the walls of the city, close by St. Stephen's Gate, and under the northeast wall of the Haram area, is generally considered to be the modern representative of Bethesda. Robinson, however, suggests that the ancient Bethesda is identical with what is now called the Pool of the Virgin, an intermittent pool, south of Birket Israil and north of the pool of Siloam.

BETHESDA. This word signifies the house of mercy, and was the name of a pool, or public bath, at Jerusalem, which had five porticos, piazzas, or covered walks around it. This bath was called Bethesda, because, as some observe, the erecting of baths was an act of great kindness to the common people, whose infirmities in hot countries required frequent bathing; but the generality of expositors think it had this name rather from the great goodness of God manifested to his people, in bestowing healing virtues upon its waters. The account of the evangelist is, "Now there was at Jerusalem, by the sheep market, a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue, Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a 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: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had," Joh 5:2-4. The genuineness of the fourth verse has been disputed, because it is wanting in some ancient MSS, and is written in the margin of another as a scholion; but even were the spuriousness of this verse allowed, for which, however, the evidence is by no means satisfactory, the supernatural character of the account, as it is indicated by the other parts of the narrative, remains unaffected. The agitation of the water: its suddenly healing virtue as to all diseases; and the limitation to the first that should go in, are all miraculous circumstances. Commentators have however resorted to various hypotheses to account for the whole without divine agency. Dr. Hammond says, "The sacrifices were exceedingly numerous at the passover, ??????????, (once a year, Chrysostom,) when the pool being warm from the immediate washing of the blood and entrails, and thus adapted to the cure of the blind, the withered, the lame, and perhaps the paralytic, was yet farther troubled, and the congelations and grosser parts stirred up by an officer or messenger, ???????, to give it the full effect." To this hypothesis Whitby acutely replies,

1. How could this natural virtue be adapted to, and cure, all kinds of diseases?

2. How could the virtue only extend to the cure of one man, several probably entering at the same instant?

3. How unlikely is it, if natural, to take place only at one certain time, at the passover? for there was a multitude of sacrifices slain at other of the feasts.

4. Lastly, and decisively, Lightfoot shows that there was a laver in the temple for washing the entrails; therefore they were not washed in this pool at all.

Others, however, suppose that the blood of the victims was conveyed from the temple to this pool by pipes; and Kuinoel thinks that it cannot be denied that the blood of animals recently slaughtered may impart a medicinal property to water; and he refers to Richter's "Dissertat, de Balneo Animali," and Michaelis in loc. But he admits that it cannot be proved whether the pool was situated out of the city at the sheep gate, or in the city, and in the vicinity of the temple; nor that the blood of the victims was ever conveyed thither by canals. Kuinoel justly observes, that though in Josephus no mention is made of the baths here described, yet this silence ought not to induce us to question the truth of this transaction; since the historian omits to record many other circumstances which cannot be doubted; as, for instance, the census of Augustus, and the murder of the infants. This critic also supposes that St. John only acts the part of an historian, and gives the account as it was current among the Jews, without vouching for its truth, or interposing his own judgment. Mede follows in the track of absurdly attempting to account for the phenomenon on natural principles: