CHAPTER III. OF THE GATES OF JERUSALEM AND OF THE TEMPLE. JERUSALEM, saith Godwin, had nine gates; or rather, according to the authors of the Universal History, ten; five from west to east-by-south, and five from west to east-bynorth. By south. 1. Dung-gate. 2. Fountain-gate. 3. Water-gate. 4. Horse-gate. 5. Prison-gate, or miphkadh. By north. 2. Gate of Ephraim. 3. Old-gate. 4. Fish-gate. 5. Sheep-gate. This account is very little, if any thing, different from the plan of the city prefixed to the Polyglot. But Hottinger, in his notes on Godwin,* hath given a very different description of the situation of these gates, which he endeavours to trace by the account of the order in which they were erected after the captivity, in the book of Nehemiah; where the sheep-gate is mentioned first, which he places on the west side of the city, and toward the south; principally for these two reasons; because he supposes it was the same with the gate which Josephus calls un ɛoonvwv, that is, not the gate of the Essenes, it being improbable that a gate of the city, which must of course be common to all sorts of persons, should be called by the name of a particular sect; but the word Josephus uses is, he imagines, only the Hebrew word hatsan, ovis, with a Greek termination; and if so, wʊλn εσσnvwv, which Josephus saith was on the west side of the city, literally signifies the sheep-gate. Another reason for his assigning it this situation is, that the fish-gate, which is next mentioned in Nehemiah, Thomæ Godwini Moses et Aaron, &c. illustrati, emendati et præcipuis thematibus aucti, studio Joh. Henr. Hottingeri, p. 392, et seq. 2d edit. Francof. ad Mænum, 1716. is placed by most on the west, with great probability, saith Hottinger, because large quantities of fish were brought into the city from that quarter; and because this situation seems to be assigned it in the following passage of the Second Book of Chronicles: "Now Manasseh built a wall without the city of David, on the west side of Gihon, in the valley, even to the entering in at the fish-gate." Thus, beginning at the southwest, he proceeds to the west, and so by the north, quite round the city; assigning the several gates their situation, according to the order in which they are mentioned in the sacred history. Spanheim places the sheep-gate on the east,* Lightfoot on the south; and in this, and several other respects, the topography of Jerusalem is a matter of great uncertainty. Godwin informs us, that near the sheep-gate was situated the pool of Bethesda ; επι τη προβατική, saith the evangelist John, where our translators take the word ayopa to be understood, and accordingly have rendered it "by the sheep-market;" others, with Godwin, supply the noun ruλn, and render it "the sheep-gate;" which is the more probable sense, referring to the gate mentioned under this name by Nehemiah. And if this gate was situated near the temple, as is most commonly supposed, perhaps it was so called because the sheep and other cattle for sacrifice were usually drove in through it. This pool of Bethesda demands our particular attention, on account of the miraculous cures which are ascribed to it in the Gospel of St. John, chap. v. 2-4. It is there called Koλvußn≈pa; a word, which, though it be rendered piscina by Beza and the Vulgate, yet does not properly signify a fishpond, but rather a bath or pool for swimming, from коλvμẞaw, nato. The Syriac therefore renders it, according to the Polyglot translation, locus baptisteri. Its proper name in the Hebrew or Syriac language was Bethesda; which Bochart,+ Gomarus, and some others, derive from a beth, domus vel Spanheim. Hierosol. Veteris Topograph. Descrip. p. 50, Oper. Geograph., &c. Lugd. Bat. 1701. + Lightfoot's Harmony on John v. 2. ↑ Bochart. Geograph. lib. i. cap. xxxiv., Oper. tom. i. p. 614, edit. Lugd. Bat 1707. locus, and TN ashadh, effudit. So that, according to this etymology, Bηdeoda est locus effusionis; that is, as they conceive, either a reservoir for rain water, or a kind of cesspool, that received the waste water which run from the temple. Wagenseil* produces a passage from the Talmud, concerning a small stream issuing from the sanctuary, and proceeding to the gate of the city of David, by which time it was become so considerable, that persons in particular cases, especially women, used to bathe in it. And as he supposes the water daily used in the temple service, in washing the hands and feet of the priests, the victims, vessels, &c., was somewhere or other collected into a reservoir; if that was called the pool of Bethesda, he professes he should incline to explain the word by effusionis domus. But, on the whole, he declares himself uncertain. Others, with greater probability, derive the word from beth, domus, and the Syriac n chesdo, gratia vel misericordia; and so the name signifies the house or place of mercy, because of the miraculous healing virtue with which God mercifully endowed the water of that pool; and this is indeed the most extraordinary thing to be observed concerning it. The evangelist says, that" an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water; whosoever then, first after the troubling the water, stepped in, was made whole of whatever disease he had ;" and, therefore, there lay at this pool, in the five porticos that surrounded it (of which we have already taken some notice), "a multitude of impotent folk, as blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water." Now it is disputed, whether the virtue of these waters, and the cures performed by them, were miraculous or natural. Dr. Hammond contends for the latter, and imagines that the healing virtue of this bath was owing to the warm entrails of the victims being washed in it: that the angel, who is said to come and trouble the water, was only a messenger sent by the high-priest to stir up the bath, in order to mix the congealed blood, and other grosser particles that were sunk to the bottom, with the water, that so they might infuse their virtue into it more strongly. By кara kaipov, which we render “at a certain season," he understands at a set time, that is, at * Sotah, cap. i. sect. xlvii. annot. iv. p. 308. one of the great feasts, when a vast multitude of sacrifices were killed and offered, and by that means the waters of this pool were impregnated with more healing virtue than they would have at other times. But this sense of the passage, in which Dr. Hammond thinks himself countenanced by the authority of Theophylact,* appears improbable from almost all the circumstances of the story. As, 1st. From the healing virtue of this water extending to the cure of all manner of diseases. For it is said, "he that stepped in was made whole of whatever disease he had." Dr. Hammond indeed supposes, that "whatever disease he had," refers only to the three sorts of diseased persons before mentioned, namely, "the blind, lame, and withered." But that will not remove the objection, since no such healing virtue could ever be communicated to any other water by the same means, by washing the warm entrails of beasts in it, so as to render it effectual for the cure of all these diseases, or indeed of any one of them. 2dly. It is highly improbable, that the troubling or stirring up the water should increase its healing virtue; but rather, the stirring up the blood and fæces, that were sunk to the bottom, must make the bath so foul and fetid, that it would be more likely to poison than cure. An attentive reader of Theophylact's Commentary in loc. will easily perceive, that Dr. Hammond hath mistaken his meaning; for Theophylact never intended to assert that these miraculous cures were owing to the washing the entrails of the beasts slain for sacrifice in the waters of this pool, which thereby acquired, in a natural way, a sanative virtue. All he saith is, that by this washing the water was sanctified, and become thereby the more fit (for what? for healing diseases by any natural quality hereby imparted to it? no; but) for receiving dvvajiv Georɛpav, a divine power, by the operation of the angel, who came to it, not as to common water, but as to chosen water, ύδατι ὡς εκλεκτω, and wrought the miracle, θαυματουρ yuv. He says expressly, that the water did not heal by any virtue in itself, otherwise these cures would have been constant and perpetual; but solely through the energy, evɛpyta, of the angel, who imparted to it its healing virtue. + See also an attempt to account for the virtue of these waters in a similar manner, from natural causes, in a tract published by Bartholine, a learned foreign physician, entitled, Paralytici Novi Testamenti medico et philologico Commentario illustrati; and republished in Crenius's Fasciculus Quintus, vid. p. 313-333, and p. 390-411. 3dly. No good reason can be given, on this supposition, why these medicinal waters should not have cured many persons as well as one only, the first that stepped in. The Doctor is indeed aware of this objection, and endeavours to evade it by supposing the bath might be so small, that it would hold but one at a time, and by the time one was cured, the healing particles were subsided, and therefore it could not heal another. But then, why could it not be stirred up a second time, and a third, and as many as there were persons to be cured? However, 4thly. The whole foundation of this supposition appears to be a mistake; namely, that the entrails of the victims were washed in this pool out of the temple; for Dr. Lightfoot shows that it was done in the temple, in the washing-room, as it was called, appointed for that purpose.* And, indeed, if this pool was near the sheep-gate, and if we suppose Hottinger's, or even Lightfoot's account of the situation of that gate to be true, it was then at too great a distance from the temple to be used as a washing-place for the entrails of the beasts slain for sacrifice. Upon the whole, therefore, there is reason to conclude, that the healing virtue of this pool was miraculous; that the angel was a heavenly angel; and that the design and use of his coming was either to work the miracle, as God's instrument, by the use of the water; or, at least, by troubling the water, and giving it some unusual motion, to give notice to those who were waiting for a cure, when they might seek it. It is farther inquired, when this miraculous pool first received its healing virtue? I take the most probable opinion to be, that it was about the time of, or not long before, our Saviour's coming; and very likely the chief intent of the miracle might be to give notice, by an illustrious type, of the speedy accomplishment of Zechariah's prophecy: "In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness;" chap. xiii. 1. Thus the fountain of the blood of Christ to take away all sin, was afresh typified by the miraculous * See Dr. Lightfoot's Description of the Temple, chap. xxxi.; and he supposes (Hor. Heb. John v. 2), that the pool of Bethesda was a bath, кoλvμẞŋ0pɑ, in which those who were unclean purified themselves. |