To be ashamed; to be confounded with shame.
Word of the Day: Catachrestical
Bashan
Encyclopedia Britannica
BASHAN, a country lying on the east side of the Jordan valley, towards its northern extremity, often mentioned in Jewish history The Hebrew form of the name is or represented in Greek by Bασ∙αv and Baσaιdτιs (LXX. and Epiphanius), or more frequently by Bαταvαiα (Josephus, Ptolemy, Eusebius, Ac.). The name is understood to be derived from a root signifying fertile, or, according to some, basaltic; and in some of the ancient versions of the Old Testament it is occasionally rendered by a word indicating fertility; thus, in Ps. xxii. 13, the LXX. gives for Bashan πiov∈ς, Aquila gives λιπαροί, Symmachus, σιτιστοί. When we first hear of this region in the days of Abraham it is occupied by the Rephaim, whose chief city is Ashteroth Karnaim (Gen. xiv. 5). These Rephaim, with kindred tribes spread over the trans-Jordanie region, were in great part subdued and supplanted by the children of Lot (Deut. ii. 10. 11, 19-21), who in their turn were invaded and displaced by the Amorites (Num. xx. 26-30). By this people, at the time of the Exodus, the whole region north of the Arnon was occupied; and they formed two kingdoms, the more northerly embracing all Bashan and a part of Gilead (Deut. iii. 8, 13; Josh. xii. 4, 5). Og, who is described as a man of gigantic stature, belonging to the race of the Rephaim, was, at the time referred to, the ruler of this kingdom; and having come out against the Israelities, he was overthrown in battle at Edrei, one of his own cities. Subsequently, his country became the allotment of thehalf tribe of Slanasseh (Josh, xiii. 29-31)....
The information given in connection with the Israelitish conquest enables us to define with considerable exactness the limits of the ancient Bashan. Towards the west it included Golan (Deut. iv. 43; Josh. xx. 8, xxi. 27), a name which to the present day has continued attached to the district, the Jaulân, lying on the east of the Jordan, in its upper course; while towards the east, it reached to Salchah (Deut, iii 10, Ac.), the modern Salkhat, situated on the south-eastern slope of the Haurân mountains. On the south it is represented as immediately adjoining the country of Gilead, whose northern boundary is known to have been the river Jarmuk, and on the north, it is expressly said to have extended to Mount Hermon (Deut, iy. 48, xxxiii. 22; Josh. xii. 5, xiii. 11, 12). Within the limits thus indicated, may be pointed out the towns and other localities mentioned as belonging to Bashan. Ashtaroth, Og’s metropolis, doubtless the Ashteroth Karnaim of Gen. xiv. 5, called also Beeshterah (cf. Josh. xxi. 27, and 1 Chron. vi. 71), has been sought in various places, especially in Tel Ashtereh (see Ne∖vbold, Jour. Geog. Sac., vol. xvi.), but has now, with much probability, been identified (by Wetzstein, Reisebericht über Haurân, p. 110) with the well-known Busrâh, the Bostra of the Latins, whose position admirably adapts it for a capital city, and whose ruins attest its ancient splendour. Edrei, already mentioned, is to be identified with Derât, on the west of Busrâh (Wetzstein, op. cit., p. 47, 77). The position of Golan and Salchah has been indicated, while Kenath (Num. xxxii. 42) is recovered in the modern Kunawât (Porter, Five Years in Damascus, vol. ii. p. 111). The region of Argob will be referred to immediately.
Within the same limits lie the provinces included by Josephus in the Bashan of the Israelites (cf. Ant. Jud., iv. 5, 3; ix. 8, 1; Bell. Jud., ii. 6, 3; iii. 3, 5), and recognized generally by the Greek and Roman writers. They are four—Gaulonitis, Trachonitis, Auranitis, and Batanaea, answering as nearly as possible to the natural divisions of the country. The first, Gaulonitis, deriving its name from the ancient Golan, and coincident more or less exactly with the modern Jaulân already mentioned, forms the western division, extending from the Jordan lakes to the Haj road. It is spoken of as divided into two sections, the territory of Gamala, or Gamalitis, and the territory of Sogana (Bell. Jud., iv. 1, 1). It forms a fertile plateau, diversified on its northern half by a range of low, richly-wooded hills, the Tell el Faras, which descends from Mount Hermon. The second, Trachonitis (mentioned Luke iii. 1), lay east of the preceding, and adjoined the territory of Damascus, as well as Auranitis and Batanaea (Ant. Jud., i. 6, 4; xv. 10,1). This leads us to the remarkable tract, now called the Lejâh, forming one of the two Trachônes, or rocky volcanic districts, lying south and east of Damascus, mentioned by Strabo (Geog. xvi. p. 520). Inscriptions, moreover, have been found in the Lejâh (see Burckhardt, Travels in Syria, p. 117), which attest that the district was called Trachδn. In this province we may with confidence recognize “the region of Argob,” so often mentioned in the Old Testament, as included in the country of Bashan (Deut. iii. 4, 13, 14; 1 Kings iv. 13). The arguments for this identification are,—1st, The etymology of the word Argob (see Gesenius and Fürst, sub voce) ; 2d, the descriptive term usually conjoined with the name, chebel Argob, indicating a tract clearly defined and measured off, and applied elsewhere to the line of the sea coast, which the boundary of the Lejâh resembles (cf. Porter, op. cit., vol. ii. p. 241); 3d, by the Targumists the name Argob is rendered Trachυna (Lightfoot, Chorographical Notes, § 4). The third province, Auranitis, presents a name known both in ancient and in modern times. In Ezekiel (xlvii. 16, 18) mention is made of Haurân (in the LXX. AυpαvΓτιs), as a locality on the border of the land of Israel. The name is found also on the inscriptions of Assyria, under the form Havranu (Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und das A. T., p. 237), and it is common in Arabian writers. In regard to its modern use Porter says (Jour. Sac. Lit., July 1854, p. 303), “The name Haurân is at present applied by those at a distance to the whole country east of Jaulân and Jeidûr. By the people of that country, however, it is used in a much more restricted sense, and is given only to the fertile plain on the south of the Lejâh, with the narrow strip on the west. The whole of this district is perfectly flat, with little conical hills at intervals. The soil is the most fertile in Syria, admirably adapted to the production of wheat.” (Of Burckhardt, op. cit., p. 285). The fourth district is Batanaea, a name obviously derived from, and often used by Josephus and others co-extensively with, the old name Bashan. It has, however, a special application to the district lying on the east of the Lejâh and of the Haurân plain, including the central masses of the Jebel ed-Druz or Haurân mountain (apparently the Alsadamus or Alsalamus mons of Ptolemy, and, perhaps, the Salmon of Ps. lxviii. 14; see Reland, Paloestina, p. 458; Wetzstein, op. cit., p. 90) and its eastern slopes. To this portion of the kingdom of Bashan, the name Ard-el-Bathanyeh is still applied by the natives. Says Porter (op. cit., p. 305), “One of the most intelligent Druzes I met with in my whole journey, told me the whole mountains were comprehended in the Ard-el-Bathanyeh.”
The history of Bashan, after its conquest by the Israelites, merges into the general history of that nation, and of Western Asia. It is last mentioned in the Old Testament, in 2 King8 x. 33, in connection with the attacks made by Hazael, the king of Damascus, upon the territory of Israel. Throughout the Psalms and the Prophets, Bashan is celebrated for its fertility and luxuriance, its rich pastures, its strong bulls, its fatlings “of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bullocks;” its oaks and its firs (Ps. xxii.
12; Amos iv. 1; Isa. ii. 13; Jer. 1. 19; Ezek. xxxix. 18, xxvii. 6); and its extraordinary fertility is attested by the density of its population (Deut. iii. 4, 5, 14)—a density proved by the unparalleled abundance with which ruined towns and cities are now strewn over the whole country. In the disturbed period which followed the breaking up of the empire of Alexander, its possession was an object of continual contest. “Idumaean princes, Nabathaean kings, Arab chiefs, ruled in their turn.” The central portion of the country, Trachonitis, early became a refuge for outlaws and haunt of robbers, a character for which it is singularly fitted by nature, and which it retains to the .present day. (C r ∕. Josephus, Jlni. Jud., xv. 1; xvi. 9, 2; Strabo, Geog., xvi. p. 520; Gul. Tyr., Hist., xv. 10.) In Arabian tradition Bashan is regarded as the country of the patriarch Job (see Abulfeda, Hist. Anteislamica, p. 27, 208, and esp. Wetzstein, in Delitzsch, Das Buch Job, p. 507, /;); and it holds a prominent place in authentic Arabian history as the seat of the dynasty of the Ghassanides (see Caussin de Perceval, L ’ Histoire des Arabes, vol. ii. 202, f. ; Wetzstein, op. cit., 121,∕.). At the present day the Haurân is one of the seats of that singular people, the Druzes (see Druzes).
Both in its natural and its archaeological aspects, the country of Bashan is full of interest. The Jebel ed-Druz, which rises to nearly 6000 feet in height, is a congeries of extinct volcanoes, and the products of eruption from this source, spread over the adjoining plains, have given to the soil that character of fertility for which it has been in all ages remarkable. {Cf. Lyell, Principles of Geology, 9th ed., p. 394.) This volcanic soil, we are told, yields on the average, in some places, eighty returns of wheat, and a hundred of barley (Wetzstein, op. cit., p. 30.) The mountains themselves’ are richly clothed, at least on their western side, with forests of various kinds of trees, among which the evergreen oak is especially abundant. The Lejâh is one of the most remarkable regions on the earth’s surface. “It is,” says one of the latest observers (Burton, Unexplored Syria, vol. i. p. 164), “in fact a lava bed; a stone torrent poured out . . . over the ruddy yellow clay and the limestone floor of the Haurân valley, high raised by the ruins of repeated eruptions, broken up by the action of fumaroles or blow holes, and cracked and crevassed when cooling by earthquakes, and by the weathering of ages.” (See also Burckhardt, op. cit., p. 112; Porter’s Five Years in Damascus, vol. ii. p. 241; Wetzstein, op. cit., p. 25.)
In regard to the architectural monuments of the Haurân, the “striking feature,” says Count de Vogué {Recovery of Jerusalem, p. 423), “is the exclusive use of stone. The country produces no wood, and the only rock which can be obtained is a basalt, very hard and very difficult to work.” The walls are formed of large blocks, carefully dressed, and laid together without cement, and often let into one another with a kind of dovetail. Roofs, doors, stairs, and windows, are all of stone. This, of course, imparts to the buildings great massiveness of appearance and great solidity, and in multitudes of cases the houses, though “without inhabitant,” are as perfect as when first reared. Since buildings so strong are apparently capable of enduring for any length of time, and since some of these are known, from the inscriptions upon them, to date from before the commencement of the Christian era, it is not unnatural to regard them as, in fact, the work of the earliest known inhabitants of the land, the Amorites or the Rephaim. (See Ritter, Paläst. und Syrien, ii. 964 , Porter, Giant Cities, p. 79,∕.). This, however, is contested, on the ground that the extant inscriptions and the architectural style point to a much later date, and must be regarded as at least unproved. (See Wetzstein, op. cit., p. 103; Fergusson, in Athenaeum, July 1870, p. 148; Burton, op. cit., vol. i. p. 192.) Many inscriptions have been found in this region,—most of them composed in Greek, a considerable number in two forms of Shemitic writing (the Palmyrenian or Aramaean, and the Sinaitic or Nabathaean), and some in an unknown character, resembling the Himyaritic. Arabic inscriptions are numerous on buildings of more recent date. The oldest recognizable Greek record bears the name of Herod the Great; and the Nabathaean kings, of the dynasty of Aretas, who reigned from about 100 b.c. at Bozrah have also left memorials.
To the works on this region above referred to the following may be added:—Seetzen, Reisen durch Syrien ; Buckingham, Travels among the Arab Tribes; Graham, Jour. Geog. Soc., vol. xxviii.; De Vogué, Syrie Centrale; Waddington, Inscriptions Grecques de la Syrie; Freshfield, Travels in the Central Caucasus and Bashan.
9th ed. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 3, p. 410 — signed W. TU.
[2,189 words — estimated reading time: 13 minutes]
[2,189 words — estimated reading time: 13 minutes]
Bashan
Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary
or BASAN, one of the most fertile cantons of Canaan, which was bounded on the west by the river Jordan, on the east by the mountains of Gilead, on the south by the brook of Jabbok, and on the north by the land of Geshur. The whole kingdom took its name from the hill of Bashan, which is situated in the middle of it, and by the Greeks is called Batanæa. It had no less than sixty walled towns in it, beside villages. It afforded an excellent breed of cattle, and stately oaks, and was, in short, a plentiful and populous country. Og, king of the Amorites, possessed this country when Moses made the conquest thereof. In the division of the Holy Land, it was assigned to the half tribe of Manasseh. Of the present state of this portion of the ancient possessions of the Israelites, Mr. Buckingham, in his Travels, gives the following account: “We ascended the steep on the north side of the Zerkah, or Jabbok; and, on reaching the summit, came again on a beautiful plain, of an elevated level, and still covered with a very rich soil. We had now quitted the land of Sihon, king of the Amorites, and entered into that of Og, the king of Bashan, both of them well known to all the readers of the early Scriptures. We had quitted too, the districts apportioned to the tribes of Reuben and of Gad, and entered that part which was allotted to the half tribe of Manasseh, beyond Jordan eastward, leaving the land of the children of Ammon on our right, or to the east of the Jabbok, which, according to the authority before quoted, divided Ammon, or Philadelphia, from Gerasa. The mountains here are called the land of Gilead in the Scriptures, and in Josephus; and, according to the Roman division, this was the country of the Decapolis, so often spoken of in the New Testament, or the province of ...Gaulonitis, from the city of Gaulon, its early capital. We continued our way over this elevated tract, continuing to behold, with surprise and admiration, a beautiful country on all sides of us: its plains covered with a fertile soil, its hills clothed with forests; at every new turn presenting the most magnificent landscapes that could be imagined. Among the trees, the oak was frequently seen; and we know that this territory produced them of old. In enumerating the sources from which the supplies of Tyre were drawn in the time of her great wealth and naval splendour, the Prophet says, ‘Of the oaks of Bashan have they made thine oars,’ Ezek. xxvii, 6. Some learned commentators indeed, believing that no oaks grew in these supposed desert regions, have translated the word by ‘alders,’ to prevent the appearance of inaccuracy in the inspired writer. The expression of ‘the fat bulls of Bashan,’ which occurs more than once in the Scriptures, seemed to us equally inconsistent, as applied to the beasts of a country generally thought to be a desert, in common with the whole tract which is laid down in our modern maps as such between the Jordan and the Euphrates; but we could now fully comprehend, not only that the bulls of this luxuriant country might be proverbially fat, but that its possessors, too, might be a race renowned for strength and comeliness of person. The general face of this region improved as we advanced farther in it; and every new direction of our path opened upon us views which surprised and charmed us by their grandeur and their beauty. Lofty mountains gave an outline of the most magnificent character; flowing beds of secondary hills softened the romantic wildness of the picture; gentle slopes, clothed with wood, gave a rich variety of tints, hardly to be imitated by the pencil; deep valleys, filled with murmuring streams and verdant meadows, offered all the luxuriance of cultivation; and herds and flocks gave life and animation to scenes as grand, as beautiful, and as highly picturesque as the genius or taste of a Claude could either invent or desire.”
Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary
[684 words — estimated reading time: 4 minutes]
[684 words — estimated reading time: 4 minutes]
1. A title of honor in the Turkish dominions; appropriately, the title of the prime vizer, but given to viceroys or governors of provinces, and to generals and other men of distinction. The Turkish bashaws exercise an oppressive authority in their provinces. Hence,
2. A proud, tyrannical, overbearing man.
1. Properly, having a downcast look; hence very modest.
2. Modest to excess; sheepish.
3. Exciting shame.
4. 50
The quality of being bashful.
A soldier belonging to the irregular troops of the Turkish army.
Bashkirs
Encyclopedia Britannica
BASHKIRS, a people who inhabit the Russian governments of Orenburg, Perm, and Samar, and parts of Viatka, especially on the slopes and confines of the Ural, and in the neighbouring plains. The Bashkirs are a Tatarized Finnish race, and are called Eestyak by the Kirghiz, in allusion to their origin from a mixture of Ostyaks and Tatars. The name Bashkir or Bash-kûrt appears for the first time in the beginning of the 10th century in the writings of Ibn-Foslan, who, describing his travels among the Volga-Bulgarians, mentions the Bashkirs as a warlike and idolatrous race. The name w as not used by the people themselves in the 10th century, but is a mere nickname. It probably points to the fact that the Bashkirs, then as now, were distinguished by their large, round, short, and, possibly, closecropped heads. Of European writers the first to mention the Bashkirs are Plano-Carρini and Rubruquis. These travellers, who fell in with them in the upper parts of the River Ural, call them Pascatir, and assert that they spoke at that time the same language as the Hungarians. Till the arrival of the Mongolians, about the. middle of the 13th century, the Bashkirs were a strong and independent people, and troublesome to their neighbours, the Bulgarians and Pechenegs. At the time of the downfal of the Kazan kingdom they were in a weak state. In 1556 they voluntarily recognized the supremacy of Russia, and, in consequence, the city of Upha was founded to defend them from the Kirghiz, and they w ere subjected to a fur-tax. In 1676 they rebelled under a leader named Seit, and were with difficulty reduced; and again in 1707, under Aldar and Kûsyom, on account of ill-treatment by the Russian officials. Their third and last insurrection was in 1735, at the time of the foundation of Orenburg, ...and it lasted for six years. In 1786 they were freed from taxes; and in 1798 an irregular army was formed from among them. They are now’ divided into thirteen cantons, and each canton into yûrts or districts, the whole being under the jurisdiction of the Orenburg governor-general. In military matters they are subject to an Ataman, chosen from the generals of the army; but in civil affairs the yûrts and cantons are administered by Bashkir officials. They maintain a military cordon, escort caravans through the Kirghiz steppes, and are employed in various other services. By mode of life the Bashkirs are divided into settled and nomadic. The former, who are not distinguishable from the inhabitants of the Tatar villages, are engaged in agriculture, cattle-rearing, and bee-keeping, and live without want. The nomadic portion is subdivided, according to the districts in which they wander, into those of the mountains and those of the steppes. Almost their sole occupation is the rearing of cattle; and they attend to that in a very negligent manner, not collecting a sufficient store of winter fodder for all their herds, but allowing part of them to perish. The Bashkirs are usually very poor, and in winter live partly on a kind of gruel called yûryu, and badly prepared cheese named skûrt. They are hospitable but suspicious, apt to plunder, and to the last degree lazy. They have large heads, black hair, eyes narrow and flat, small foreheads, ears always sticking out, and a swarthy skin. In general, they are strong and muscular, and capable of enduring all kinds of labour and privation. They profess Mahometanism, but are little acquainted with its doctrines. In intellectual development they do not stand high.
See Semenoff, Sloυar Ross. Imp. s. v.∖ Fraim, “De Baskiris,” in Mém. de ΓAcad, de St Petersburg, 1822; and Florinsky, in JKest-nik Eυropi, 1874.
9th ed. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 3, p. 411
[635 words — estimated reading time: 4 minutes]
[635 words — estimated reading time: 4 minutes]
BASH'LESS , a Shameless; unblushing.
Shameless; unblushing.
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King James Bible KJV Bible
Berean Standard Bible BSB Bible
61 KJV and 53 BSB verses contain “BASH” — showing the first 20. Show all 61 verses (searchable)
And Moses gave unto them, even to the children of Gad, and to the children of Reuben, and unto half the tribe of Manasseh the son of Joseph, the kingdom of Sihon king of the Amorites, and the kingdom of Og king of Bashan, the land, with the cities thereof in the coasts, even the cities of the country round about.
And we took all his cities at that time, there was not a city which we took not from them, threescore cities, all the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan.