Bethesda was originally the name of a pool in Jerusalem, on the path of the Beth Zeta Valley, and is also known as the Sheep Pool. It is associated with healing. In Ancient Greek Biblical Manuscripts its name is often mistaken for name of the town of Bethsaida.
For the various places named after the Pool of Bethesda, see Bethesda.
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The pool was first dug out during the 8th Century BC and was called the Upper Pool - 'בריכה העליונה'. Solomon
A second pool, known as the Washers' Pool, was dug during the third century BC by Simon the High Priest. These pools were used to wash the sheep prior to their sacrifice in the Temple. According to the Christian Bible, the waters had no healing properties by themselvesШаблон:Cite web, but many invalids came to the pools to be healed and cleansed by "an angel of the lord" that would descend from heaven and "move" the waters. Шаблон:Cite web
The Upper Pool is mentioned in the Book of Kings II, chapter 18 verse 17 (repeated also in the Book of Isaiah, chapter 36, verse 2):
"And the king of Assyria sent Tartan and Rab-saris and Rab-shakeh from Lachish to King Hezekiah with a great army unto Jerusalem. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. And when they were come up, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is in the highway of the fullers' field."and in the Book of Isaiah, chapter 7, verse 3:
The pools are mentioned in the New Testament. In John 5, the pools are mentioned as the location where an invisible Angel from heaven would move the water and perform healing miracles on the first person who entered the waters. However the ancient Greek manuscripts of this account are often contradictory, some incorrectly calling the Hebrew name of the pool Bethsaida and others omitting the Angel tradition from the narrative by omitting the second half of verse 3, and the whole of verse 4. This explains why verse numbering in some translations skips from 3a to 5 in order to keep the tradition numbering of verses.
On a Shabbat day Jesus heals a long bedridden man, who could not make his own way into the pool.
Its name is said to derive from the Aramaic language beth hesda, meaning "house of grace" -בית חסדא - Alternative renderings of its name include Bethzatha and Bethsaida, although the latter is popularily considered to be a textual corruption by Biblical scholars. of St. Mary's Episcopal Cathedral in Memphis, Tennessee, this stone is part of one of the columns of the balustrade that surrounded the Pool of Bethesda.]]
According to Easton's Bible Dictionary, Bethesda means 'house of mercy', a reservoir (Gr. kolumbethra, "a swimming bath") with five porches, close to the sheep-gate or market (Шаблон:Bibleverse; Шаблон:Bibleverse).
According to Syriac-English Dictionary by Louis Costaz and A Compendious Syriac Dictionary by J. Payne Smith, the word hesdo in Syriac (or hesda in older Aramaic) has two opposite meanings: 'grace' and 'disgrace'. Hence, Bethesda was both a house of disgrace, as many invalids gathered there, and a house of grace, as they were granted healing.
Eusebius the historian (A.D. 330) calls it "the sheep-pool". It is also called "Bethsaida" (not to be confused with Bethsaida, a town in Galilee) and "Beth-zatha" (John 5:2, RSV marg.). Under these "porches" or colonnades were usually a large number of infirm people waiting for the "troubling of the water".
Prior to archeological digs, the Pool of Bethesda was identified with the modern so-called Fountain of the Virgin, in the Kidron Valley, not far from the Pool of Siloam, and alternately with the Birket Israel, a pool near the mouth of the valley which runs into the Kidron south of St. Stephen's Gate.
In digs conducted in the 19th Century, Schick discovered a large tank situated about 100 feet north-west of St. Anne's Church, which he contended was the Pool of Bethesda. Many archaeologists 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.
