5. Beth-barah, Judges 7:24.

Whether, therefore, this passage, of which we have spoken, was called Beth-barah from that place so near Jordan, or Beth-abara, from the etymology before mentioned, it is no absurdity for the further bank of Jordan, which lay contiguous to the bridge or passage over it, to be called "Beth-barah beyond Jordan," either upon the one or the other account. For (however the learned Beza comes to question it) the Lexicons will tell you beyond Jordan: especially that common three fold division, "Judea, Galilee, and beyond Jordan." "On the east of the river Jordan"; as Ptolemy expresseth it: and Beza himself confesseth, that beyond Jordan, is the proper signification of the Greek word beyond, Matthew 4:15.

Let us, therefore, place the Beth-abara we are seeking for, where John was baptizing, on the further side of Jordan, in the Scythopolitan country, where the Jews dwelt amongst the Syro-Grecians, as in all the Decapolitan regions, where Christ might something more safely converse, from the vexations of the scribes and Pharisees, John 10:40, being, as it were, out of their reach and jurisdiction there. And so we find John baptizing, first, at the passage of Jericho, because, through the greatness of the road, there was always a considerable concourse of people; and next, at the passage of Scythopolis, for the same reason...