BELIAL. The phrase, “sons of Belial,” signifies wicked, worthless men. It was given to the inhabitants of Gibeah, who abused the Levite’s wife, Judges xix, 22; and to Hophni and Phineas, the wicked and profane sons of Eli, 1 Samuel ii, 12. In later times the name Belial denoted the devil: “What concord hath Christ with Belial?” 2 Cor. vi, 15; for as the word literally imports “one who will do no one good,” the positive sense of a doer of evil was applied to Satan, who is the author of evil, and, eminently, “the Evil One.”

BELLS. Moses ordered that the lower part of the blue robe, which the high priest wore in religious ceremonies, should be adorned with pomegranates and bells, intermixed alternately, at equal distances. The pomegranates were of wool, and in colour, blue purple, and crimson; the bells were of gold. Moses adds, “And it shall be upon Aaron to minister; and his sound shall be heard when he goeth in unto the holy place before the Lord, and when he cometh out; that he die not.” Some of the Hebrews believe that these little bells are round; others, that they were such as were commonly in use. The ancient kings of Persia are said to have had the hem of their robes adorned like that of the Jewish high priest, with pomegranates and golden bells. The Arabian ladies, who are about the king’s person, have little gold bells fastened to their legs, their neck, and elbows, which, when they dance, make a very agreeable harmony. The Arabian women of rank, generally, wear on their legs large hollow gold rings, containing small flints, that sound like little bells when they walk; or they are large circles, with little rings hung all round, which produce the same effect. These, when they walk, give notice that the mistress of the house is passing, that so the servants of the family may behave themselves respectfully, and strangers may retire, to avoid seeing the person who advances. It was, in all probability, with some such design of giving notice that the high priest was passing, that he also wore little bells at the hem of his robe. Their sound intimated also when he was about to enter the sanctuary, and served to keep up the attention of the people. A reverential respect for the Divine Inhabitant was also indicated. The palace of kings was not to be entered without due notice, by striking some sonorous body, much less the sanctuary of God; and the high priest did, by the sound of his bells at the bottom of his robe, ask leave to enter. “And his sound shall be heard when he goeth into the holy place before the Lord, and when he cometh out; that he die not.”

Bells were a part of the martial furniture of horses employed in war. The Jewish warrior adorned his charger with these ornaments; and the prophet foretels that these in future times should be consecrated to the service of God: “In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, Holiness unto the Lord.” Chardin observes that something like this is seen in several places of the east; in Persia, and in Turkey, the reins of their bridles are of silk, of the thickness of a finger, on which are wrought the name of God, or other inscriptions. A horse which had not been trained was by the Greeks called, “one that had never heard the noise of bells.”

BELLY is used in Scripture for gluttony, Titus i, 12; Philip iii, 16; Rom. xvi, 18. For the heart, or the secrets of the mind, Prov. xx, 27, 30; xxii, 18. The “belly of hell” signifies the grave, or some imminent danger, or deep distress, Jonah ii, 2; Ecclus. ii, 5.

BELSHAZZAR, the last king of Babylon, and, according to Hales and others, the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, Dan. v, 18. During the period that the Jews were in captivity at Babylon, a variety of singular events concurred to prove that the sins which brought desolation on their country, and subjected them for a period of seventy years to the Babylonish yoke, had not dissolved that covenant relation which, as the God of Abraham, Jehovah had entered into with them; and that any act of indignity perpetrated against an afflicted people, or any insult cast upon the service of their temple, would be regarded as an affront to the Majesty of heaven, and not suffered to pass with impunity, though the perpetrators were the princes and potentates of the earth. Belshazzar was a remarkable instance of this. He had an opportunity of seeing, in the case of his ancestor, how hateful pride is, even in royalty itself; how instantly God can blast the dignity of the brightest crown, and reduce him that wears it to a level with the beasts of the field; and consequently how much the prosperity of kings and the stability of their thrones depend upon acknowledging that “the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.” But all these awful lessons were lost upon Belshazzar.

The only circumstances of his reign, recorded, are the visions of the Prophet Daniel, in the first and third years, Dan. vii, 1; viii, 1; and his sacrilegious feast and violent death, Dan. v, 1–30. Isaiah, who represents the Babylonian dynasty as “the scourge of Palestine,” styles Nebuchadnezzar “a serpent,” Evil Merodach “a cockatrice,” and Belshazzar “a fiery flying serpent,” the worst of all, Isaiah xiv, 4–29. And Xenophon confirms this prophetic character by two atrocious instances of cruelty and barbarity, exercised by Belshazzar upon some of his chief and most deserving nobles. He slew the only son of Gobryas, in a transport of rage, because at a hunting match he hit with his spear a bear, and afterward a lion, when the king had missed both; and in a fit of jealousy, he brutally castrated Gadatus, because one of his concubines had commended him as a handsome man. His last and most heinous offence was the profanation of the sacred vessels belonging to the temple of Jerusalem, which his wise grandfather, and even his foolish father Evil Merodach, had respected. Having made a great feast for a thousand of his lords, he ordered those vessels to be brought during the banquet, that he, his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink out of them, which they did; and to aggravate sacrilege by apostasy and rebellion, and ingratitude against the Supreme Author of all their enjoyments, “they praised the gods of gold, silver, brass, iron, and stone, but the God in whose hand was their breath, and whose were all their ways, they praised or glorified not.” For these complicated crimes his doom was denounced in the midst of the entertainment; a divine hand appeared, which wrote on the plaister of the wall, opposite to the king, and full in his view, a mysterious inscription. This tremendous apparition struck Belshazzar with the greatest terror and agony: “his countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote against each other.” This is one of the liveliest and finest amplifications of dismay to be found throughout the sacred classics, and infinitely exceeds, both in accuracy and force, the most admired of the Heathen; such as “et corde et genibus tremit,” of Horace, and “tarda trementi genua labant,” of Virgil.

Unable himself to decypher the writing, Belshazzar cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers, promising that whosoever should read the writing, and explain to him its meaning, should be clothed with scarlet, have a chain of gold about his neck, and be the third ruler in his kingdom. But the writing was too difficult for the Magi; at which the king was still more greatly troubled. In this crisis, and at the instance of the queen mother, the Prophet Daniel was sent for, to whom honours were promised, on condition of his explaining the writing. Daniel refused the honours held out to him; but having with great faithfulness pointedly reproved the monarch for his ingratitude to God who had conferred on him such dignity, and particularly for his profanation of the vessels which were consecrated to his service, he proceeded to the interpretation of the words which had been written, and still stood visible on the wall. They were, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin. “This is the interpretation of the thing, Mene, ‘God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it;’ Tekel, ‘thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting;’ Peres, ‘thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.’” In that very night, in the midst of their mirth and revelling, the city was taken by surprise, Belshazzar himself put to death, and the kingdom transferred to Darius the Mede. If the character of the hand-writing was known to the Magi of Babylon, the meaning could not be conjectured. Perhaps, however, the character was that of the ancient Hebrew, or what we now call the Samaritan; and in that case it would be familiar to Daniel, though rude and unintelligible to the Chaldeans. But even if Daniel could read the words, the import of this solemn graphic message to the proud and impious monarch could only have been made known to the prophet by God. All the ideas the three words convey, are numbering, weighing, and dividing. It was only for the power which sent the omen to unfold, not in equivocal terms, like the responses of Heathen oracles, but in explicit language, the decision of the righteous Judge, the termination of his long suffering, and the instant visitation of judgment. See [Babylon].

BELUS, a river of Palestine. On leaving Acre, and turning toward the south-east, the traveller crosses the river Belus, near its mouth, where the stream is shallow enough to be easily forded on horseback. This river rises out of a lake, computed to be about six miles distant, toward the south-east, called by the ancients Palus Cendovia. Of the sand of this river, according to Pliny, glass was first made; and ships from Italy continued to convey it to the glass houses of Venice and Genoa, so late as the middle of the seventeenth century.

BENEDICTION, in a general sense, the act of blessing in the name of God, or of giving praise to God, or returning thanks for his favours. Hence benediction is the act of saying grace before or after meals. Neither the ancient Jews, nor Christians, ever ate without a short prayer. The Jews are obliged to rehearse a hundred benedictions every day; of which, eighty are to be spoken in the morning. Rabbi Nehemiah Baruch, in 1688, published a discourse on the manner wherein the sacerdotal benediction is to be pronounced. In the synagogue of Ferrara, it is rather sung than spoken. Among the ancient Jews, as well as Christians, benedictions were attended with the imposition of hands; and Christians, in process of time, added the sign of the cross, which was made with the same hand, elevated or extended. Hence, in the Romish church, benediction was used to denote the sign of the cross, made by a bishop or prelate, from an idea that it conferred some grace on the people. The custom of receiving benediction by bowing the head before the bishops, is very ancient; and was so universal, that emperors themselves did not decline this mark of submission. Under the name benediction the Hebrews also frequently understood the presents which friends made to one another; in all probability because they were generally attended with blessings and prayers, both from those who gave and those who received them. The solemn blessing pronounced by the Jewish high priest upon the people, is recorded Num. vi, 22, &c: “The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: the Lord make his face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.” The great Christian benediction is, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with you always.” See [Blessing].

BENHADAD, the son of Tibrimon, king of Syria, came to the assistance of Asa, king of Judah, against Baasha, king of Israel, obliging the latter to return home and succour his own country, and to abandon Ramah, which he had undertaken to fortify, 1 Kings xv, 18. This Benhadad is thought by some to have been the same person with Hadad the Edomite, who rebelled against Solomon toward the end of that prince’s reign, 1 Kings xi, 25.