Hebrew. ‘Lightning’. The son of Abinoam of Kedesh in Naphtali. He was a captain of the army of Israel in the time of Deborah the prophetess. He fought against Sisera, the captain of Jabin, king of Hazor, in the land of Canaan, who for twenty years had oppressed the Israelites. Incited by Deborah, he delivered the Israelites from the yoke of Jabin by routing the Canaanites on the plain of Esdraelon, in the valley of Jezreel, where a great storm came and all the chariots of Jabin's army got stuck in the mud, bringing about the first great victory in the land of the Canaanites. Also transcribed Baraq.

Bethlehem (בֵּית לֶחֶם‎)

Hebrew. ‘House of Bread’. The bible mentions two cities of this name, i.e. Bethlehem, one of the twelve cities belonging to the tribe of Zabulon, and Bethlehem of Judea or Bethlehem of Judah, the birthplace of Jesus, as well as of David, the second king of Israel. The first Bethlehem is but a small town of no great importance, located about 11 kilometers northwest of Nazareth, whereas the latter, in the gospels called ‘little among the thousands of Judah’, is located approximately 8 kilometers south of Jerusalem, on the road to Hebron. Bethlehem of Judea is first mentioned in Gen. 48:7, as the place where the Rachel died and was buried. It is also the place where David was anointed king by Samuel. The word bread, in Hebrew lehem (lechem), oftentimes also refers symbolically to Jesus, who on several occasions used bread to refer to himself, e.g. during the Last Supper. In addition, the word can be metathesized, i.e. used as a metathesis: by changing the position of the consonants in the word lechem the word melech (מֶּלֶךְ) can be formed, which means ‘king’, and makes the name an allegorical pun for Jesus as ‘king of the Jews’, an idea that correspondents with the text of Mat. 2:2 about Jesus, i.e. ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?’.

Bunyan

See John Bunyan.