BEANS (bens), (Ezek. iv:9).
The Eastern plant ordinarily thus known (Viola faba) is quite unlike the garden or field bean of the United States. It is of the same family. but is an erect annual with a stout stern, is one of the commonest field crops of Europe and the Orient, and bears in its pods large, coarse seeds, which are fed to animals and much eaten by the poorer classes. Kidney-beans are now some times cultivated in Palestine. (See Pot..) BEAR (bar) (Heb. 27, or dobe, in Arabic dub, in Persian dob), is noticed in 1 Sam. xvii:34, 36, 2 Sam. xvii:8; 2 Kings ii:24; Prov. xvii:12; xxviii:15; Is. xi:7; Lam. iii:to; Hos. xiii:8; Amos v:19, etc.
Although the moderns have denied the existence of bears in Syria and Africa, there cannot be a doubt of the fact, and of a species of the genus Ursus being meant in the Hebrew texts above noted. David defended his flock from the at tacks of a bear (I Sam. xvii :34. 35, 36), and bears destroyed the children who mocked the prophet (2 Kings ii :24). The genus Ursus is
the largest of all the plantigrade carnassials. and with the faculty of subsisting on fruit or honey unites a greater or less propensity, according to the species, to slaughter and animal food. To a sullen and ferocious disposition it joins im mense strength, little vulnerability, considerable sagacity and the power of climbing trees. The brown bear, Ursus arctos, is the most sanguinary of the species of the Old Continent, and Ursus Syriacus, or the bear of Palestine, is one very nearly allied to it, differing only in its stature be ing proportionably lower and longer, the head and tail more prolonged, and the color a dull buff or light bay, often clouded, like the Pyrenean vari ety, with darker brown. On the back there is a ridge of long semi-erect hairs running from the neck to the tail. It is yet found in the elevated woody parts of Lebanon.