BETH-SHAN (bgth'sban), (Heb. I rr; bayth shaven', house of rest, or Rest Town; Sept. Beth san), a city belonging to the half-tribe of Manas seh, west of the Jordan, and situated in a valley of that river, where it is bounded westward by a low chain of the Gilboa mountains.
It is on the road from Jerusalem to Damascus and is about two miles from the Jordan, eighteen from the southern end of Lake Gennesareth and twenty-three from Nazareth. It also bore the name of Scythopolis, perhaps because Scythians had settled there in the time of Josiah (B. C. 631), in their passage through Palestine towards Egypt (Herod. i:2o5; Comp. Pliny, Hist. Nat.
v. 16, 2o; Georg. Syncellus, p. 214). As Succoth lay somewhere in the vicinity, east of the Jordan, some would derive Scythopolis from Succothop olis (Reland, p. 992, sq.; Gesenius in Burckhardt, p. 1053, German edit.). It is also not improbably supposed to be the same as Beth-Sitta (Judg. vii: 22).
Although Beth-shan was assigned to Manasseh (Josh. xvii:it), it was not conquered by that tribe (Judg. i :17). The body of Saul was fastened to the wall of Bethshan by the Philistines (t Sam. xxxi:to) ; Alexander Jannxus had an interview here with Cleopatra (Joseph. Antiq. xiii:13, 3); Pompey marched through it on his way from Damascus to Jerusalem (xiv :3, 4), and in the Jewish war 13,000 Jews were slain by the Scytho politans (De Bell. hid. ii:18, 3). In the Middle Ages the place had become desolate, although it still went by the name of Metropolis Paleestince tertia (Will. Tyr. pp. 749, 1034; Vitriacus, p. 109). We find bishops of Scythopolis at the councils of Chalcedon, Jerusalem (A. D. 536), and others. During the Crusades it was an arch bishopric, which was afterwards transferred to Nazareth (Raumer's Palautina, pp. 147-149, Van de Velde). Written also Bethshean.