BELUS, TEMPLE OF. [BABEL, TOWER OF.] BEN (p., son) is often found as the first element of proper names ; in which case the word which follows it is always to be considered dependent on it, in the relation of our genitive. The word which follows Ben may either be of itself a proper name, or be an appellative or abstract, the principle of the connection being essentially the same in both cases. As for the first class, as the Syro-Arabian nations are all particularly addicted to genealogy, and as they possess no surnames, nor family names in our sense, they have no means of attaching a definite designation to a person, except by adding some accessory specification to his distinctive, or, as we would term it, Christian, name. This explains why so many persons, both in the Old and New Testaments, are distinguished by the addition of the names of their father. The same usage is especially frequent among the Arabs ; but they have improved its definiteness by adding the name of the person's child, in case he has one. In doing this they always observe this arrangement — the name of the child, the person's own name, and the name of his father. Thus the designation of the patriarch Isaac would, in Arabic, run thus— Father of Jacob, Isaac, son of Abraham (Abfi Ja'qfib, Ishaq, ben Ibrahim). As for the latter
class, there is an easy transition from this strict use of son to its employment in a figurative sense, to denote a peculiar dependence of derivation. The principle of such a connection not only ex plains such proper names as Ben Chased (son of mercy), but applies to many striking metaphors in other classes of words, as sons of the bow, a son of seventeen years (the usual mode of denoting age), a hill, the son of oil (Is. v. 2), and many others, in which our translation effaces the Oriental type of the expression. All proper names which begin with Ben belong to the one or the other of these classes. Ben Abinadab, Ben Gaber, and Ben Chased (1 Kings iv. to, II, 13) illustrate all the pos sibilities of combination noticed above. In these names, Ben would, perhaps, be better not trans lated, as it is in our version ; although the Vulgate has preserved it, as the Sept. also appears to have once done in ver. 8, to judge by the reading there.
These remarks apply also in part to BAR, the Aramaic synonyme of Ben, as in the name Bar Abbas.—J. N.