BACA, VALLEY OF (Nnn png ; Sept. KoLVEs -raj In Ps. lxxxiv. 6, the writer speaks of the blessedness of those who passing `through the valley of Baca make it a well.' It is probable that there was some place actually bear ing this name, to which reference is here made ; though the LXX. seem to have regarded Baca as only an appellative from 'IzZ tears, and with this agree the Vulg., in valle laaymarum, and all the ancient versions. A common opinion is that Nn is the mulberry tree, and that the valley was so called from its being filled with trees of this sort. As this tree probably got its name from the falling of drops, like tears, from its wounded leaf, the meaning would even, on this interpretation, come to much the same as the former. It is probable, however, that there is really no reference to the Baca-tree here. Without relinquishing the opinion that there was a place actually bearing the name of the Valley of Weeping (Burckhardt mentions a Wady Baka, or Valley of Weeping, which has its name from the fact that a Bedouin, fleeing before an enemy, lost his dromedary here, and, as he could not keep up with his companions, sat down and wept), we may regard this name as intro duced by the Psalmist with a special reference to a period of sorrow and gloom through which those he refers to pass, and which he places in contrast with the joy of Zion ; comp. Ps. cxxvi. 5, 6, and
the use of the phrase `valley of the shadow of death,' Ps. xxiii. 4. A valley was symbolical of depression, and a valley of tears would readily symbolize a season in which grief and misery were added to depression. (See Hengstenberg, izz loc.) —W. L. A.