Shearing House

SHEARING HOUSE (Heb bêth ‘ēqedh hārō‘îm, house of binding of the shepherds, i.e., binding-house of the shepherds). “Shearing house” in KJV is “Beth Eked of the Shepherds” in NIV. The place between Jezreel and Samaria where Jehu met and killed forty-two unsuspecting members of the royal house of Ahaziah, king of Judah. They were on their way, apparently ignorant of Jehu’s revolt, to Ahaziah, who was visiting Joram, the wounded king of Israel (2Kgs.10.12-2Kgs.10.14). The corpses were cast into a pit (Heb. bôr; cf. its use in Gen.37.24; Jer.41.7, Jer.41.9). A possible identification of Beth-Eked of the Shepherds is Kufr Ra‘i, the Ra‘i supposedly preserving the Hebrew word for “shepherds” (rô‘îm).

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SHEARING HOUSE. KJV form of Beth-eked.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915)

(beth `eqedh ha-ro`im, "house of binding of the shepherds"; Codex Vaticanus Baithakath (Codex Alexandrinus Baithakad) ton poimenon): Here in the course of his extinction of the house of Ahab, Jehu met and destroyed 42 men, "the brethren of Ahaziah king of Judah" (2Ki 10:12-14). Eusebius (in Onomasticon) takes the phrase as a proper name, Bethacath, and locates the village 15 miles from Legio in the plain. This seems to point to identification with Beit Kad, about 3 miles East of Jenin.