umbers 6., and is very different from St. Paul's time for
such preparation, which was but one day, Acts 21:26. So we want already
the continuation of the Antiquities to afford us light here, as they
have hitherto done on so many occasions elsewhere. Perhaps in this age
the traditions of the Pharisees had obliged the Jews to this degree
of rigor, not only as to these thirty days' preparation, but as to the
going barefoot all that time, which here Bernice submitted to also. For
we know that as God's and our Savior's yoke is usually easy, and his
burden comparatively light, in such positive injunctions, Matthew 11:30,
so did the scribes and Pharisees sometimes "bind upon men heavy burdens,
and grievous to be borne," even when they themselves "would not touch
them with one of their fingers," Matthew 23:4; Luke 11:46. However,
Noldius well observes, De Herod. No. 404, 414, that Juvenal, in his
sixth satire, alludes to this remarkable penance or submission of this
Bernice to Jewish discipline, and jests upon her for it; as do Tacitus,
Dio, Suetonius, and Sextus Aurelius mention her as one well known at
Rome.--Ibid.

[23] I take this Bezetha to be that small hill adjoining to the north
side of the temple, whereon was the hospital with five porticoes or
cloisters, and beneath which was the sheep pool of Bethesda; into which
an angel or messenger, at a certain season, descended, and where he or
they who were the "first put into the pool" were cured, John 5:1 etc.
This situation of Bezetha, in Josephus, on the north side of the temple,
and not far off the tower Antonia, exactly agrees to the place of the
same pool at this day; only the remaining cloisters are but three. See
Maundrel, p. 106. The entire buildings seem to have been called the
New City, and this part, where was the hospital, peculiarly Bezetha or
Bethesda. See ch. 19. sect. 4.

[24] In this speech of king Agrippa we have an authentic account of the
extent and strength of the Roman empire when the Jewish war began. And
this speech with other circumstances in Josephus, demonstrate how wise
and how great a person Agrippa was, and why Josephus elsewhere calls
him a most wonderful or admirable man, Contr. Ap. I. 9. He is the same
Agrippa who said to Paul, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian,"
Acts 26;28; and of whom St. Paul said, "He was expert in all the customs
and questions of the Jews," yet. 3. See another intimation of the limits
of the same Roman empire,