And he arose... and came. — So the Syriac, rightly. The common Hebrew text has, “And he arose and came and departed.”
And as he was at the shearing house in the way. — Rather, He was at Beth-eqed-haroim on the way. The Targum renders: “He was at the shepherds’ meeting-house on the way.” The place was probably a solitary building, which served as a rendezvous for the shepherds of the neighbourhood. (The root ‘aqad means “to bind,” or “knot together;” hence the common explanation of the name is “the shepherds’ binding house,” i.e., the place where they bound their sheep for the shearing. But the idea of binding is easily connected with that of meeting, gathering together: comp. our words band, knot.) The LXX. has: “He was at Baithakad (or Baithakath) of the shepherds.” Eusebius mentions a place called Beithakad, fifteen Roman miles from Legio (Lejjûn), identical with the present Beitkâd, six miles east of Jenîn, in the plain of Esdraelon; but this seems too far off the route from Jezreel to Samaria, which passes Jenîn.