Bath-rabbim

Bath-rabbim is named once, as a gate of the Transjordanian city of Heshbon, in a poetic image drawn from the Song.

A Gate at Heshbon

The lover's praise of the beloved compares her eyes to the ornamental pools that lay beside one of the city's gates: "Your neck is like the tower of ivory; Your eyes [as] the pools in Heshbon, By the gate of Bath-rabbim" (So 7:4). The reference fixes Bath-rabbim as a gate of Heshbon, beside which were pools clear and still enough to serve as the standard of comparison for the beloved's eyes.