Brewer's: Baca

The Valley of Baca, also called the Valley of Tears, translated in the New Version “the Valley of Weeping,” apparently a dry sterile valley, the type of this earth spoilt by sorrow and sin. “Blessed is the man ... in whose heart are the ways of them. Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well ...” (Psalm lxxxiv. 6). That man is blessed whose trust in God converts adverse circumstances into proofs of divine love. “Whom He loveth He chasteneth.” They “go from strength to strength.”

In the mountains of Lebanon is a valley called Baca, but it is described as fertile and very delicious. The Valley of Lebanon (Joshua xi. 17) is encompassed by mountains, one of which is very barren, and abounds in thorns, rocks, and flints, but another is called a terrestrial paradise. Baca means “mulberry trees,” but Bekah means a “plain.” Perowne says Bacah is from a Hebrew root which means “weeping.”

“Our sources of common pleasure dry up as we journey on through the vale of Bacha.” —SirWalterScott: The Antiquary.

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