Bethsaida

Philip, Andrew and Peter all came from one town. John says so in passing: “Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.” Jesus knew the place well. After the apostles returned and told him all they had done, he took them “aside privately into a desert place belonging to the city called Bethsaida.” Yet he also spoke a sorrowful word over it: “Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida!” Mighty works had been done there, and he said Tyre and Sidon would have repented long ago. A hometown of friends, and of hard words. Read John 1 and Matthew 11.

5 verses

Matthew

Matthew 11:21

Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

Matthew 14:13

When Jesus heard of it, he departed thence by ship into a desert place apart: and when the people had heard thereof, they followed him on foot out of the cities.

Mark

Mark 6:32

And they departed into a desert place by ship privately.

Luke

Luke 9:10

And the apostles, when they were returned, told him all that they had done. And he took them, and went aside privately into a desert place belonging to the city called Bethsaida.

John

John 1:44

Now Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.

From Easton's Bible Dictionary

Matthew George Easton, 1897

House of fish. (1.) A town in Galilee, on the west side of the sea of Tiberias, in the “land of Gennesaret.” It was the native place of Peter, Andrew, and Philip, and was frequently resorted to by Jesus (Mark 6:45; John 1:44; 12:21). It is supposed to have been at the modern ‘Ain Tabighah, a bay to the north of Gennesaret.

(2.) A city near which Christ fed 5,000 (Luke 9:10; comp. John 6:17; Matt. 14:15-21), and where the blind man had his sight restored (Mark 8:22), on the east side of the lake, two miles up the Jordan. It stood within the region of Gaulonitis, and was enlarged by Philip the tetrarch, who called it “Julias,” after the emperor’s daughter. Or, as some have supposed, there may have been but one Bethsaida built on both sides of the lake, near where the Jordan enters it. Now the ruins et-Tel.

Read the full entry

From Smith's Bible Dictionary

William Smith, 1884

(house of fish) of Galilee, (John 12:21) a city which was the native place of Andrew, Peter and Philip, (John 1:44; 12:21) in the land of Gennesareth, (Mark 6:46) comp. Mark 6:53 And therefore on the west side of the lake. By comparing the narratives in (Mark 6:31-53) and Luke 9:10-17 It appears certain that the Bethsaida at which the five thousand were fed must have been a second place of the same name on the east of the lake. (But in reality "there is but one Bethsaida, that known on our maps at Bethsaida Julias." L. Abbot in Biblical and Oriental Journal . The fact is that Bethsaida was a village on both sides of the Jordan as it enters the sea of Galilee on the north, so that the western part of the village was in Galilee and the eastern portion in Gaulonitis, part of the tetrarchy of Philip. This eastern portion was built up into a beautiful city by Herod Philip, and named by him Bethsaida Julias , after Julia the daughter of the Roman emperor Tiberius Caesar. On the plain of Butaiha, a mile or two to the east, the five thousand were fed. The western part of the town remained a small village.--ED.)