Bethsaida

Bethsaida (meaning: house of fish or house of hunting) was the name of two or possibly one town on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee with exceptional significance in the Gospel narratives. The western Bethsaida was a fishing village in Galilee, the native town of the apostles Peter, Andrew, and Philip. It lay near Capernaum and served as a center of Jesus's Galilean ministry. The eastern Bethsaida—or Bethsaida Julias—was rebuilt and renamed by Philip the Tetrarch in honor of the daughter of Augustus.

Bethsaida is the setting for several of Jesus's most notable miracles: the feeding of the five thousand in a deserted place near Bethsaida; the healing of a blind man at Bethsaida with a gradual two-stage process unique among the Gospel miracles; and likely the setting for Peter's walking on water. Despite this concentration of miraculous works, Jesus pronounced woe upon Bethsaida for its failure to repent, comparing it unfavorably to Tyre and Sidon: Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.