Jusepe de Ribera, Jacob's Dream, 1639. Public domain.
Genesis 28:10 to 22 · Place · Featured Study
Bethel
Bethel stood in the hill country north of Jerusalem, with Ai to its east.
Jacob called the town the house of God, and Hosea later called it the house of wickedness.
When Jacob woke up, he thought, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was unaware of it.”
- Today
- Beitin, northeast of Ramallah
- Region
- Benjamin's border with Ephraim
- Site
- 31.931, 35.221 (probable)
- First named
- Genesis 12:8 “…the hill country east of Bethel and pitched…”
- Last named
- Zechariah 7:2 “Now the people of Bethel had sent…”
Jacob called the town the house of God, and Hosea later called it the house of wickedness.
Summary
Bethel is the hill town once called Luz. Abram raised an altar there. God appeared to Jacob there twice.
- Jacob dreamed there of a ladder reaching to heaven. He set up his stone pillar and named the place Bethel.
- In the days of the judges the ark of the covenant stood at Bethel. Samuel judged Israel there on his yearly circuit.
- Jeroboam set one of his two golden calves at Bethel. Amaziah called it the king's sanctuary.
- Josiah pulled down the altar at Bethel, as a man of God from Judah had foretold.
The House of God
Jacob stopped for the night on the road to Haran and named the place when he woke.
When Jacob woke up, he thought, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was unaware of it.”Jacob's first words on waking name the place as the LORD's before he gives it a name.
and he called that place Bethel, though previously the city had been named Luz.Genesis keeps the old name beside the new one, as Joshua and Judges do later.
The lexicon gives Bethel as Beth-El, house of God, a name the Hebrew Bible uses 142 times. Jerome, in his Hebrew Questions on Genesis, gives the older name Luz the sense of a nut or almond.
and he called that place Bethel, though previously the city had been named Luz.Genesis keeps the old name beside the new one, as Joshua and Judges do later.
The lexicon gives Bethel as Beth-El, house of God, a name the Hebrew Bible uses 142 times. Jerome, in his Hebrew Questions on Genesis, gives the older name Luz the sense of a nut or almond.
Bethel on Samuel's Circuit
Samuel travelled each year from Bethel to Gilgal to Mizpah and home to Ramah.
Bethel is a short walk from Ai and a day's circuit from Gilgal and Mizpah, north of Jerusalem.
- Located: the site is known
- Proposed: one candidate among several
- The route, in the order the text gives
- 1Bethel, Samuel began his circuit there. 1 Samuel 7:16
- 2Gilgal, The camp by the Jordan where Israel first stood in the land. Joshua 4:19
- 3Mizpah, Samuel called all Israel to gather there for prayer. 1 Samuel 7:5
- 4Ramah, Samuel's home, where he built an altar. 1 Samuel 7:17
- 5?Ai, Abram pitched his tent with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. Genesis 12:8
- 6Jerusalem, Jeroboam told the people the journey there was too much for them. 1 Kings 12:28
- 7Dan, Jeroboam set the second calf there, at the northern edge of his kingdom. 1 Kings 12:29
Base map: Reference map of ancient Palestine, Rand McNally reference map (1926), public domain. Places with a place page stand at its coordinates and the others at the point OpenBible.info gives, set on the plate by Jerusalem and Damascus, as the plate prints them.
The four towns of Samuel's yearly round in order, with Ai, Jerusalem and Dan marked off the route.
What Happened at Bethel, in Order
Scripture follows the town from Abram's tent to Josiah's reform.
Bethel was a place of the patriarchs' altars before it became the royal sanctuary of the northern kingdom.
- Abram's arrivalAbram builds an altar between Bethel and AiGenesis 12:8
- Back from EgyptAbram returns to the altar and calls on the LORDGenesis 13:4
- Jacob's flightJacob sets up his pillar and names the place BethelGenesis 28:19
- Jacob's returnGod confirms the name Israel at BethelGenesis 35:10
- The conquestJoshua's ambush waits between Bethel and AiJoshua 8:9
- The judgesThe house of Joseph takes Bethel by a secret entranceJudges 1:25
- The war with BenjaminIsrael weeps and inquires of the LORD at Bethel, where the ark stoodJudges 20:27
- Samuel's daySamuel's yearly circuit begins at Bethel1 Samuel 7:16
- Jeroboam's reignA golden calf is set up in Bethel1 Kings 12:29
- The same reignA man of God from Judah cries against the altar1 Kings 13:2
- Jeroboam II's reignAmaziah the priest of Bethel sends Amos awayAmos 7:13
- Josiah's reformJosiah pulls down the altar and burns the high place2 Kings 23:15
Twelve events in the order of the canon, each with its verse.
The war with Benjamin, Samuel's day, Jeroboam's reign, The same reign, Jeroboam II's reign, Josiah's reform
The calf at Bethel1 Kings 12:28
After seeking advice, the king made two golden calves and said to the people, “Going up to Jerusalem is too much for you. Here, O Israel, are your gods, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”Jeroboam's reason was the distance to Jerusalem, and his words echo Aaron's at Sinai.
Matthew Henry explains why one of the two calves stood at Bethel.
“He set up these two at Dan and Beth-el (one the utmost border of his country northward), the other southward, as if they were the guardians and protectors of the kingdom. Beth-el lay close to Judah. He set up one there, to tempt those of Rehoboam's subjects over to him who were inclined to image-worship, in lieu of those of his subjects that would continue to go to Jerusalem.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on 1 Kings 12:28Puritan
The word against the altar2 Kings 23:16 to 17
And as Josiah turned, he saw the tombs there on the hillside, and he sent someone to take the bones out of the tombs, and he burned them on the altar to defile it, according to the word of the LORD proclaimed by the man of God who had foretold these things.Josiah's act matched the words of 1 Kings 13:2, spoken in Jeroboam's own day.
Then the king asked, “What is this monument I see?” And the men of the city replied, “It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and pronounced these things that you have done to the altar of Bethel.”The townspeople still knew whose tomb stood on the hillside.
Three Things the Text Says Plainly
Three facts of the text that retellings often miss, each with its verse.
GOD SPOKE FIRST AT BETHEL
The promises of land, offspring and presence come before Jacob makes any vow at all.
JACOB CAME BACK BY COMMAND
God told Jacob to go up to Bethel, settle there and build an altar to the God who had appeared to him when he fled from Esau.
MEN OF BETHEL RETURNED FROM EXILE
Ezra counts 223 men of Bethel and Ai among the returning exiles, and Nehemiah's list gives 123.
The Site of Bethel
Most scholars accept an identification of the site made in the nineteenth century.
Robinson's identificationEdward Robinson, Biblical Researches in Palestine
Edward Robinson, in his Biblical Researches in Palestine, identified Bethel with the village of Beitin, from its position in the ancient texts and from the likeness of the names.
What the Text Leaves Unsaid
Genesis leaves two things about Bethel unsaid.
Genesis records a stone pillar and altars at Bethel, and no house built for God. It never says how far Jacob's place of sleep lay from the walls of Luz.
On reaching a certain place, he spent the night there because the sun had set. And taking one of the stones from that place, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep.Genesis calls the spot only a certain place until Jacob names it.
Where Scripture Returns to Bethel
The prophets weighed the town against its name, and Jesus took up Jacob's ladder.
Do not seek Bethel or go to Gilgal; do not journey to Beersheba, for Gilgal will surely go into exile, and Bethel will come to nothing.Amos warns pilgrims away from the sanctuary that bore the name house of God.
Though you prostitute yourself, O Israel, may Judah avoid such guilt! Do not journey to Gilgal, do not go up to Beth-aven, and do not swear on oath, ‘As surely as the LORD lives!’Hosea forbids going up to the town and gives it another name.
Then He declared, “Truly, truly, I tell you, you will all see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”Jesus applies Jacob's dream to Himself in front of Nathanael.
The king's sanctuaryAmos 7:13
But never prophesy at Bethel again, because it is the sanctuary of the king and the temple of the kingdom.”The verse names whose house Bethel had become since Jeroboam.
Matthew Henry explains why Amaziah thought Bethel the wrong place for a prophet from Judah.
“That Bethel was not a proper place for him to exercise his ministry in, for it was the king's chapel, or sanctuary, where he had his idols and their altars and priests; and it was the king's court, or the house of the kingdom, where the royal family resided and where were set the thrones of judgment; and therefore prophesy not any more here.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on Amos 7:12 to 13Puritan
The Voices on Bethel
Ambrose, Cyril, Henry and Wesley each wrote on Bethel or on the ladder Jesus took up.
died 397 · Ambrose of Milan
Ambrose of Milan ties the name of Bethel to the altar Abram built there.
“Where there is Bethel, that is, the house of God, there is also the altar. Where there is the altar, there is also the calling on the name of God. It is not by chance that he made such great progress. He hoped in the help of God. The athlete of God exercised and strengthened himself in adversity. He went into the desert.”
Ambrose of Milan · On Abraham 1.2.6 · on Genesis 12:8Patristic
died 444 · Cyril of Alexandria
Cyril of Alexandria reads the angels of John 1:51 as servants of the Son of God.
“Common now to all is the word which seals the faith of Nathanael. But in saying that angels shall be seen speeding up and down upon the Son of Man, that is, ministering and serving His commands, for the salvation of such as shall believe, He says that then especially shall He be revealed as being by Nature Son of God. For it is not one another that the rational powers serve but surely God. And this does not take away subjection among the angels (for this will not be reasonably called bondage).”
Cyril of Alexandria · Commentary on the Gospel of John, Book 2 · on John 1:51Patristic
1662 to 1714 · Matthew Henry
Matthew Henry sets God's appearing above the almond trees of the old name.
“This gracious appearance of God to him put a greater honour upon it, and made it more remarkable, than all the almond-trees that flourished there. This is that Beth-el where, long after, it is said, God found Jacob, and there (in what he said to him) he spoke with us, Hos. xii.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on Genesis 28:19Puritan
1703 to 1791 · John Wesley
John Wesley follows the town from Jacob's naming to Jeroboam's calf.
“And he confirmed the name he had formerly given to the place, Beth-el, the house of God. Yet this very place afterwards lost the honour of its name, and became Beth-aven, a house of iniquity, for here it was that Jeroboam set up one of his calves. It is impossible for the best men to entail so much as the profession and form of religion upon a place.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament · on Genesis 35:15Evangelical
Matthew Henry, John Wesley
Luz in Genesis 28:19
Readers have taken the Hebrew words before Luz either as the word for previously or as part of the old name.
Luz was the former nameJerome, Hebrew Questions on Genesis
Jerome, in his Hebrew Questions on Genesis, holds that ulam means previously, so that the verse says the place was first called Luz. He calls it foolish to read Ulam as the name of a city. The Berean text follows this reading.
The objection: an ancient translation read the same letters as part of the city's name.
Ulam Luz as one nameThe Septuagint's Roman edition, reported by Adam Clarke, 1832
Adam Clarke, on Genesis 28:19, reports that the Roman edition of the Septuagint renders the words as one name, Oulamlouz, and that other Greek copies spell it Oulammaus and Lammaous.
The objection: Judges 1:23 gives the city's former name as Luz alone, and the man of Judges 1:26 called his new city Luz.
The Ladder and the Son of Man
Bethel kept the name house of God long after its altar served a calf. The text asks the reader to seek God where He has made Himself known, in Christ, and to keep His house free of idols.
And Jacob had a dream about a ladder that rested on the earth with its top reaching up to heaven, and God’s angels were going up and down the ladder.The ladder joined earth to heaven at the place Jacob would call the gate of heaven.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- James Strong, Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (1890), Hebrew dictionary, entry 1008.
- Jerome, Hebrew Questions on Genesis, on Genesis 28:19.
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible (1832), on Genesis 28:19.
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on Genesis 28:19, 1 Kings 12:28 and Amos 7:12.
- John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765), on Genesis 35:15.
- Ambrose of Milan, On Abraham 1.2.6, on Genesis 12:8.
- Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel of John, Book 2, on John 1:51.
- Rand McNally reference map of ancient Palestine, 1926, public domain.
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