Bethel

For other uses, see Bethel (disambiguation).

Bethel (בית אל), also written as Beth El or Beth-El, is a Semitic word that has acquired various meanings.

Hebrew

In this Semitic language of the Jewish people, bethel means "house of El"

• See: Temple Beth-El

Bible

Bethel (Israel) was a city in ancient Israel, about 10 miles north of Jerusalem. Its location is generally identified with the modern Palestinian village of Beitun in the West Bank. Its name is preserved in the adjacent Israeli settlement of Beit El.

• Bethel was also a town in southern Judah (Joshua. 8:17; 12:16). It seems to be the same as the place called Bethul or Bethuel, a city of the tribe of Simeon.

According to Biblical scripture, running from the wrath of his brother Esau, the patriarch Jacob rests and falls asleep on a stone for a pillow in this exact spot. In the dream that follows, Jacob sees a ladder leading up to Heaven, with angels going up and down on the ladder to and from Heaven. Jacob awakes, and realizes that God's presence is in this exact spot. He anoints his "Pillar Stone" here and later God commands him to build an altar here. Much later, the first king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel (Jeroboam) set up a Golden Calf here, (and another one in Dan), along with changing the Feast of Tabernacles to the eighth month instead of the seventh, and appointed non-Levites (or at least not the elder Levites) as priests in an attempt to keep Israelites from moving back down south to Jerusalem, thus losing tax money. A Bethel is the name given to the meeting place as well as the local group that meets in each city. The name Beth-El, though assumed to have originated from Jacob, is deemed by Biblical critics and scholars to have originated from an older source. The element El in Bethel is that of an ancient Canaanite deity. This etymology is much more likely than the source given by Jacob. In Job's Daughters it refers to the group and the meeting place of individual groups within a larger organization.

Sources and references

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 196, vol. 2

• Biblaridion magazine: Genesis 27-36: The purpose of the various forms of repetition in the Beth-el accounts

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