Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

BETHEL

(Heb. bêṯ-ʾēl)

(PLACE)

1. An important city (“house of God”) strategically located at a crossroads 19 km. (12 mi.) N of Jerusalem at the border of Ephraim/Benjamin (for the source of that ambiguity compare Josh. 18:22 and Judg. 1:22) and Judah. Only the city of Jerusalem is mentioned more frequently in the OT. It is not cited in the NT.

Abraham pitched his tent E of Bethel (Gen. 12:8) before going to Egypt and settled in Bethel for a time upon his return (13:3). The “God of Bethel” spoke to Jacob while he was still in Haran (Gen. 31:13). Later Jacob was commanded to go to Bethel and build an altar (Gen. 35:1), which he did (v. 6). The latter episode also refers to the site by the earlier names Luz and El-bethel. Deborah, a nurse of Rebekah, is buried under an oak near Bethel (Gen. 35:8), and the more famous Deborah judged Israel at a site between Bethel and Rama (Judg. 4:5). The ark of the covenant was brought to Bethel (perhaps implied in Judg. 20:18 and confirmed in 20:27). It was at Bethel that the people of Israel gathered to inquire of the Lord who should be first to fight Benjamin to avenge the rape and murder of a Judean concubine (Judg. 20:18). Bethel was the first stop on Elijah’s last journey before being taken up in the fiery chariot (2 Kgs. 2:3), and it was at Bethel that his successor Elisha expressed his anger at the children who called him an old bald head (v. 23). Jeroboam, the first king of the northern kingdom of Israel, established an Israelite sanctuary there (1 Kgs. 12:25-33) which the unnamed prophet from Judah (1 Kgs. 13) and Amos condemned. Finally, the city was destroyed by Joshua (2 Kgs. 23:15-20).

Excavations at modern Beitîn (172148) by William F. Albright and James L. Kelso imply a continuous occupation from ca. 2200 b.c.e. until Byzantine times. It was thoroughly burnt in the late 13th century (Late Bronze Age), but quickly rebuilt and prospered until the early Persian period. Bethel was only a small village following the Exile, but was rebuilt by Bacchides in the 2nd century b.c.e.

Some maintain that Bethel was primarily a sanctuary rather than a city. Albright, among others, sought ties with a West Semitic deity of the same name mentioned in the Elephantine papyri and possibly in the Ugaritic texts of Ras Shamra.

See Ai.

Bibliography. W. F. Albright, From the Stone Age to Christianity (New York, 1957); D. Livingston, “One Last Word on Bethel and Ai,” BARev 15/1 (1989): 11.

2. A town in the Negeb of Judah mentioned in lists of towns in 1 Sam. 30:27; Josh. 19:4 (Bethul); 1 Chr. 4:30 (Bethuel).

Robert T. Anderson