Word Study: Bayîth

Not only in Hebrew but also in other members of the Western group of Semitic languages — Aramaic, Arabic, Akkadian and Ugaritic — the word commonly translated as ‘house’ is bayîth. What the word actually signifies, however, is not merely a house but any kind of dwelling or habitation and, by extension, the occupier of such a dwelling or even the people connected with that occupier. It may, for example, be used of a palace (1 Kings 10.12), a prison (Jeremiah 37.15), a treasury (Isaiah 39.2) or a temple (Ezekiel 40). It may be used to describe a hall or a room in a large house (Esther 7.8). And it may be used of someone’s household (Genesis 35.2), someone’s descendants (Genesis 18.19; 2 Samuel 7.11) or even the nation itself — the house of Israel (Exodus 16.31).

As readers of Scripture, we do, of course, encounter the word all the time; and usually in a form very close to its Hebrew original. That is because it appears everywhere as part of Biblical place names. When so used, bayîth enters what is known as its ‘construct state’ and becomes bêth. It is then followed by some descriptive term. Jesus was a frequent visitor to the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus in the village of Bethany which means ‘House of Dates’, but the most familiar of all such place-names is surely bêth lechem where bêth means ‘house’ and lechem means ‘bread, grain or food’, thus giving us Bethlehem, the ‘House of Bread’ — an appropriate name for the birthplace of one who is himself the Bread of Life (John 6.35).

Bethlehem lies about five miles south of Jerusalem and, by the time the Son of God humbled himself to be born in one of its cattle stalls, it already possessed a long and distinguished history. In about 1700 BC, Rachel was buried there by Jacob on his way to Ephrath (Gen 35.19) and, about 500 years after that, the city became the centre of the tribe of Judah. A little later, during the time of the judges, Boaz lived there and in due course married Ruth (Ruth 4.13). (Note the prominent part played by the barley harvest in the story of Ruth and Boaz — Ruth 1.22 etc. Was it from such harvests that Bethlehem got its name?)

In about 1010 BC, David was born there to Jesse, a descendant of Boaz (1 Sam 17.12; 20.6) and there Samuel anointed him king (1 Sam 16.1, 13). Thus, in later times, the little town of Bethlehem bore the proud title ‘City of David’ which even the angel of the Lord was happy to use when he told the shepherds of the Saviour’s birth (Luke 2.11)!

There are many other references to Bethlehem in the Old Testament, of course, but the most notable of these is without doubt the Messianic

Micah 5.2. NIV "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times."

prophecy in Micah, so wonderfully fulfilled two thousand years ago. (Note. The ‘Bethlehem Ephrathah’ referred to by Micah and described in these paragraphs is the Bethlehem in the territory of Judah and must not be confused with another Bethlehem that once lay in Zebulunite territory about seven miles north-west of Nazareth — Josh 19.15.)

The other great bêth place-name is bêth ’el where bêth means ‘house’ and ’el means ‘God’ thus giving us Bethel, the ‘House of God’. With 65 references, it is, apart from Jerusalem, the most frequently-mentioned place in

Genesis 28.10-13, 16-19. NIV Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran. When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the LORD ... When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it." He was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven." Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. He called that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz.

the Old Testament. The story of how the name came to be given to the city formerly known as Luz is found in Genesis 28.

Bethel was situated just over ten miles north of Jerusalem at the point where the east-west road to the coastal plain intersected the great Road to Shur that ran from the far north all the way to Egypt in the south. There, in about 1900 BC, Abraham had camped and built an altar to the Lord (Gen 12.8). From there, when Abraham had returned from his visit to Egypt, Lot had viewed the fertile Jordan valley and, at Abraham’s invitation, chosen it as his territory (Gen 13.3, 10). Though named by Jacob, it remained a Canaanite royal city (Josh 12.16) until Joshua captured it in about 1240 BC (Josh 8.7) and allocated it to the tribe of Benjamin (Josh 18.22). Later, in the time of the judges, the ark was located in Bethel (Judges 20.18) and the town remained a sanctuary in the time of Samuel who paid it an annual visit (1 Sam 7.16; 10.3). Under the early monarchy, the city prospered and became an important centre of worship (1 Sam 10.3) until first Gibeah (under Saul) then Jerusalem (under David and Solomon) took precedence over it. But, from 931 BC, when the kingdom divided, Bethel again became prominent as the northern kingdom’s main sanctuary (1 Kings 12.26-33). In the sixth century BC, the city was destroyed by fire, though Jewish exiles returning from Persia settled there in the latter part of the fifth century BC (Nehemiah 11.31). The city’s modern name is Tell Beitin.

The remaining bêth place-names of the Old Testament are listed below with a suggestion as to what each might mean. It should be noted that, of these, Beth Aven (originally, a town to the east of Bethel) is used three times by Hosea (Hosea 4.15; 5.8 and 10.5) as a derogatory synonym for Bethel, describing what, two hundred years after the division of the kingdom, the House of God had become. Also listed are four additional bêth place-names that are mentioned in the New Testament alone.