Bethlehem

Bethlehem sits in the hill-country of Judah, six miles south of Jerusalem, and stands in the UPDV under several names: Beth-lehem, Beth-lehem-judah, Ephrath, and Ephrathah. The same village is the place where Rachel dies in childbirth, where Naomi returns from Moab, where Boaz takes Ruth to wife, where Jesse raises David, where the Philistine garrison stands during David's outlaw years, and which Micah names as the appointed source of the ruler in Israel. A second, smaller Bethlehem belongs to Zebulun in the north.

Names of the Town

The town carries several interchangeable designations. Genesis identifies it twice as the same place under different names: "I buried her there in the way to Ephrath (the same is Beth-lehem)" (Gen 48:7), and again in the narrative of Rachel's death, "And Rachel died, and was buried in the way to Ephrath (the same is Beth-lehem)" (Gen 35:19). The Judges narratives use the compound form Beth-lehem-judah for the town that lies within the family-territory of Judah (Jud 17:7; 19:1; 19:18). Psalm 132 names the surrounding district Ephrathah ("Look, we heard of it in Ephrathah," Ps 132:6), and Micah binds both names together: "But you, Beth-lehem Ephrathah, which are little to be among the thousands of Judah, out of you will one come forth to me who is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting" (Mic 5:2). Jesse, David's father, is called "an Ephrathite of Beth-lehem-judah" (1Sa 17:12), tying the personal name and the place name together.

Rachel's Death on the Way to Ephrath

The earliest event the UPDV attaches to the place is Rachel's burial. Jacob's company "journeyed from Beth-el; and there was still some distance to come to Ephrath: and Rachel travailed, and she had hard labor" (Gen 35:16). She dies in that labor and is buried "in the way to Ephrath (the same is Beth-lehem)" (Gen 35:19). Jacob himself recalls the loss to Joseph in Genesis 48:7: "when I came from Paddan, Rachel died to my sorrow in the land of Canaan in the way, when there was still some distance to come to Ephrath: and I buried her there in the way to Ephrath (the same is Beth-lehem)." The mother of Joseph and Benjamin lies on the road to the town, and a later prophet hears her voice over it: "A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her sons; she refuses to be comforted for her sons, because they are not" (Jer 31:15).

In the Days of the Judges

In the period before the kings, Bethlehem appears as the home of unsettled travelers. A Levite young man "out of Beth-lehem-judah, of the family of Judah," sojourns there and then leaves "to sojourn where he could find [a place]," reaching the hill-country of Ephraim and the house of Micah (Jud 17:7-9). Another Levite "took to himself a concubine out of Beth-lehem-judah" (Jud 19:1), and the same man later describes his journey: "We are passing from Beth-lehem-judah to the farther side of the hill-country of Ephraim... and I went to Beth-lehem-judah" (Jud 19:18).

The Setting of Ruth

The Ruth narrative is rooted in this same Bethlehem-judah. "A certain man of Bethlehem-judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons" (Ru 1:1). When Naomi returns with her Moabite daughter-in-law, she comes back to the town: "So they both went until they came to Bethlehem. And it came to pass, when they had come to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about them, and [the women] said, Is this Naomi?" (Ru 1:19). Ruth's pledge to Naomi is given on the road there: "Don't entreat me to leave you, and to return from following after you, for where you go, I will go; and where you lodge, I will lodge; your people will be my people, and your God my God" (Ru 1:16). She gleans in a Bethlehem field: "Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said to the reapers, Yahweh be with you⁺. And they answered him, Yahweh bless you" (Ru 2:4). The attendant identifies her as "the Moabite damsel who came back with Naomi out of the country of Moab" (Ru 2:6), reporting her request, "Let me glean, I pray you⁺, and gather after the reapers among the sheaves" (Ru 2:7). She "stuck by the maidens of Boaz, to glean to the end of barley harvest and of wheat harvest; and she dwelt with her mother-in-law" (Ru 2:23). At the threshing-floor she answers Naomi, "All that you say I will do" (Ru 3:5); Boaz answers her, "And now, my daughter, don't be afraid; I will do to you all that you say; for all the city of my people does know that you are a worthy woman" (Ru 3:11). The marriage is sealed at the gate of Bethlehem with the witness blessing: "Yahweh make the woman who has come into your house like Rachel and like Leah, who both built the house of Israel: and do worthily in Ephrathah, and be famous in Bethlehem" (Ru 4:11). "So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife; and he entered her, and Yahweh gave her conception, and she bore a son" (Ru 4:13). The genealogies that follow run through this child to David: "and Salmon begot Boaz from Rahab; and Boaz begot Obed from Ruth; and Obed begot Jesse" (Mt 1:5), and again "the [son] of Jesse, the [son] of Obed, the [son] of Boaz, the [son] of Sala, the [son] of Nahshon" (Lu 3:32).

Birthplace of David

Jesse the Ephrathite of Beth-lehem-judah (1Sa 17:12) raises eight sons in the town, of whom "David was the youngest; and the three eldest followed Saul" (1Sa 17:14). David recalls his shepherd-work in those fields: "Your slave was shepherding his father's sheep; and when a lion or a bear came and took a lamb out of the flock" (1Sa 17:34). It is in this household that Samuel anoints him: "And he sent, and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and had handsome eyes, and was good-looking. And Yahweh said, Arise, anoint him; for this is he. Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brothers: and the Spirit of Yahweh came mightily on David from that day forward" (1Sa 16:12-13).

The Philistine Garrison and the Well by the Gate

During David's stronghold years a Philistine occupying force holds Bethlehem: "And David was then in the stronghold; and the garrison of the Philistines was then in Beth-lehem" (2Sa 23:14). David's longing follows: "And David longed, and said, Oh that one would give me water to drink of the well of Beth-lehem, which is by the gate!" (2Sa 23:15). Three of his men break through to satisfy it: "And the three mighty men broke through the host of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well of Beth-lehem, that was by the gate, and took it, and brought it to David: but he would not drink of it, but poured it out to Yahweh" (2Sa 23:16). The episode belongs to the catalog of David's chief warriors — "These are the names of the mighty men whom David had: Jishbaal the Hachmonite, [of] the elite troops; the same was Adino the Eznite, against eight hundred slain at one time" (2Sa 23:8); "Now these are the chief of the mighty men whom David had, who showed themselves strong with him in his kingdom, together with all Israel, to make him king, according to the word of Yahweh concerning Israel" (1Ch 11:10) — set against the backdrop of perpetual Philistine pressure: "And there was intense war against the Philistines all the days of Saul: and when Saul saw any mighty man, or any son of valor, he took him to himself" (1Sa 14:52).

Rehoboam's Fortified City

After the kingdom divides, Bethlehem is among the cities Rehoboam fortifies for Judah's defense: "He built Beth-lehem, and Etam, and Tekoa" (2Ch 11:6).

The Promise of Micah

Micah names the village as the appointed source of a coming ruler: "But you, Beth-lehem Ephrathah, which are little to be among the thousands of Judah, out of you will one come forth to me who is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting" (Mic 5:2). The same association appears in the question raised in John's gospel: "Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes of the seed of David, and from Bethlehem, the village where David was?" (Jn 7:42).

A Second Bethlehem in Zebulun

A separate town of the same name belongs to the inheritance of Zebulun, listed among "Kattath, and Nahalal, and Shimeon, and Jiralah, and Bethlehem: twelve cities with their villages" (Jos 19:15). The judge Ibzan is associated with it: "And Ibzan died, and was buried at Beth-lehem" (Jud 12:10).

Rachel and Leah, Ephrathah and Bethlehem

The blessing at the gate of Bethlehem in Ruth 4:11 binds the town to the matriarchs whose lineage shaped Israel — Rachel of Genesis 29-35, beloved of Jacob (Gen 29:18) and the long-barren mother whom God remembered (Gen 30:22), and Leah her sister. The same town that received Rachel's body in Genesis 35 is the town invoked in Ruth as the place where her likeness should rise up again. Across the OT material the names Ephrath, Ephrathah, Beth-lehem, and Beth-lehem-judah converge on a single place, marked first by burial and then by birth.