One other person, place or group in the registry answers to the name Bethlehem. Every Bethlehem in the Bible
place · also Bethlehemite · Lehem · Ephrath · Ephrathah
Bethlehem
בֵּית לֶ֫חֶםΒηθλεέμ
- verses
- 53
- first named
- Genesis 35:16
- last named
- John 7:42
- feature
- settlement
- coordinates
- 31.70°N · 35.21°E
Bethlehem (OpenBible)
The gazetteer records one identification, and no competing one.
Description
Bethlehem in the text
Bethlehem, also known as Ephrath or Ephrathah, is a city located in the hill country of Judah, approximately 5 miles south of Jerusalem. The name Bethlehem means "house of bread," while Ephrath or Ephrathah means "fruitful."
Bethlehem is first mentioned in the Bible as the burial place of Rachel, Jacob's wife (Genesis 35:19; 48:7). It was also the hometown of Ibzan, one of the judges of Israel (Judges 12:8, 10).
During the period of the judges, a Levite from Bethlehem became a priest for Micah's idolatrous shrine (Judges 17:7-9). Later, a Levite from Bethlehem traveled to Gibeah, where his concubine was mistreated, leading to a war between the Israelites and the Benjamites (Judges 19:1-2, 18).
The book of Ruth is set primarily in Bethlehem, where Naomi and her family were from (Ruth 1:1-2, 19, 22). Boaz, who married Ruth, was also from Bethlehem (Ruth 2:4; 4:11).
Bethlehem is most famously known as the hometown of King David (1Sa.16.1, 18; 17:12, 15; 20:6, 28). It was in Bethlehem that Samuel anointed David as the future king of Israel (1Sa.16.4). During David's reign, the city was referred to as the "city of David" (Luke 2:4, 11).
Several of David's mighty men, including Abishai and Elhanan, were from Bethlehem (2Sa.23.24; 1Ch.11.26; 2Sa.21.19).
In the New Testament, Bethlehem is celebrated as the birthplace of Jesus Christ (Matthew 2:1, 5-6, 8, 16; Luke 2:4, 15; Jhn.7.42). The Magi visited Jesus in Bethlehem, and King Herod ordered the massacre of the innocents there in an attempt to kill the newborn king (Matthew 2:16).
The prophet Micah foretold that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), and this prophecy is cited in Matthew 2:5-6.
Relations
Direct connections
Every entity the graph places in a stated relation with this one, grouped by the kind of link. Each relation is authored once and its inverse derived, so both ends always agree. Rows marked “registry” come from the identity spine rather than from a verse, and a row marked “which bearer is the source’s decision” is one where the name could have meant more than one person. The last group is not a relation at all — it counts the events two entities stand in together.
The pattern
Where Bethlehem is named
Every book of the corpus in the order it is read, each as wide as the chapters it holds. A bar is the verses of that book which write the name, and the flat stretches are as much of the answer as the bars.
53 verses across 15 of 66 books; 51 write the name nowhere. Named in Genesis (3), Judges (8), Ruth (6), 1 Samuel (8), 2 Samuel (6), 1 Chronicles (8), 2 Chronicles (1), Ezra (1), Nehemiah (1), Psalms (1), Jeremiah (1), Micah (1), Matthew (5), Luke (2) and John (1).
Read it
Where to read it
Every verse of the text carried here that names this entity — 53, across 15 books. The name is written 60 times in them.
Onward
Where this page goes
Not the direct relations above — these are one hop further out, ranked so that a rare shared connection outweighs a common one. Descriptions by STEPBible TIPNR.
Where they appear
What happened here
Atlas's reading of each chapter this place appears in, in canonical order. One line per chapter, and each leads to the whole of it.
- Genesis 48Bethlehem is named as the place beside whose road Rachel was buried.
- Judges 17Bethlehem was the city in Judah from which the young Levite departed while seeking a place to settle.
- Judges 19Bethlehem is where the concubine returns to her father and where the Levite comes seeking her.
- Ruth 1Naomi and Ruth arrive in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest, stirring the town.
- Ruth 2Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and went into the fields where Ruth was gleaning.
- 1 Samuel 16Samuel came to Bethlehem, where the town elders trembled and Jesse’s sons were brought before him.
- 1 Samuel 20Bethlehem was given as the destination for David’s clan sacrifice and the reason for his absence from the king’s table.
- Micah 5Bethlehem Ephrathah is named as the small place from which the ruler comes.
Sources