Bethuel
Encyclopedia
Bethuel in the Hebrew Bible
, was an Aramean man, the youngest son of Nahor
and Milcah
, the nephew of Abraham
, and the father of Laban
and Rebekah.
Bethuel was also a town in the territiory of the tribe of Simeon
, west of the Dead Sea
. Some scholars identify it with Bethul and Bethel
in southern Judah
, to which David
gives booty.
often attribute most of these verses to the Jahwist
source, and the remainder to the priestly source
.
Bethuel lived in Padan-aram, and is described as "Aramaean", although his Chaldea
n background is also indicated, as a descendant of Terah
. Bethuel's uncle Abraham sent his senior servant to Padan-aram to find a wife for his son Isaac
. By the well outside the city of Nahor
, in Aram-naharaim
, the servant met Bethuel’s daughter Rebekah. The servant told Rebekah’s household his good fortune in meeting Bethuel’s daughter, Abraham’s relative. Laban and Bethuel answered, “The matter was decreed by the LORD; we cannot speak to you bad or good. Here is Rebekah before you; take her and go, and let her be a wife to your master’s son, as the LORD has spoken.”
After meeting Abraham’s servant, Rebekah “ran and told all this to her mother’s household”, that Rebekah’s “brother and her mother said, ‘Let the maiden remain with us some ten days’”, and that “they sent off their sister Rebekah and her nurse along with Abraham’s servant and his men. And they blessed Rebekah and said to her, ‘O sister! May you grow into thousands of myriads.” Some scholars thus hypothesize that mention of Bethuel in Gen. 24:50 was a late addition to the preexisting story. Other scholars argue that these texts indicate that Bethuel was somehow incapacitated. Other scholars attribute the emphasis on the mother's role to a matralineal family structure.
A generation later, Isaac sent Jacob
back to Padan-aram to take a wife from among Bethuel’s granddaughters, rather than from among the Canaan
ites.
, Rabbi Isaac called Bethuel a wicked man. The midrash
identified Bethuel as a king.
In the Talmud, Rab in the name of Rabbi Reuben b. Estrobile cited Laban’s and Bethuel’s response to Abraham’s servant that “The matter was decreed by the Lord” as a proof text for the proposition that God destines a woman and a man for each other in marriage. Rabbi Joshua b. Rabbi Nehemiah in the name of Rabbi Hanina b. Isaac said that the decree with regard to Rebekah that Laban and Bethuel acknowledged came from Mount Moriah.
Noting that reports that the next day, Rebekah’s “brother and her mother said, ‘Let the maiden remain with us some ten days’” , the Rabbis asked: “Where was Bethuel?” The midrash concluded that Bethuel wished to hinder Rebekah’s marriage, and so he was smitten during the night. (Genesis Rabbah 60:12.) The Rabbis said that Abraham’s servant did not disclose Bethuel’s fate to Isaac.
In his retelling of the story, Josephus
reported that Rebekah told Abraham’s servant, “my father was Bethuel, but he is dead; and Laban is my brother; and, together with my mother, takes care of all our family affairs, and is the guardian of my virginity.”
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...
, was an Aramean man, the youngest son of Nahor
Nahor
Nahor, Nachor, or Naghor may refer to three different names in the Hebrew bible: two biblical people, who were both descendants of Shem, and one biblical place named after one of these descendants....
and Milcah
Milcah
Milcah was thedaughter of Haran and the wife of Nahor in Genesis.Milcah was a woman of ancient Mesopotamia and an ancestor of the patriarch Jacob. Milcah was born to Haran, who had another daughter, Iscah. This Haran seemed to be different from Haran, Abraham's brother, who had a son, Lot...
, the nephew of Abraham
Abraham
Abraham , whose birth name was Abram, is the eponym of the Abrahamic religions, among which are Judaism, Christianity and Islam...
, and the father of Laban
Laban (Bible)
Laban is the son of Bethuel, brother of Rebekah and the father of Leah and Rachel and Bilhah and Zilpah as described in the Book of Genesis. As such he is brother-in-law to Isaac and both father-in-law and uncle to Jacob...
and Rebekah.
Bethuel was also a town in the territiory of the tribe of Simeon
Tribe of Simeon
According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Simeon was one of the Tribes of Israel.Following the completion of the conquest of Canaan by the Israelite tribes after about 1200 BC, Joshua allocated the land among the twelve tribes...
, west of the Dead Sea
Dead Sea
The Dead Sea , also called the Salt Sea, is a salt lake bordering Jordan to the east and Israel and the West Bank to the west. Its surface and shores are below sea level, the lowest elevation on the Earth's surface. The Dead Sea is deep, the deepest hypersaline lake in the world...
. Some scholars identify it with Bethul and Bethel
Bethel
Bethel was a border city described in the Hebrew Bible as being located between Benjamin and Ephraim...
in southern Judah
Judea
Judea or Judæa was the name of the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel from the 8th century BCE to the 2nd century CE, when Roman Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina following the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt.-Etymology:The...
, to which David
David
David was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible and, according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, an ancestor of Jesus Christ through both Saint Joseph and Mary...
gives booty.
Hebrew Bible
The man Bethuel appears nine times in nine verses in the Hebrew Bible, all in Genesis. Adherents of the documentary hypothesisDocumentary hypothesis
The documentary hypothesis , holds that the Pentateuch was derived from originally independent, parallel and complete narratives, which were subsequently combined into the current form by a series of redactors...
often attribute most of these verses to the Jahwist
Jahwist
The Jahwist, also referred to as the Jehovist, Yahwist, or simply as J, is one of the sources of the Torah. It gets its name from the fact that it characteristically uses the term Yahweh for God in the book of Genesis...
source, and the remainder to the priestly source
Priestly source
The Priestly Source is one of the sources of the Torah/Pentateuch in the bible. Primarily a product of the post-Exilic period when Judah was a province of the Persian empire , P was written to show that even when all seemed lost, God remained present with Israel...
.
Bethuel lived in Padan-aram, and is described as "Aramaean", although his Chaldea
Chaldea
Chaldea or Chaldaea , from Greek , Chaldaia; Akkadian ; Hebrew כשדים, Kaśdim; Aramaic: ܟܐܠܕܘ, Kaldo) was a marshy land located in modern-day southern Iraq which came to briefly rule Babylon...
n background is also indicated, as a descendant of Terah
Terah
Terah or Térach is a biblical figure in the book of Genesis, son of Nahor, son of Serug and father of the Patriarch Abraham, all descendants of Shem. He is mentioned in the Hebrew bible and the New Testament.-Genesis narrative:...
. Bethuel's uncle Abraham sent his senior servant to Padan-aram to find a wife for his son Isaac
Isaac
Isaac as described in the Hebrew Bible, was the only son Abraham had with his wife Sarah, and was the father of Jacob and Esau. Isaac was one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites...
. By the well outside the city of Nahor
Nahor
Nahor, Nachor, or Naghor may refer to three different names in the Hebrew bible: two biblical people, who were both descendants of Shem, and one biblical place named after one of these descendants....
, in Aram-naharaim
Aram-Naharaim
Aram-Naharaim is a region that is mentioned five times in the Hebrew Bible. It is commonly identified with Nahrima mentioned in three tablets of the Amarna correspondence as a geographical description of the kingdom of Mitanni...
, the servant met Bethuel’s daughter Rebekah. The servant told Rebekah’s household his good fortune in meeting Bethuel’s daughter, Abraham’s relative. Laban and Bethuel answered, “The matter was decreed by the LORD; we cannot speak to you bad or good. Here is Rebekah before you; take her and go, and let her be a wife to your master’s son, as the LORD has spoken.”
After meeting Abraham’s servant, Rebekah “ran and told all this to her mother’s household”, that Rebekah’s “brother and her mother said, ‘Let the maiden remain with us some ten days’”, and that “they sent off their sister Rebekah and her nurse along with Abraham’s servant and his men. And they blessed Rebekah and said to her, ‘O sister! May you grow into thousands of myriads.” Some scholars thus hypothesize that mention of Bethuel in Gen. 24:50 was a late addition to the preexisting story. Other scholars argue that these texts indicate that Bethuel was somehow incapacitated. Other scholars attribute the emphasis on the mother's role to a matralineal family structure.
A generation later, Isaac sent Jacob
Jacob
Jacob "heel" or "leg-puller"), also later known as Israel , as described in the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, the New Testament and the Qur'an was the third patriarch of the Hebrew people with whom God made a covenant, and ancestor of the tribes of Israel, which were named after his descendants.In the...
back to Padan-aram to take a wife from among Bethuel’s granddaughters, rather than from among the Canaan
Canaan
Canaan is a historical region roughly corresponding to modern-day Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and the western parts of Jordan...
ites.
Rabbinic interpretation
In the TalmudTalmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....
, Rabbi Isaac called Bethuel a wicked man. The midrash
Midrash
The Hebrew term Midrash is a homiletic method of biblical exegesis. The term also refers to the whole compilation of homiletic teachings on the Bible....
identified Bethuel as a king.
In the Talmud, Rab in the name of Rabbi Reuben b. Estrobile cited Laban’s and Bethuel’s response to Abraham’s servant that “The matter was decreed by the Lord” as a proof text for the proposition that God destines a woman and a man for each other in marriage. Rabbi Joshua b. Rabbi Nehemiah in the name of Rabbi Hanina b. Isaac said that the decree with regard to Rebekah that Laban and Bethuel acknowledged came from Mount Moriah.
Noting that reports that the next day, Rebekah’s “brother and her mother said, ‘Let the maiden remain with us some ten days’” , the Rabbis asked: “Where was Bethuel?” The midrash concluded that Bethuel wished to hinder Rebekah’s marriage, and so he was smitten during the night. (Genesis Rabbah 60:12.) The Rabbis said that Abraham’s servant did not disclose Bethuel’s fate to Isaac.
In his retelling of the story, Josephus
Josephus
Titus Flavius Josephus , also called Joseph ben Matityahu , was a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War, which resulted in the Destruction of...
reported that Rebekah told Abraham’s servant, “my father was Bethuel, but he is dead; and Laban is my brother; and, together with my mother, takes care of all our family affairs, and is the guardian of my virginity.”