Hebrew word · H416

אֵל בֵּית־אֵל

'el

El-bethel

A compound name: 'El of Beth-El', i.e. 'the God of Bethel' or 'God of the House of God'. El is the oldest common Semitic word for 'god'. In Canaanite texts from Ugarit it is also the name of the head of the gods.

Appears 3 times in 1 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

§ El Bethel = "The God of the House of God"

the place where God revealed Himself to Jacob

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of Genesis 35:7

Range of meaning

A compound name: 'El of Beth-El', i.e. 'the God of Bethel' or 'God of the House of God'. El is the oldest common Semitic word for 'god'. In Canaanite texts from Ugarit it is also the name of the head of the gods. In Genesis it is used freely for Israel's God, combined with places and qualities: El Elyon (14:18), El Roi (16:13), El Shaddai (17:1), El Olam (21:33), El Elohe-Israel (33:20).

Against the English

BSB, KJV and WEB transliterate it ('El-bethel'), which hides the meaning from readers. YLT translates it as 'the God of Bethel'. Some modern versions add a footnote explaining it.

Used elsewhere in the period

Gen 31:13 has the same phrase as God's own self-description: 'I am the God of Bethel' (ha'El Beit-El). The ancient versions (LXX Βαιθηλ, Vulgate Domus Dei, Peshitta) give only 'Bethel', so either they read a shorter text or they simplified it. Much later, 'Bethel' appears as the name of a god in Jer 48:13, in the Aramaic papyri from the Jewish colony at Elephantine in Egypt (5th century BC), and in Assyrian treaty texts. Whether that has any bearing on this verse is disputed.

Where it appears

Genesis · 3

  1. Genesis 35:7 אֵ֖ל בֵּֽית־ אֵ֑ל El, Beth-, -el

    There Jacob built an altar, and he called that place El-bethel, because it was there that God had revealed Himself to Jacob as he fled from his brother.

    Here: The first part of the new name: 'El', the oldest common Semitic word for God, also used as a divine name. It puts the God himself in front of the place-name Bethel.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.