BETHEL, a city to the west of Hai, upon the confines of the Tribes of Ephraim and Benjamin. The Patriarch Jacob flying from the anger of his brother Esau, and going into Mesopotamia, arrived at sun-set in a certain place, where he had a mind to pass the night, and taking one of the stones that lay there, he placed it under his head and fell asleep. While he was thus sleeping, he dreamed that he saw a ladder, the bottom whereof rested on the Earth, and the top of it reached to Heaven, and Angels ascending and descending by this ladder. Upon the upper part of it he saw the Lord, who said to him, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, I will give to you and your posterity, the land wherein you now are sleeping. Your generation shall be as numerous as the sea sand, and all nations shall be blessed in you, and in him who shall issue from you. I will be your Conductor wheresoever you go, and will bring you again into this land. Jacob waking after this vision, said, surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not; and he was afraid and said, how dreadful is this place? this is none other but the House of God, and this is the Gate of Heaven.
He rose up therefore early in the morning, and took the stone which he had made his bolster, and set it up for a pillar, poured oil upon the top of it, and called the name of that place Bethel, the name whereof before was Luz; that is to say, the wilderness, wherein he passed the night, he called Bethel; and this was near a village named Luz, which the Hebrews called Bethel, when they made themselves masters of the land of Canaan. Eusebius says1, that Bethel was twelve miles or four leagues from Jerusalem, in the way to Sichem.
The Rabbins tell us, that the stone on which Jacob rested his head at Bethel, was put into the sanctuary of the temple, which was built after the return from the Captivity; that the Ark of the Covenant was placed upon this stone; and that long after the ruin of the temple, the Jews had a custom of lamenting their calamities upon it. The Mahometans believe their temple of Mecca to be founded on this very stone, and have a great veneration for it. From Jacob’s pouring oil upon the stone of Bethel, came up the superstition of the ancients for the Betuli, which were stones anointed and consecrated to the memory of great men after their death. Sanchoniathon, or rather Porphyry, the Author of the Fragment which Eusebius has preserv’d2 under the name of Sanchoniathon, attributes the invention of these Betuli to Saturn. Damascius, who is cited in Photius’s Bibliotheca, says, that these Betuli were consecrated to the heathen Gods, to Saturn, the Sun, and other Deities. And Hesychius assures us, that the ancients called the stone Betulus, which Saturn swallowed, thinking to devour his son Jupiter. Asclepiades, who is cited by Damascius, relates many surprizing things of the Betuli dedicated to Venus of Aphek.
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