Place · City
Bethlehem
Also known as Bethlehem Ephrathah, Ephrath
Named in 32 verses across 12 books, first in Genesis 35:19.
In these stories
In the Bible
The first 10 of 32 verses, in Bible order. Text from the Berean Standard Bible; verse numbers follow the KJV.
Genesis
- Genesis 35:19
So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem).
- Genesis 48:7
Now as for me, when I was returning from Paddan, to my sorrow Rachel died along the way in the land of Canaan, some distance from Ephrath. So I buried her there beside the road to Ephrath” (that is, Bethlehem).
Judges
- Judges 12:8
After Jephthah, Ibzan of Bethlehem judged Israel.
- Judges 12:10
Then Ibzan died, and he was buried in Bethlehem.
Ruth
- Ruth 1:19
So Naomi and Ruth traveled until they came to Bethlehem. When they entered Bethlehem, the whole city was stirred because of them, and the women of the city exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi?”
- Ruth 1:22
So Naomi returned from the land of Moab with her daughter-in-law Ruth the Moabitess. And they arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.
- Ruth 2:4
Just then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and said to the harvesters, “The LORD be with you.” “The LORD bless you,” they replied.
- Ruth 4:11
“We are witnesses,” said the elders and all the people at the gate. “May the LORD make the woman entering your home like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you be prosperous in Ephrathah and famous in Bethlehem.
1 Samuel
- 1 Samuel 16:4
So Samuel did what the LORD had said and went to Bethlehem. When the elders of the town met him, they trembled and asked, “Do you come in peace?”
- 1 Samuel 17:15
but David went back and forth from Saul to tend his father’s sheep in Bethlehem.
Events here
Events the dataset sets at Bethlehem. Dates follow its Ussher–Jones reckoning (one of several traditional counts), not established history.
- c. 4 BCWise Men Visit Jesus
- c. 4 BCHerod slays male children
- c. 4 BCBirth of Jesus
Dictionary
From Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897), as attached to this record by Theographic. Its geography and “modern” descriptions date from the 1890s. Easton wrote in 1897, and some of his views are now debated.
Read Easton’s entry
A city in the “hill country” of Judah. It was originally called Ephrath (Gen. 35:16, 19; 48:7; Ruth 4:11). It was also called Beth-lehem Ephratah (Micah 5:2), Beth-lehem-judah (1 Sam. 17:12), and “the city of David” (Luke 2:4). It is first noticed in Scripture as the place where Rachel died and was buried “by the wayside,” directly to the north of the city (Gen. 48:7). The valley to the east was the scene of the story of Ruth the Moabitess. There are the fields in which she gleaned, and the path by which she and Naomi returned to the town. Here was David’s birth-place, and here also, in after years, he was anointed as king by Samuel (1 Sam. 16:4-13); and it was from the well of Bethlehem that three of his heroes brought water for him at the risk of their lives when he was in the cave of Adullam (2 Sam. 23:13-17). But it was distinguished above every other city as the birth-place of “Him whose goings forth have been of old” (Matt. 2:6; comp. Micah 5:2). Afterwards Herod, “when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men,” sent and slew “all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under” (Matt. 2:16, 18; Jer. 31:15).
Bethlehem bears the modern name of Beit-Lahm, i.e., “house of flesh.” It is about 5 miles south of Jerusalem, standing at an elevation of about 2,550 feet above the sea, thus 100 feet higher than Jerusalem.
There is a church still existing, built by Constantine the Great (A.D. 330), called the “Church of the Nativity,” over a grotto or cave called the “holy crypt,” and said to be the “stable” in which Jesus was born. This is perhaps the oldest existing Christian church in the world. Close to it is another grotto, where Jerome the Latin father is said to have spent thirty years of his life in translating the Scriptures into Latin.