What does bethel represent in the bible

This tells us that there is no famine in the world. But, on the pathway of obedience to God, there are unavoidable times of famine. In the world there are no trials; but the pathway of obedience to God is full of trials.

This is the road that must be traveled in order to be raptured and receive power. Nevertheless, no matter how great the trials, there always is a way out with God. We should be faithful, and we should be watchful. If we are not watchful, we will find ourselves in Egypt with one fall! In Egypt there is no consecration and no drawing near to God. Living temporarily in Egypt is sinning temporarily. Living permanently in Egypt is even more pitiful.

Even though we can avoid trials in Egypt, there is no altar there. Some are like Abraham, who did not immediately go down to Egypt, but first went to the land of the south.

Their direction is toward Egypt, but they have not yet reached Egypt. This way of living in the land of the south is half with the world and half with God. However, in the land of the south, there is no altar and no fellowship.

Bethel signifies a place absolutely separated. It is not the worldly Egypt, nor is it the land of the south, which is a place mixed up with the world. There were two million people among the Israelites. In the exodus out of Egypt, God did not allow a single person to build an altar in Egypt. To serve God, they had to take a three-day journey from Egypt Exo. In Egypt they could have the Passover because God delivered them out of the punishment of sin, which is death. The passage which most clearly speaks of Jericho is in Joshua.

In it we see an entire account of the subduing of the city of Jericho. Joshua says, "And Joshua adjured them at that time, saying, Cursed be the man before the Lord, that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho. The Canaanites signify evil spirits, which are of the devil.

They are the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenlies mentioned in Ephesians We struggle against them. Thank you. Bethel is a place of new beginnings. In that sense, it still has a role in Christian hope and life today. We all have to start somewhere, and Bethel is a good place to start. It has given me more understanding on what God has laid in my heart. Hi Lee, thanks for the eye opener explainations about bethel, God bless u.

Please i will want u to explain this part for me. As explained in the article, spiritually Bethel represents a state of mind in which we agree to believe in God and follow God, but only if we see benefit in it for ourselves. As we become more spiritually mature, we must leave behind that way of thinking, and travel toward believing in God not for how it benefits us, but because we want to live a good, loving, and thoughtful life of service to God and to our fellow human beings.

I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you. For Jacob, the dream of a stairway to heaven was an experience of the presence of God and the angels, and a promise, right at the time that he was being exiled from his home, that he would one day return.

For us, it is a spiritual assurance that God and the angels are present with us here and now, even at our darkest times, and that we will one day return to live in the spiritual land that is our true home. In the Bible, the Land of Canaan or the Holy Land symbolizes spiritual life, as compared to the surrounding lands, which symbolize a more materialistic focus in life.

There will not be a literal stairway to heaven that we can climb from earth to heaven. Instead, there is a spiritual stairway that shows us the way to leave behind a merely materialistic life and become spiritual in our goals and focus in life.

And yes, I believe that Jesus Christ becomes that stairway for us, not just by his death, but by his life and his presence with us—as suggested in John Lee, thanks for offering your research and spirit-led wisdom here. I have a related question for you: when you said at some point it is necessary to leave your Bethel behind, do you think that means physically as well not just spiritually?

But your article implies that your Bethel is a place to eventually leave behind. Can you leave behind your Bethel spiritually growing and maturing but stay there physically? Can you explain more? My main point in the article on leaving Bethel behind was about our spiritual life.

We may start out bargaining with God the way Jacob did in Bethel. Where we are physically here on earth may or may not have a connection with our inner, spiritual life. Some people live in the some physical place all their lives, and continue to grow in their spiritual life and their walk with God. Others get stuck in a physical place, and need to move away from it in order to break their old habits and associations. About the physical place that you think of as your Bethel, it all depends on whether you can continue to grow spiritually while encountering God at that place.

If so, then the place itself will be transformed from Bethel to Shiloh to Jerusalem for you, just as the tabernacle of God moved from one town to another until Jerusalem was established as the place of worship and of meeting God for the Israelites. However, if you find at some point in your life that your physical Bethel is holding you back in your spiritual journey and your walk with the Lord, then you may need to leave it behind and find a new place where you can especially feel the presence of God.

Lee, I have another related question for you. That is a very good question, which deserves a full post of its own! Each of these places—Bethel, Shiloh, and Jerusalem—was a site for the Tabernacle, one following the other, after the Israelites entered the Holy Land to conquer it. The final place for the Tabernacle actually, a replacement Tabernacle built by David was in Jerusalem—where the Temple was later built by his son Solomon.

The Tabernacle may also have been set up in a few other places in the Holy Land. This means that each of these places represent the focus of our spiritual life and worship as we go through our journey of spiritual rebirth, or regeneration. Bethel also represents a time of spiritual battles and struggles, since the Tabernacle was in Bethel during the time of the initial conquest of the Holy Land. So in our spiritual life it represents a time of major battles and struggles to leave behind our old, selfish and worldly ways of life and focus our lives on God and spirit instead.

Shiloh was the location of the Tabernacle after the initial conquest of the Holy Land, during the time of Samuel. There were still some conflicts during this time, but for the most part the Israelites lived a more peaceful and settled life during the time the Tabernacle was in Shiloh. We still have our struggles, but we are now solidly settled into a Christian life. And yet, the time period during which the Tabernacle was in Shiloh was also a rather disorganized and decentralized period in the history of the Israelites.

There was no central authority, and no cohesiveness as a nation. The twelve tribes lived in their own areas, administered their own affairs, and generally faced the various local enemies on their own.

So this time in our spiritual development also represents a time when, although we have become active Christians, we are not very organized about it.

We just sort of face issues and conflicts whenever and wherever they crop up, in a reactionary manner. Jerusalem, where the Tabernacle was later established by David, and where Solomon built the Temple, represents the next stage in our spiritual journey of rebirth.

And yet, Jerusalem, as the capital established by King David, represents a much more focused form of Christian life. Under Saul, the first king of Israel, and especially under David, who finished the job of conquering the Holy Land, the Israelites were unified under a single leader, with a clear and unified goal. Having the Tabernacle, and later the Temple, in Jerusalem, then, represents a stage in our spiritual journey in which we have set clear spiritual goals for ourselves, and are pursuing those goals in a proactive, not reactionary, way.

Our life has purpose and direction. We may or may not see farther down the road that God is leading us on. But we know what task God has given us now, and we are intent on accomplishing that task. To put it in distinctly Christian terms, we have a clear and comprehensive idea of the teachings of Jesus as they apply to our lives this is the meaning of Jerusalem spiritually , and we have focused our lives on learning and living by those teachings in a very specific way.

Thank you so much for offering your wisdom and research. Thank you Lee for your narrative regarding the city of Bethel. That is so alarming to know this location is no longer significant. Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment.

I think that Bethel is a fine name for a church. So find the website i thank God for your gentleness and loving nature quality replying all question with blessed inputs and encouraging. Thank you for your beautiful and tranquil thoughts! I absolutely love this! Very clear and thought provoking. I am truly blessed, encouraged and motivated by your teaching Brother Lee, please let me know where I can sign up to learn more from you!

Thank you! Feel free to search around here for other articles you might enjoy! Interesting article that I came across while researching the connection between Bethel and the dwelling place of God in man. I was a bit concerned about your thought that Bethel… Which would translate into the divine reality of Bethel… Being left to fade away.

And it becomes the reality that we will dwell in eternally. This, for me, is the enlarged Bethel experience, and all that comes after this Bethel experience, comes out of our Bethel experience. Surely, as we see in scripture, our Bethel experience can become corrupted — one just need look around us at the horror Christianity is to see this corruption. And Paul even spoke to it when he said that all of Asia had turned away from him his ministry. Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

Most certainly God will allow — even cause — our Bethel experience to fade, should we pursue corruption after having it. But Bethel faded in the old testament… Under the old covenant. Even if for a time it seems that we reject the reality of our Bethel experience… The Reality of our Bethel experience will never leave us nor forsake us.

Because, given our Bethel experience, we are His. The higher up you climb on Mount Zion, the more you see. But the first step you took up this divine mountain will always be an integral part of your journey.

Because that first step was only possible in God. And God is eternal, having no beginning and no end. The reality of Bethel is God with man, and man with God. About Bethel fading, the meaning of this is that our early, relatively self-absorbed and deal-making relationship with God must fade away if we are to reach our full spiritual potential—which in the Old Testament is represented by Jerusalem, as you say, and which in the New Testament is represented by the New Jerusalem.

I have no desire to go back to any earlier stage of my life. Rather, I look forward to continuing my journey forward and, I hope, upward to a higher level of love, understanding, and relationship with God and with my fellow human beings.

Very insightful article. All the other comments also added greatly to deepen my view of the importance of what Beth-El was at that time. I also believe that Elizah was taken up by the chariots and horseman of heaven at Beth-El.

In the book of Kings it says he was told to go there and Elisha followed him there to Beth-El, who also received double portion of Elijahs spirit in that very same place. About Elijah, though he passed through Bethel on his way to the place where he was taken up to heaven, that did not happen in Bethel, but on the other side of the Jordan, across from Jericho. You can read the story in 2 Kings Thanks Lee for watering the thirst sheep of God specially from countries where Bible study is a dream for the people like me.

Bethel represents disobedience. Instead of traveling to Jerusalem as instructed, the king erected shrines in Bethel and Dan. So did he in Bethel, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made: and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made. Thanks for your comment. There are a lot of comments here. Apparently I let that one slip past without replying to it. Or is there any sign or tourist sign on that holy place that we can see till now.

Is that bethel is the bethlehem now? Thank you so much. Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment and question. It is very unlikely that a stone that Jacob set up as a pillar nearly four thousand years ago is still known to us today. Oh, and Bethel is not the same city as Bethlehem. Do you think it possible that Bethel was the true location of the Temple and actually where the City of David was located? Thanks for the inciteful read!

But of course, these are the physical, historical Tabernacle and Temple. Much more important are the spiritual Tabernacle and Temple, which are to be built within our own heart. The Temple that we build in our heart is the place we prepare within ourselves for the Lord to be the central presence in our life.

I turned my life over to God March and since then have slowly been growing in the Lord. Your description of Bethel is exactly what God has told me my Bethel is to be. A place to draw others onto him, that otherwise would not come to know him and form a relationship with the Lord that leads them into a church for greater leading and maturity.

About changing your name, that would be a personal decision that only you can make. However, it is not a bad thing to be reminded of where our connection with God started, even if we may over time mature as Christians beyond the infant faith that we had when we first accepted Christ into our lives.

Christ the rock. And I know of no scripture verse that tells us that our relationship with Christ Jesus must fade away. And no, I am not saying that Bethel is more important than Jerusalem. Both are important, as the reality of both are Christ Jesus.

Scripture tells us that God created the heavens and the earth, but He is pleased to dwell with man Isa. Scripture tells us that we as believers are the temple of the Holy Spirit 1 Cor. Scripture tells us that God is our dwelling place for all generations, and we love to hide and abide in Him as He abides in us Psa. And scripture tells us that the house of God is constituted with God and man mingled together as one… In His house God expresses Himself in humanity, and here both God and man find mutual and eternal satisfaction and rest Psa.

And yet we know that it is the new Jerusalem that John saw coming down out of heaven, at the center of which is God. On the one hand we have Bethel, the house of God, which is the church… And on the other hand we have the new Jerusalem, that which comes down out of heaven and has God at its center.

Bethel, the church, becomes the new Jerusalem, the bride… The eternal Bethel, the house of God, the mutual dwelling place of God and man, where man dwells in God and God dwells not only with man but in man. And we should not think that we are above any aspect of our Lord, and fall into the opinion that one aspect should be forgotten… Less the Lord see that we need to experience it again as a reminder of who He is to us.

Its quality will no longer be that of Bethel, but of Jerusalem, and eventually of the new Jerusalem. But Jerusalem appears extensively in the New Testament. And the final vision of the New Testament, and of the Bible as a whole, is of the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. Metaphorically, this means that the early relationship that we had with Christ, symbolized by Bethel, is replaced by a more mature relationship, symbolized by Jerusalem, and finally by the new Jerusalem.

Simply so, where is the biblical Bethel? Bethel , ancient city of Palestine, located just north of Jerusalem. Originally called Luz and in modern times Baytin, Bethel was important in Old Testament times and was frequently associated with Abraham and Jacob.

Likewise, where did the name Bethel come from? From an Old Testament place name meaning "house of God" in Hebrew. This was a town north of Jerusalem, where Jacob saw his vision of the stairway. It is occasionally used as a given name. The Welsh name Bethal is a patronymic surname created from the Welsh personal name Ithel. The surname Bethal features the distinctive Welsh patronymic prefix "ab" or "ap," which mean "son of. Bethel god Bethel meaning in Hebrew and Phoenician and Aramaic 'House of El' or 'House of God ' is seemingly the name of a god or an aspect of a god in some ancient middle-eastern texts dating to the Assyrian, Persian and Hellenistic periods.

Last Updated: 22nd May, Clemence Erize Professional. What is the spiritual significance of Bethel? At first, it was a place where Jacob dreamt of seeing angels and God, which he therefore named Bethel , which means "House of God. Tarsila Govindasvamy Professional. What is the difference between Bethel and El Bethel?

Bethel is referred to as both Bethel and Luz throughout the Old Testament, depending on where it is referenced and in what context. See Genesis , , , etc. Betisa Quesney Professional. What does Luz mean in Hebrew? Luz is the ancient name of a royal Canaanite city, connected with Bethel. It is debated among scholars whether Luz and Bethel represent one and the same town - the former the Canaanite name, and the latter the Hebrew name - or whether they were distinct places in proximity to each other.

Abed Yukhma Explainer. What does a ladder symbolize in the Bible? It represents progress, ascenscion, and spiritual passage through the levels of initiation. In the Bible , Jacob's ladder established contact between man and God, and there are seven rungs on the ladder of virtue.

Uberney Eckmayer Explainer. Where did Jacob wrestle with God? He encounters a "man" who proceeds to wrestle with him until daybreak. In the end, Jacob is given the name "Israel" and blessed, while the "man" refuses to give his own name.