Torah Talk for Vayetze 5781 Gen 28:10-32:3 Jacob Left Beer-Sheba

Torah Talk for Vayetze 5781 Gen 28:10-32:3

Gen. 28:10 Jacob left Beer-sheba, and set out for Haran. 11 He came upon a certain place and stopped there for the night, for the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of that place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. 12 He had a dream; a stairway was set on the ground and its top reached to the sky, and angels of God were going up and down on it. 13 And the LORD was standing beside him and He said, “I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac: the ground on which you are lying I will assign to you and to your offspring. 14 Your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you and your descendants. 15 Remember, I am with you: I will protect you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

Gen. 28:16 Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the LORD is present in this place, and I did not know it!” 17 Shaken, he said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the abode of God, and that is the gateway to heaven.” 18 Early in the morning, Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. 19 He named that site Bethel;c but previously the name of the city had been Luz. c I.e., “house of God.”

Gen. 12:8 From there [Abraham] moved on to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and he built there an altar to the LORD and invoked the LORD by name. Gen. 13:3 And he proceeded by stages from the Negeb as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been formerly, between Bethel and Ai.

Gen. 31:13 I am the God of Beth-el, where you anointed a pillar and where you made a vow to Me. Now, arise and leave this land and return to your native land.’”

Gen. 35:1 God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel and remain there; and build an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.” … Gen. 35:6 Thus Jacob came to Luz—that is, Bethel—in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him. 7 There he built an altar and named the site El-bethel,a for it was there that God had revealed Himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother. a “The God of Bethel.”

Gen. 35:9 God appeared again to Jacob on his arrival from Paddan-aram, and He blessed him … [his name is changed] … 14 and Jacob set up a pillar at the site where He had spoken to him, a pillar of stone, and he offered a libation on it and poured oil upon it. 15 Jacob gave the site, where God had spoken to him, the name of Bethel.

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Anchor Bible Dictionary The name of two places mentioned in the .[ ֵבּ לֵאְתי BETHEL (PLACE) [Heb bêtʾēl Hebrew Bible. The name means “house of God.”

A NW Semitic deity whose presence in the .[ ֵבּ לֵאְתי BETHEL (DEITY) [Heb bêtʾēl Near East may be traced for more than a millennium, with its greatest attestation in the military colony of Syene-Elephantine in Egypt during the 6th and 5th centuries B.C. See ELEPHANTINE PAPYRI. The divine Bethel may be found in one personal name in the Hebrew Bible (Zech 7:2); other alleged biblical references to the divinity are dubious. … The name Bethel may be applied to three diverse entities: (1) the town some 10 miles N of Jerusalem, prominent in all biblical periods, and the seat of one of the most important religious centers of the N kingdom of Israel (1 Kgs 12:26–33; Amos 7:13); (2) the name of a NW Semitic deity who is identified as one of the sons of Uranus in the Phoenician history of Sanchuniathon (Baumgarten 1981: 15) and became prominent in the Egyptian-Syene papyri of the 6th–5th centuries B.C.; and (3) the name of a stone erroneously conceived as endowed with the vital force by Kronos (Baumgarten 1981: 15, where the text of Philo Byblos is presented). Such was termed baitýlion (neuter sing.).

BAETYL, N. Etymology: < Latin bætulus, < Greek βαίτυλος. A sacred meteoric stone. Also in Greek-Latin form baitylos, bætylos, -us; also bæˈtylion (plural baetylia) (Greek βαιτύλιον).

1854 Encycl. Brit. IV. 361/2 These bætylia were the objects of much veneration among the ancient heathens. 1889 W. R. Smith Lect. Relig. of Semites 193 The use of baetylia, or small portable stones to which magical life was ascribed.

Jer. 48:13 And Moab shall be shamed because of Chemosh, as the House of Israel were shamed because of Bethel

Benjamin D. Sommer, The Bodies of God], 49 Biblical texts indicate that divine embodiment was possible not only in wood but also in stone. One case is found in … Genesis 28.16-19, 31.13, and 35.14 … in Genesis 35.14-15 Jacob set up a stele, poured wine and oil on it, and called the place a betyl … Is it possible that, in these passages, anointing transforms the stele and thus functions in a manner comparable to the mīs pī ritual in Mesopotamia?