Just north of Jerusalem, in the hills of Judea and Samaria, lies one of the most important ancient biblical sites in Israel: Bethel, known today as Beit El.
Ancient Bethel has been an important site in Israel since at least the time of Abraham and Jacob. In Genesis 13 Abraham is said to have set up his camp near Bethel while traveling through the land. Later on, in Genesis 28, Jacob stopped at Bethel on his journey to Haran and had a dream in which a ladder reached to heaven with the angels of God going up and down on it. Upon waking from the dream, Jacob named the place Bethel, because it meant “house of God.”
In this Route 60 film, our Israel Guys team visits Bethel in Israel to explore the geography, Scripture, archaeology, and modern-day community of Beit El. From Abraham’s altar and Jacob’s dream to the remains of ancient Bethel and the Jewish families living there today, this is one of the most important biblical sites in the heartland of Israel.
Bethel in Israel is most famous as the spot where Jacob had a dream involving a ladder extending all the way to heaven, on which angels of God were seen going up and down. When Jacob woke up from the dream he said, “Certainly the Lord is here,” and then named the place Bethel, since the name means “house of God.”
Before Jacob, Abraham had already traveled through this same area. Genesis 13 records that Abraham journeyed as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai. There, Abraham called on the name of the Lord.
For thousands of years, this ridge in the hills of Samaria has carried the memory of those biblical events. Today, Beit El is both an ancient biblical site and a modern Jewish community in Judea and Samaria.
This page explores:
Bethel, also known as Beit El, is situated approximately 11 miles north of Jerusalem in the hills of Samaria and sits at an altitude of 2,822 feet above sea level. It is close to Highway 60, the ancient north-south road that links together many of the most important biblical sites in Israel.
Key geographic points:
Highway 60 follows the central mountain spine of Israel. In ancient times, this road connected places like Shechem, Bethel, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron, and Beersheba — the same Road of the Patriarchs that Abraham, Jacob, and generations after them would have traveled. It’s the same route our team follows in the film on Elon Moreh, just a bit further north up the ridge.
Even though Bethel is technically part of the tribal portion assigned to Benjamin, it is situated at the northern end of Benjamin’s territory, close to the region of Ephraim. This is the reason why Bethel later became such an important place in the story of the northern kingdom of Israel.
The first major biblical mention of Bethel comes in Genesis 13, as Abraham returns from Egypt and travels through the land.
“Then Abram set out from Egypt, together with his wife and all that he had, and Lot as well, towards the south. Abram was very wealthy in cattle, in silver and in gold. From the south he journeyed as far as Bethel, to the place which had been the site of his tent at first, between Bethel and Ai, to the place of the altar that he had made there originally. And there Abram called upon the name of the Lord.”
This means Bethel was already significant in the days of Abraham. Before Jacob ever had his dream there, Abraham had pitched his tent near Bethel and built an altar in the area. This was a stop on the Road of the Patriarchs and part of Abraham’s journey through the land God promised to his descendants.
Biblically, Bethel is mentioned as being the same location as Luz, an ancient Canaanite city. The first mention of the site in relation to Luz comes in the story of Jacob as he journeys toward Haran to find his mother’s brother, Laban — probably the most well-known of all the biblical events recorded at Beit El.
Genesis 28 records that Jacob came to “a certain place” and stayed there for the night because the sun had set. He took one of the stones of that place, put it near his head, and lay down to sleep.
That night, Jacob dreamed of a ladder set up on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven. The angels of God were ascending and descending on it. Then the Lord stood above it and repeated the promise first given to Abraham and Isaac.
“I am the Lord God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants. Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land.”
When Jacob woke up, he said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” He then declared, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!”
Jacob rose early in the morning, took the stone he had used, set it up as a pillar, poured oil on it, and called the name of that place Bethel. Genesis 28:19 adds that “the name of that city had been Luz previously.”
The Hebrew name Bethel (or Beit El) means “house of God.”
Bethel is one of the most important biblical locations in the land of Israel because it ties together several stories and major themes:
The same promise which had been made to Abraham and Isaac was given to Jacob. God said that the land on which he was lying would be given to him and to his descendants, and that his descendants would go out to the west, the east, the north and the south, bringing blessing upon all the families of the earth through his offspring.
The promise was not vague; it had been made in a particular place, was connected to a particular piece of land, and was passed on through a particular family.
Since Jacob called the site “the house of God” and “the gate of heaven,” some scholars have speculated that the event might have taken place at the Temple Mount or Mount Moriah in Jerusalem.
The traditional identification, however, connects the biblical account directly with ancient Bethel, or Beit El, north of Jerusalem. Genesis 28 itself says Jacob called the name of the place Bethel, while the previous name of the city was Luz.
This is one reason ancient Bethel remains such a compelling biblical site. The text itself preserves both names: Luz, the earlier Canaanite city, and Bethel, the name Jacob gave after his encounter with God.
Some have suggested that ancient Beit El may have been one of the temporary resting places of the Tabernacle during the time of the judges, not long after the children of Israel entered the land of Canaan.
There is a large cutout at the archaeological site which closely resembles the site at Shiloh, the location where the Tabernacle remained for 369 years, and the measurements too seem to have been appropriate for accommodating the Tabernacle structure.
It’s possible this history is what prompted Jeroboam to set up one of his replacement worship sites here. Even if that’s not the case, Bethel would still have carried major significance for the people of Israel as the site where Jacob saw his vision and received the promise of the land.
Another possible clue appears in the story of Israel’s war with the tribe of Benjamin:
“Then the children of Israel arose and went up to the house of God to inquire of God. They said, ‘Which of us shall go up first to battle against the children of Benjamin?'”
Since the Hebrew word Beit El literally translates as “house of God,” there is in this case a certain degree of ambiguity. The expression may refer to the place known as Bethel or it might just mean that the people went up to the house of God, which in general was located at Shiloh at that time.
Either way, the connection is worth noting. Bethel was not a minor location. It sat in a strategic and spiritually significant part of Israel’s heartland.
A different significant event described in the Bible at Beit El occurs after Jacob has returned to the land of Israel following the period he spent with Laban in Padan Aram.
Genesis 35 records God telling Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there; and make an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you fled from the face of Esau your brother.”
Jacob followed this instruction and went to Luz, which is Bethel, in the land of Canaan; at that place he built an altar and named it El Bethel since it was there that God had appeared to him when he had fled from Esau.
This chapter also records the burial of Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, below Bethel under a terebinth tree. The place was called Allon Bachuth.
Then God appeared to Jacob again, blessed him, and confirmed his new name: “Your name is Jacob; your name shall not be called Jacob anymore, but Israel shall be your name.” God then repeated the promise: “The land which I gave Abraham and Isaac I give to you; and to your descendants after you I give this land.”
Jacob set up a pillar of stone in the place where God spoke with him, poured a drink offering on it, poured oil on it, and called the place Bethel.
The importance of this second account of Bethel lies in the fact that it verifies the promise stated in Genesis 28 — Jacob had left the land, returned to it, and then once again received the assurance that the land would be possessed by his descendants.
Later in Israel’s history, after the kingdom was divided, Jeroboam became king over the northern tribes of Israel. He feared that if the people continued going up to Jerusalem for the pilgrimage festivals, their hearts would return to the house of David.
So Jeroboam set up two alternative worship sites: one in Bethel and one far to the north in Dan. At each site, he erected a golden calf.
Bethel’s location made sense for Jeroboam’s purposes. It was near the southern border of the northern kingdom and not far north of Jerusalem. If his goal was to keep the northern tribes from making pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Bethel was a strategic choice.
But spiritually, it was disastrous.
I Kings 13 records a prophet of God coming from Judah to Bethel shortly after Jeroboam had established his altar there. Jeroboam was standing by the altar to burn incense when the prophet cried out against it:
“O altar, altar! Thus says the Lord: ‘Behold, a child, Josiah by name, shall be born to the house of David; and on you he shall sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn incense on you, and men’s bones shall be burned on you.'”
The prophet also gave a sign, saying the altar would split apart and the ashes would pour out. When Jeroboam stretched out his hand and ordered the prophet arrested, his hand withered and the altar split apart, just as the prophet had said.
Owing to this shift away from worship centered on Jerusalem and the house of David, the northern tribes became involved in idolatry, which in the end caused greater separation from the Kingdom of Judah and resulted in their exile roughly two hundred years later.
The place known as Bethel, which had been the site where Jacob had declared the presence of God, afterwards became the location in which false worship was set up as a counter to that at Jerusalem.
The region near Beit El is now rocky and dotted with thorn bushes, shrubs, and from time to time an olive tree. However, during biblical times the area seemed to have been much more densely wooded.
In II Kings 2, the prophet Elisha is going up to Bethel when some youths come from the city and mock him. The passage says that two female bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of them.
That detail is easy to miss, but it tells us something about the landscape. There were once dense forests in this part of Israel, and bears were common enough in the area to appear in the biblical account.
Other passages of the Bible also indicate that the central mountain region was heavily wooded. In Joshua 17 the descendants of Joseph complain that there is not sufficient space within their land and Joshua tells them to clear the forest and make room for themselves. Another instance of the density of the woods in the area is given in II Samuel 18: when Absalom was rebelling, the battle took place in the woods of Ephraim, and the text states that the woods devoured more people that day than the sword did. Absalom himself was caught by the head in the thick branches of a large terebinth tree.
In the modern day, it can be hard to imagine this area as thickly wooded. But as the Jewish people return to the land and agriculture expands, there are places where wild trees and shrubs are beginning to grow again, just as the prophet Ezekiel foretold:
“But you, O mountains of Israel, you shall shoot forth your branches and yield your fruit to My people Israel, for they are about to come. For indeed I am for you, and I will turn to you, and you shall be tilled and sown.”
At ancient Bethel today, many archaeological remains are still almost untouched.
Among the points of interest are large caves in the hillside that were clearly used as burial sites. Tombs of this sort were a common type of burial site for ancient Israelites — in the biblical account, the patriarchs themselves were laid to rest in the cave of Machpelah in Hebron. By the Second Temple period, carved stone tombs and ossuaries were also a common Jewish form of burial.
The archaeological site at Beit El has not been developed to quite the same extent as a number of other biblical sites in Israel. As a result, there is still a great deal of potential for new discoveries to be made. The remains indicate the presence of various layers of history which have been preserved for centuries and are waiting for a more thorough study.
At the site of Beit El are the remains of a church that dates to the time of the Crusades.
According to fourth-century Christian sources, including Eusebius and Jerome, there was already a church and a Christian community in Beit El in their time. The structure still visible today appears to have passed through both Muslim and Christian hands at various points. It’s believed to have originally been a mosque dating back roughly 1,200 years. Christians later built a church up against the original structure, and around 400 years ago a sheikh was buried at the site as well.
The building has fallen into disrepair and isn’t well maintained, but its presence still points to the historical significance of Bethel. Different peoples and empires recognized that this place mattered.
There is also at the archaeological site a huge oak tree which is said to be the oldest oak tree in the land of Israel and which is believed to be more than 1,000 years old.
It is rare to find old trees in Israel due to the damage which the land suffered during the period of the Ottoman Empire, and when such trees do occur they usually indicate that the area had been respected and preserved as a significant site.
It is one feature more that gives Beit El its distinctive character. Although the site is not often visited by tourists and is not well known, it has great potential for discovery, preservation, and development. The country has recently enacted legislation which offers funding and supervision for the development of heritage sites all over Judea and Samaria. It is to be hoped that Beit El will be one of the sites that are extended and protected in the coming months.
The modern community of Beit El is a religious Jewish community in Samaria. It was established in 1977 by the Gush Emunim movement after the site was turned over to civilian use. Like many Jewish communities in Samaria, the area was originally held as a military outpost after Israel gained control of Judea and Samaria during the Six-Day War in 1967.
Today, Beit El is home to over 6,300 residents. Economic enterprises in the community include:
One of the prominent features of the community is a large water tower on the hill overlooking the tel site. The water tower also functions as an observation deck, and from the top, visitors can take in commanding views of the surrounding area — on a clear day, it’s possible to see all the way to Mount Hermon in Israel’s north, to Tel Aviv in the west, to the Jordanian mountains of Gilad in the east, and as far south as the Gaza Strip.
Although the modern Jewish community at Beit El dates back only about 50 years, the Jewish connection to this place goes back thousands of years. The archaeology at the biblical site has barely been touched, and future discoveries may reveal many more layers of the story preserved here.
The name Bethel in the Bible is derived from Beit El, which translates as “house of God.” In English versions of the Bible the name is generally given as Bethel. Nowadays, in modern Hebrew and in Israel, the site and the community are referred to as Beit El.
Bethel is situated in the hills of Samaria and lies within the area which is generally known internationally as the “West Bank.” Historically and in the Bible this region is called Judea and Samaria. The term “West Bank” did not appear until the mid-20th century, when Jordan took over the territory west of the Jordan River after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. On the other hand, the names Judea and Samaria have been in use for thousands of years and are directly connected with the biblical history of Israel.
The Hebrew meaning of the place is retained by using the name Beit El, while using Bethel enables readers to identify the site as one mentioned in Scripture. Both names refer to the same ancient location — the place which Jacob called the house of God.
For believers who read Genesis as both historical and covenantal, Bethel is one of the most important places in the biblical story of Israel.
Here, Jacob saw the ladder reaching to heaven. Here, God repeated the promise first given to Abraham and Isaac. Here, Jacob learned that God would bring him back to the land. Here, he set up a pillar, poured oil on it, and named the place Bethel.
The promise wasn’t disconnected from geography. God told Jacob, “The land which I gave Abraham and Isaac I give to you; and to your descendants after you I give this land.” That promise was spoken in a place that still exists today.
The site of ancient Bethel reminds us that the stories in our Bible didn’t happen in a vague spiritual or storybook world. They unfolded on real hills, along real roads, beside real cities, in the land of Israel. And from the modern-day Jewish community of Beit El blossoming to the treasure trove of archaeological finds yet to be discovered, the story of ancient Bethel continues to unfold today.
Bethel is located about 11 miles north of Jerusalem in the hills of Samaria, near Highway 60.
Bethel is where Abraham built an altar and where Jacob dreamed of a ladder reaching to heaven, later receiving God’s promise of the land and a new name, Israel.
Bethel is where God repeated His covenant promise to Jacob and where the northern kingdom of Israel later set up idolatrous worship under Jeroboam, making it one of the most significant — and most contested — sites in biblical history.
Yes. Genesis 28 records that Bethel was previously known as Luz, the name of the Canaanite city that stood there before Jacob renamed it.
It’s possible. A large cutout area at the archaeological site closely resembles the tabernacle site at Shiloh, though the biblical text is not fully conclusive on this point.
Geographically, Bethel is located in the area often referred to internationally as the West Bank, while biblically and historically it is part of Samaria.
Yes. The archaeological site and the modern community of Beit El can be visited, though the site remains far less developed than other biblical locations like Shiloh.
Enjoyed this article? Check out our films and stories on other landmarks along the same biblical highway: Elon Moreh, Biblical Shiloh, and Har Bracha.
Bethel is just one of dozens of biblical sites scattered across Israel’s heartland — places most tour buses drive right past. On our Heartland Experience trip, you’ll volunteer alongside Jewish farmers, visit sites like Bethel, Shiloh, and Elon Moreh in person, and see firsthand what it looks like for the land God promised Jacob at Bethel to be flourishing again today.
