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Two Bethlehems? And what does Beth-Lechem Mean?
There are numerous American towns and cities with “-ville” at the end of their names, from Jacksonville, Florida, to Danville, California. The suffix “-ville” in French means “city.” So, Jacksonville is “city of Jackson” and Danville is the “city of Dan.”
There are also countries with “-stan” at the end of their names, such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, and the like. The suffix “-stan” is Persian in origin and means “place of.” So, Afghanistan is “place of the Afghans” and so forth. In that way, it’s analogous to the suffix “-land,” such as Finland, Iceland, New Zealand.
Whether it’s -ville or -stan or -land, we like to use suffixes to name places.
Something similar happens with lots of place names in the Bible as well, only it’s a prefix that is quite common. Or, to be precise, it’s not a prefix but a word that is joined to another name: the word “beth” (בֵּית), which is a form of “bayit” (בַּיִת), which means “house.” I haven’t done a precise search, but there are about 50 or 60 locations mentioned in the Bible with “Beth” at the beginning.
There’s Bethel or Beth-El (בֵּית־אֵל), which means “House of El” (“House of God”). In Genesis 28:19, Jacob gives the place this name for, as he says, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God [Beth-El], and this is the gate of heaven.”
There’s Beth-Eden (בֵּית עֶדֶן), meaning “House of Delight or Luxury,” which is an Aramean kingdom north of Damascus against which Amos prophesied (1:5).
Most famously, of course, is Bethlehem which means “House of Bread.” The Bible actually mentions not one but two Bethlehems: Bethlehem of Zebulun and Bethlehem of Judah. The former is only noted in Joshua 19:5 as a town about six miles NW of Nazareth. The latter, of course, is David’s hometown and the birthplace of Jesus.
In Hebrew, the name occurs both as two words בֵּית לֶחֶם (Beth Lechem) and as two conjoined words בֵּית־לֶחֶם (Beth-Lechem), but never, as we write it in English, as one undivided word, “Bethlehem.” The Hebrew pronunciation has a hard "h" so Beth-Lechem would have been a more appropriate spelling, but we are stuck with Bethlehem.
The noun “lechem” does mean “bread” but it’s also the generic word for “food” or “nourishment.” Were we to pray the Lord’s Prayer in Hebrew, we would ask our Father to give us this day our daily lechem, our daily nourishment.
The first mention of “lechem” in the Bible is when Adam sinned, when God told him that thenceforth “by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread [lechem]” Gen. 3:19. How graciously fitting, therefore, that the Last Adam was born in the House of Bread. He came to redo what Adam had undone—and to do it even better. By the sweat of Jesus’ face, by his effort and sacrifice and his bearing of the curse for us, we now eat of him, the Bread of Life, and live forever.