Bethuel

Biblical Record

Bethuel appears only in Genesis. In the genealogy of Genesis 22:20–23, he is listed among the eight sons born to Nahor, the brother of Abraham, and Nahor's wife Milcah, and the text records that "Bethuel begat Rebekah" (Genesis 22:23). He was thus Abraham's nephew and the grandson of Terah.

In Genesis 24, Abraham's servant travels to the city of Nahor in Mesopotamia (Aram-naharaim) to find a wife for Isaac. Rebekah, whom he meets at the well, introduces herself as "the daughter of Bethuel the son of Milcah, which she bare unto Nahor" (Genesis 24:24). After the servant explains his errand, Laban and Bethuel consent to the marriage, answering, "The thing proceedeth from the LORD: we cannot speak unto thee bad or good" (Genesis 24:50).

Thereafter, Bethuel's name serves mainly to identify Rebekah and Laban. Genesis 25:20 calls Rebekah "the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Padanaram," that is, one of the Arameans, and in Genesis 28:2 and 5 Isaac sends Jacob to the house of Bethuel, his maternal grandfather, that is, to his uncle Laban.

Significance Within the Bible

Bethuel is a link in the kinship line of Abraham's family. Both Isaac and Jacob take wives from this family, and in this way Genesis shows that the patriarchs married within their own kin rather than among the Canaanites. Bethuel's only recorded words are the single statement in Genesis 24:50, and the New Testament does not mention him. The town of the same name in 1 Chronicles 4:30, located in the territory of the tribe of Simeon, is distinct from the person Bethuel.

Interpretation and Debate

In Genesis 24, Laban plays a more prominent role than Bethuel. Rebekah reports the news to "her mother's house" (Genesis 24:28), the servant gives gifts to her brother and her mother (Genesis 24:53), and it is her brother and her mother who ask to delay her departure (Genesis 24:55). For this reason, some interpreters suggest that Bethuel was advanced in age and that authority had passed to his son, while some scholars regard the name "Bethuel" in 24:50 as a problem that arose in the transmission of the text. Later Jewish tradition is reported to include a story that Bethuel died that very night, but this is not found in the biblical text. The meaning of his name is also uncertain.

In the Korean Church

Sermons that focus on Bethuel himself are rare. Genesis 24, however, is frequently preached as the story of the marriage of Isaac and Rebekah, and the words "The thing proceedeth from the LORD" (Genesis 24:50) are sometimes quoted, for example in wedding service sermons, as a confession of acceptance of God's providence. In Sunday school lessons, he is usually mentioned only briefly as Rebekah's father within her story.