Genesis 28:19
And he called the name of the city Bethel, which before was called Luza.
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Appellavitque nomen urbis Bethel, quæ prius Luza vocabatur.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ ἐκάλεσεν Ἰακὼβ τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ τόπου ἐκείνου Οἶκος θεοῦ· καὶ Οὐλαμμαὺς ἦν ὄνομα τῇ πόλει τὸ πρότερον.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיִּקְרָ֛א אֶת שֵֽׁם הַמָּק֥וֹם הַה֖וּא בֵּֽית אֵ֑ל וְאוּלָ֛ם ל֥וּז שֵׁם הָעִ֖יר לָרִאשֹׁנָֽה
Haydock's commentary
Bethel. This name signifies the house of God. (Challoner)
Bethel was the name which Jacob gave to the place; and the town, which was built after his return, was called by the same name. Hence those famous animated stones or idols, received their title (Bethules, Eusebius, præp. i. 10.) being consecrated to Saturn, the Sun, &c. Till the days of Mahomet, the Arabs adored a rough stone, taken from the temple of Mecca, which they pretended was built by Abraham. (Chardin)
Luza, so called from the number of nut or almond trees. Here the golden calf was afterwards set up, on the confines of the tribes of Benjamin and of Ephraim, (Calmet) the southern limits of the kingdom of Jeroboam. (Haydock)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Augustine City of God, Of Jacob’s Mission to Mesopotamia to Get a Wife, and of the Vision Which He Saw in a Dream by the Way, and of His Getting Four Women When He Sought One Wife
When Jacob was going to Mesopotamia, he received in a dream an oracle, of which it is thus written: “And Jacob went out from the well of the oath, and went to Haran. And he came to a place, and slept there, for the sun was set; and he took of the stones of the place, and put them at his head, and slept in that place, and dreamed. And behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and the angels of God ascended and descended by it. And the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac; fear not: the land whereon thou sleepest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth; and it shall be spread abroad to the sea, and to Africa, and to the north, and to the east: and all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed in thee and in thy seed. …