the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Bethuel
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
or "The Syrian" (Aramite).
1. Nahor's son by Miclah, nephew of Abraham, father of Rebekah (Genesis 22:22-23; Genesis 24:15; Genesis 24:24; Genesis 24:47; Genesis 28:2). Bethuel appears personally only in Genesis 24:50, and then after his son. Blunt (Undesigned Coincidences) notices Bethuel's consistent insignificance in the whole affair of his daughter's marriage. When Abraham's servant at the well asks Rebekah, "Is there room in thy father's house for us?" she "ran and told them of her mother's house" (not of her father's, as Rachel did when Jacob introduced himself: Genesis 29:12).
Laban her brother ran out and invited him in, not Bethuel, the natural person to do it. The servant makes presents of jewels and precious things to Rebekah, "and to her brother, and to her mother," but not to Bethuel. The brother and mother propose her abiding a few days before going. Finally, in the next generation, Rebekah's son, in inquiring after his kindred, asks, "Know ye Laban, the son of Nahor?" the father's name being omitted and the grandfather's substituted (Genesis 29:5). The consistency of omission is too marked to be accidental, and yet such as a forger would never have devised. Bethuel was probably incapable, from age or imbecility, of managing his own affairs; but see Laban. (See LABAN.)
2. A place (See BETHUL.) (1 Chronicles 4:30).
These files are public domain.
Fausset, Andrew R. Entry for 'Bethuel'. Fausset's Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/fbd/b/bethuel.html. 1949.
