Bethuel
Bethuel is an ancient city mentioned in the Old Testament, located in the region of Judea in modern-day Israel. Known today as Khirbet ar Ras. It appears across 1 verse in Scripture.
Biblical History
Bethuel appears as a city in the tribal territory of Simeon, listed among the towns allotted to that tribe during the distribution of Canaan under Joshua (1 Chronicles 4:30). It is one of a cluster of southern settlements given to Simeon within the larger inheritance of Judah, reflecting the historical reality that Simeon's tribe gradually became absorbed into Judah during the monarchic period. The name Bethuel in Hebrew carries possible meanings of "house of God" or "dweller in God", a theologically resonant name suggesting either a cultic site or a place of distinguished religious significance within the Negev region. The city is mentioned only once in Scripture, making its broader history difficult to reconstruct. It appears to be the same town referred to as Chesil in Joshua 15:30 and Bethul in Joshua 19:4, suggesting scribal variations in the transmission of the name across different boundary lists. Its location in the southern Judean hill country near Khirbet ar-Ras places it in the arid borderlands between the Judean highlands and the Negev, a region that served as both pastoral territory and a buffer zone against desert incursions.
Archaeological & Historical Notes
Bethuel is identified by most scholars with Khirbet ar-Ras, a ruin site in the southern Judean hill country. The identification is based on the site's geographical position within the tribal boundary descriptions of Joshua and the survival of a similar toponym in the region. Archaeological surveys around Khirbet ar-Ras have identified Iron Age pottery sherds indicating habitation during the period of the Israelite monarchy, consistent with the biblical record of Simeonite settlement in the Negev fringe. The site has not been subjected to systematic excavation. The broader region shows patterns of small village occupation during the Iron Age, with communities engaged in pastoralism and dry-land agriculture typical of the northern Negev zone.
Verse Appearances (1)
1Chr
References
- Orr, J. (ed.) (1915) The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Chicago: Howard-Severance Company. [Public Domain]
- OpenBible.info (n.d.) Bible Geocoding. Available at: https://www.openbible.info/geo/. [CC BY 4.0]
- Bagnall, R. et al. (eds.) (n.d.) Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places. Available at: https://pleiades.stoa.org. [CC BY 3.0]
- Wikidata contributors (n.d.) Wikidata. Available at: https://www.wikidata.org. [CC0]
- Lawrence, D. et al. (2025) Villages to Empires: a settlement dataset for the Southern Levant. doi:10.5281/zenodo.15111732. [CC BY 4.0]
- Church of England (1769) The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version. [Public Domain]