House of Meat, eh...? how funny!! Bethlehem and Palestine facts

Submitted by sara (United States), Dec 16, 2011 at 17:20

Well Dean, perhaps you should be more thorough in your critique. Your arab speaking roots are evident when you say that Bethlehem means house of meat. In Hebrew, and in Aramaic, from which Hebrew is derived, the word lechem (or in Aramaic lachma) means BREAD. The arabs for whatever reason chose to be contrary. The colloquial term for bread in arabic is 'hubz' or hubez. The colloquial term for bread in Hebrew is... LECHEM. So before laughing at what you do not know, please check your facts.

Here is a good etymiology of the name: http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Bethlehem.html

... There are two towns named Bethlehem mentioned in the Bible; the famous one in Judah, the other one in Zebulun (Joshua 19:15). Bethlehem-Judah is first mentioned as the place formerly known as Ephrath (Genesis 35:16), where Rachel gives birth to Benjamin and dies (v19).

Bethlehem's rise to stardom is set in motion by Elimelech the Bethlehemite who finds himself and his family driven out of Israel and to Moab by a famine (Ruth 1:1-2). His wife's name is Naomi, his Moabite daughters in law are Orpah and Ruth. When after ten years all the men are dead, Naomi and Ruth go back to Bethlehem. There Ruth meets and marries Boaz. Their son is Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of David who would be the king who united the tribes of Israel. It is for this reason that Micah writes his Messianic prophesy referred to in Matthew 2:6:

"But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah. From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity (5:2)."

Perhaps he should have left it a surprise because some 700 years later king Herod, fearing rivalry from an infant, has all the children of Bethlehem and environs murdered. Matthew reveals how far those environs stretch by referring to what Jeremiah wrote, 100 years after Micah, "Thus says YHWH, 'a voice is heard in Rama, [...] Rachel is weeping for her children...'" (Matthew 2:18, Jeremiah 31:15).
Rachel's tomb is somewhere on the border of Benjamin (1 Samuel 10:2) and Rama is a Benjamin town north of Jerusalem.

In 1 Chronicles 2:51 it reads that Salma was the father of Bethlehem, and it seems that this Bethlehem is a person. However, this Bethlehem is mentioned along groups of people and towns, and it is much more likely that Salma was a mayor (the ab) of the town of Bethlehem-Judah. Something similar happens with Tekoa in 1 Chronicles 2:24. In 2 Chronicles 11:6 we see both these towns as 'built' by Rehoboam. That means either that these existing towns were fortified, or Rehobam erected new forts with old, nostalgic names. (Compare with 2 Chronicles 8:2, where Solomon 'builds' cities that were given to him by Huram).

The name Bethlehem consists of two words. The first word is (bayit), the Bible's regular word for house but with connotations of one's family, household or direct sphere of economy. It is also used to mean temple, or place, or depository of certain items. Another name that uses this word bayit is Bethel, meaning House Of God. Please see the name Beth for a closer look at this marvelous word.

The second word of the name Bethlehem is the Hebrew noun (lehem), bread. The Bible uses this word frequently in a much broader sense of food in general (proverbial: Genesis 3:19; Manna: Exodus 16:4; honey: 1 Samuel 14:24), and comes from he verb (laham), eat, use as food. The concept of food is used often in a figurative sense: bread of wickedness (Pr 4:17), idleness (31:27); target of conquest (Numbers 14:9). It is against this broad background that the words of Jesus should be understood: "I am the bread of life," (Joh 6:35); "Give us this day our daily bread," (Matthew 6:11), as well as the bread part of the communion ritual (Matthew 26:26).

Perhaps the usage displayed in Numbers 14:9 illustrates the curious link with the identical root (laham), do battle, fight. (A similar thought is found in Psalm 124:3, although without the verb ). Perhaps both ideas have to do with (the preposition that usually translates into the Indo-European dative case: to, at, in, into) plus , heat (see the name Ham).

Second, the name Palestine has NOTHING to do with the term 'Palestinians' other than the connection that the romans gave it when they named it Palestina to insult the Jewish inhabitants. The jews themselves were referred to as Palestinians until they made a concerted effort to use the ancient term of Israel. Then the Russians took it up to bestow upon Arafat and made him a puppet leader so that they could make a move in their chess game against the US. So Palestinians are actually Jews and all residents of the area over the past centuries.

See: http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_early_palestine_name_origin.php

The name Palestine refers to a region of the eastern Mediterranean coast from the sea to the Jordan valley and from the southern Negev desert to the Galilee lake region in the north. The word itself derives from "Plesheth", a name that appears frequently in the Bible and has come into English as "Philistine". Plesheth, (root palash) was a general term meaning rolling or migratory. This referred to the Philistine's invasion and conquest of the coast from the sea. The Philistines were not Arabs nor even Semites, they were most closely related to the Greeks originating from Asia Minor and Greek localities. They did not speak Arabic. They had no connection, ethnic, linguistic or historical with Arabia or Arabs.

The Philistines reached the southern coast of Israel in several waves. One group arrived in the pre-patriarchal period and settled south of Beersheba in Gerar where they came into conflict with Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael. Another group, coming from Crete after being repulsed from an attempted invasion of Egypt by Rameses III in 1194 BCE, seized the southern coastal area, where they founded five settlements (Gaza, Ascalon, Ashdod, Ekron and Gat). In the Persian and Greek periods, foreign settlers – chiefly from the Mediterranean islands – overran the Philistine districts.

From the fifth century BC, following the historian Herodotus, Greeks called the eastern coast of the Mediterranean "the Philistine Syria" using the Greek language form of the name. In AD 135, after putting down the Bar Kochba revolt, the second major Jewish revolt against Rome, the Emperor Hadrian wanted to blot out the name of the Roman "Provincia Judaea" and so renamed it "Provincia Syria Palaestina", the Latin version of the Greek name and the first use of the name as an administrative unit. The name "Provincia Syria Palaestina" was later shortened to Palaestina, from which the modern, anglicized "Palestine" is derived.

This remained the situation until the end of the fourth century, when in the wake of a general imperial reorganization Palestine became three Palestines: First, Second, and Third. This configuration is believed to have persisted into the seventh century, the time of the Persian and Muslim conquests.

The Christian Crusaders employed the word Palestine to refer to the general region of the "three Palestines." After the fall of the crusader kingdom, Palestine was no longer an official designation. The name, however, continued to be used informally for the lands on both sides of the Jordan River. The Ottoman Turks, who were non-Arabs but religious Muslims, ruled the area for 400 years (1517-1917). Under Ottoman rule, the Palestine region was attached administratively to the province of Damascus and ruled from Istanbul. The name Palestine was revived after the fall of the Ottoman Empire in World War I and applied to the territory in this region that was placed under the British Mandate for Palestine.

The name "Falastin" that Arabs today use for "Palestine" is not an Arabic name. It is the Arab pronunciation of the Roman "Palaestina". Quoting Golda Meir:

• The British chose to call the land they mandated Palestine, and the Arabs picked it up as their nation's supposed ancient name, though they couldn't even pronounce it correctly and turned it into Falastin a fictional entity. [In an article by Sarah Honig, Jerusalem Post, November 25, 1995]

-- Lastly, the arabs in the area of Palestine/Israel were mostly tribal families (Hamulas) that came in during Ottoman rule to work. They then continued under the British. They were from various villages in Egypt and Jordan. That is why there is no distinct difference in language, culture or anything between Arabs in Gaza with Egypt, and Arabs in WB with their families and relatives in Jordan.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".