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Bethuel ( Hebrew for “house of God”), in the Hebrew Bible, was an Aramean man,[1] the youngest son of Nahor and Milcah,[2] the nephew of Abraham, and the father of Laban and Rebekah.[3]
Hebrew BibleThe man Bethuel appears nine times in nine verses in the Hebrew Bible, all in Genesis. Adherents of the documentary hypothesis often attribute most of these verses to the Jahwist source,[9] and the remainder to the priestly source.[10]

Bethuel lived in Padan-aram,[11] and is described as "Aramaean", although his Chaldean background is also indicated, as a descendant of Terah. Bethuel's uncle Abraham sent his senior servant to Padan-aram to find a wife for his son Isaac.[12] By the well outside the city of Nahor, in Aram-naharaim, the servant met Bethuel’s daughter Rebekah.[13] The servant told Rebekah’s household his good fortune in meeting Bethuel’s daughter, Abraham’s relative.[14] Laban and Bethuel answered, “The matter was decreed by the LORD; we cannot speak to you bad or good. Here is Rebekah before you; take her and go, and let her be a wife to your master’s son, as the LORD has spoken.”[15]

After meeting Abraham’s servant, Rebekah “ran and told all this to her mother’s household”,[16] that Rebekah’s “brother and her mother said, ‘Let the maiden remain with us some ten days’”,[17] and that “they sent off their sister Rebekah and her nurse along with Abraham’s servant and his men. And they blessed Rebekah and said to her, ‘O sister! May you grow into thousands of myriads.”[18] Some scholars thus hypothesize that mention of Bethuel in Gen. 24:50 was a late addition to the preexisting story. Other scholars argue that these texts indicate that Bethuel was somehow incapacitated. Other scholars attribute the emphasis on the mother's role to a matralineal family structure.

A generation later, Isaac sent Jacob back to Padan-aram to take a wife from among Bethuel’s granddaughters, rather than from among the Canaanites.[19]

[edit] Rabbinic interpretationIn the Talmud, Rabbi Isaac called Bethuel a wicked man.[20] The midrash identified Bethuel as a king.[21]

In the Talmud, Rab in the name of Rabbi Reuben b. Estrobile cited Laban’s and Bethuel’s response to Abraham’s servant that “The matter was decreed by the Lord”[22] as a proof text for the proposition that God destines a woman and a man for each other in marriage.[23] Rabbi Joshua b. Rabbi Nehemiah in the name of Rabbi Hanina b. Isaac said that the decree with regard to Rebekah that Laban and Bethuel acknowledged came from Mount Moriah.[24]

Noting that Genesis 24:55 reports that the next day, Rebekah’s “brother and her mother said, ‘Let the maiden remain with us some ten days’” (Gen. 24:55), the Rabbis asked: “Where was Bethuel?” The midrash concluded that Bethuel wished to hinder Rebekah’s marriage, and so he was smitten during the night. (Genesis Rabbah 60:12.) The Rabbis said that Abraham’s servant did not disclose Bethuel’s fate to Isaac.[25]

In his retelling of the story, Josephus reported that Rebekah told Abraham’s servant, “my father was Bethuel, but he is dead; and Laban is my brother; and, together with my mother, takes care of all our family affairs, and is the guardian of my virginity.”[26].

In the account of Terah's family, mentioned in Gen.11:26-32, Nahor II is listed as the son of Terah, amongst two other brothers, Abram and Haran.[v.26,27] His grandfather was Nahor I, son of Serug. Nahor married the daughter of his brother Haran, Milcah, his niece.[v.29] They were all born and raised in the city of Ur. When Abram, had an encounter with God,[3] this brother directed his family to leave their native land and go to the land of Canaan. Terah, their father, coordinated the gathering of his family to journey west to their destination.[v.31] They followed the Euphrates River, with their herds, to the Padan-Aram region. This was about halfway along the Fertile Crescent between Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean, in what is now southeastern Turkey.[4] In this region, Nahor and his family settled except for his brother Haran, who had died sometime ago back in Ur.[V.28] The city where they settled, Haran, is the place that Nahor's father eventually died.[V.32]

Nahor II continued his own travels and settled in the region of Aram Naharaim where he founded the town, Nahor.[Gen.24:10] Here, he had eight sons to Milcah:[Gen.22:19-23]

1.Uz, the firstborn
2.Buz
3.Kemuel
4.Kesed
5.Hazo
6.Pildash
7.Jidlaph
8.Bethuel, father of Rebekah, the wife of Isaac
To his concubine, Reumah, Nahor had these sons: Tebah, Gaham, Tahash and Maacah.[Gen.22:24].

Milcah (related to the Hebrew word for "queen") was the daughter of Haran and the wife of Nahor in Genesis.

Milcah was a woman of ancient Mesopotamia and an ancestor of the patriarch Jacob. Milcah was born to the man Haran, who also had another daughter, Iscah, and a son, Lot. (Gen. 11:27, 29.) Milcah’s father Haran died in Ur before his father Terah. (Gen. 11:28.) Milcah married her uncle Nahor, Haran’s brother. (Gen. 11:29.)

Although Leviticus would later outlaw marriages between aunt and nephew (Lev. 18:14, 20:19), it did not rule out marriage between uncle and niece. (See, e.g., Gunther Plaut, The Torah: a Modern Commentary, 881. New York: UAHC, 1981.) The Talmud approved of a man who married his sister’s daughter. (Yevamot 62b-63a.) And in the Talmud, Rabbi Isaac equates Milcah’s sister Iscah with Sarah (then Sarai), who married Abraham (then Abram), who was also their uncle. (Sanhedrin 69b.) Thus, according to Rabbi Isaac, the two sisters, Milcah and Iscah, married the two brothers, Nahor and Abraham.

Milcah and Nahor had eight children, Uz, Buz, Kemuel, Chesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph, and Bethuel. (Gen. 22:21.) Targum Jonathan says that Providence granted Milcah conception in the merit of her sister Sarah. (Targum Jonathan to Gen. 22:20.) Nahor also had four children by his concubine, Reumah. (Gen. 22:24.)

Milcah’s son Bethuel moved to Padan-aram and fathered Rebekah. (Gen. 22:23; 24:15, 24, 47.) Milcah’s granddaughter Rebekah then married Milcah’s nephew Isaac (Gen. 24:67; 25:20), and gave birth to Jacob (Gen. 25:21–26), who became Israel. (Gen. 32:28; 35:10. According to a Midrash, Milcah was the forbearer of all the prophets in the world. (Yalkut Shimoni Balak 22:20.)

Haran or Aran son of Terah, is an early Biblical man. A descendant of Shem, Haran's brothers are Abram/Abraham and Nahor. Haran fathered two daughters: Milcah and Iscah, and a son: Lot, who fled Sodom and Gomorrah and fathered the Edomites and Ammonites, according to the Biblical Book of Genesis. Haran and his immediate family are mentioned in the genealogical account of Terah, as recorded in Genesis 11:27-32. In this account, Haran is said to have died in Ur Kasdim, the land of his nativity, in the presence of his father Terah. After Haran's death, their father Terah coordinated the family to embark on a journey to the land of Canaan, per instructions given to Abram by God. En route, the family settled at a site called Charan (or Haran) (Hebrew ?????) in the region of Paddan Aram or Aram Naharaim.[2].