Beth-el

Bethel was a town about ten miles north of Jerusalem, originally the Canaanite city of Luz, where Abram built an altar and where Jacob dreamed of a ladder reaching to heaven, naming the place “house of God.” It served as a religious center through the period of the judges, housing the ark for a time, and later became one of two sites where Jeroboam I set up golden calves for the northern kingdom's worship, drawing Hosea's mocking renaming of it “Beth-aven,” house of idols. Josiah destroyed its altar during his reforms, and the site is generally identified with the ruins of Beitin. The same name is also applied to a nearby hill district and to a separate town in southern Judah.