Bet-Lechem Efratah

Yeshua's birthplace is normally perceived to be Bethlehem; in Hebrew, ‘Bet-Lechem’, meaning ‘House of Bread’. When the priests were later asked by Herod where the Messiah would be born, however, they did not simply say ‘Bet-Lechem’, but ‘Bet-Lechem Efratah’.  

The most elemental meaning of the word Efratah, as used to this day in Hebrew, is ‘on the way to…’ Hence ‘Bet-Lechem Efratah’ could be translated as ‘on the way to Bethlehem’; that is, Messiah would be born on the way to Bethlehem, as was Benjamin.

This meaning of the term 'Bet-Lechem Efratah' links Miryam to Rachel, as the second  matriarch to give birth to her son ‘on the way to Bethlehem’. Rachel died ‘on the road to’ Bethlehem, after giving birth to Benjamin, her second son, and was buried in a lowly lonely roadside grave. In 1 Samuel 10:2 a clear reference is made to Rachel’s tomb and the Hebrew indicates that her sepulchre was located not in the border (as often translated), but within the border of the territory of Benjamin. 

There are other important associations with Ephratah. This word, the feminine form of Ephrath, meaning ‘fruitful’, was the name of a small town on the outskirts of Bethlehem. It was associated specifically with Ephrathah, who was the second wife of Caleb. The small clan of Caleb, of the tribe of Judah, and his second wife Ephrathah, possibly of the tribe of Ephraim, came to be called the Ephrathites. Naomi, Ruth’s mother-in-law, was an Ephrathite; Jesse, King David’s father was an Ephrathite; and so, apparently, was Yeshua’s step-father, Joseph.

Remember that the two faithful spies, who gave a good report about the Land, were Caleb (of the tribe of Judah) and Joshua (of the tribe of Ephraim). Herewith, then, an eminently suitable match that produced descendants associated with the tribes of both Judah and Ephraim. In this sense Bet-Lechem Efratah would, indeed, have been the perfect place for the birth of Messiah, amongst the descendants of both Ephraim and Judah: His first advent being as Messiah ben Ephraim/Joseph (and His second, still to come, as Messiah ben David of the tribe of Judah). 

There is one more association to be made with the names, Ephrath and Ephrathah; meaning 'fruitful'. The name of Patriarch Joseph’s second son was ‘Efrayim’, which has the same Hebrew root as Efrat and Efratah; both of which also therefore allude to ‘fruitfulness’. It is thus possible that naming his second child ‘Efrayim’ was Joseph’s way of honouring his brother (also a second son) and his beloved mother who died ‘on the way’ (Efratah) to Bet-Lechem. Or perhaps the choice of the name ‘Efrayim’ was Joseph’s way of acknowledging that Rachel's life had indeed borne great fruit, through him? We remember Joseph’s words as he was naming his second son; “HaShem has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction”.

So the name Ephrathah can mean ‘on the way/road to’ or ‘fruitful’, but it can also relate to Caleb’s wife, Ephratah, a small town on the outskirts of Bethlehem, and the clan that developed from the marriage of Caleb and Ephrathah.

What then could the word Ephrathah signify in relation to Miryam and Yeshua?  A Semitic allusion regarding the name Bet-Lechem Efratah could be that Yeshua, like Benjamin, was born ‘on the way’ to Bethlehem; in Yeshua's case, in the stable of an inn ~ an inn being a lodging place for travellers. It is thus possible that Yeshua, as with Benjamin, was born within the territory of Benjamin and not in the small Judean town of Bet-Lechem Efratah…

Let us notice other Semitic allusions in this context: Mother Rachel died ‘on the way’ to Bet-Lechem, while giving birth to her second son Ben-Oni (‘Son of my Sorrow’); the son who would soon be renamed Binyamin (‘Son of the Right Hand’) by his father Jacob. Our second matriarch, Miryam, who lived almost two thousand years later, might also have given birth to her son on the way to Bethlehem; and this son too was destined to be a ‘Son of Sorrow’ and ‘Son of the Right Hand’ ~ of HaShem… 

The text cries out for Rachel and Binyamin to be associated with Miryam and Yeshua! It also cries out for Yeshua to be associated with Benjamin, and/or the territory of Benjamin. Furthermore, as Binyamin was the only son of Jacob to be born in Canaan (all of Jacob’s other children were born in Padan-Aram), so too was Yeshua the only ‘Son of His Father’ to be born in the ‘Promised Land’. In the Semitic manner, the term ‘Bet-Lechem Efratah’ clearly links Miryam and her son Yeshua, to Rachel and her son, Benjamin.

For those who imagine Miryam to be an unmarried mother, it is important to note here the following words from Matthew; “Yosef took Miryam into his home”. According to the Talmud this Hebrew idiom affirms that the couple was legally married by means of a Jewish marriage contract, a ketubah. Evidently Joseph married Miryam after learning that she was pregnant and the baby born to them was accepted by their community as legitimate. This is verified by the fact that, as an adult, Yeshua was permitted to read from a Torah scroll in the synagogue. This was not permissible for a ‘mamzer’ (a man who was illegitimate).

Those outside of the immediate family clearly perceived Yeshua to be the son of his ‘step-father’, Joseph, and hence, from the Judean perspective, of the royal line of David... It was this ‘Yosef’ who was born in the environs of Bet-Lechem Efratah and was thus an Ephrathite, and so it was that he travelled to his home town, with Miryam his wife, to register for the Roman census...

And finally we come to the core of the issue… If Yeshua was Mashiach ben Yosef, and thus, according to Jewish tradition a descendant of Joseph and Ephraim, it is the lineage of Miryam that most needs clarification.

We note that Miryam, Yeshua’s only ‘human parent’, was not born in Bethlehem and was a relative of Elisheva (Elizabeth), who was a ‘daughter of Aaron’. Miryam might therefore have been a Levite.

According to the church tradition of Late Antiquity, Miryam was born in Sepphoris as, according to apocryphal writings, her parents, Anna and Joachim, resided in that ‘Jewel of the Galilee’.

On the death of Herod the Great in 4 BC, approximately two years before Yeshua was born in ‘Bet-Lechem Efratah’ in 5 or 6 BC, Sepphoris was completely demolished by the Romans. After a band of Judean zealots broke into Herod’s armoury a most brutish retaliation ensued, resulting in the death or exile of most of Sepphoris' inhabitants.

The town of Nazareth, described in the Gospels as the hometown of Miryam, lay only 3.7 miles to the south-east of Sepphoris and it is possible, therefore, that Miryam’s family fled to Nazareth at the time of the destruction of Sepphoris. Perhaps it is the association of Nazareth as a destination for pitiful refugees that made Nathaniel comment “Can anything good come from Nazareth!”

Anna and Joachim are mentioned in Apocryphal writings as being the parents of Miryam. Yeshua, as Mashiach ben Yosef/Efrayim, would thus have to have been a descendant of the tribe of Joseph/Ephraim, through the lineage of either Anna or Joachim… And this is where our quest ends... 

Unfortunately we cannot reach a conclusion in our quest for Yeshua’s human identity; ultimately, Semitic inferences and Midrashic traditions must suffice as our guides...