Luz

The original spot called afterwards "Bethel, the house of God." (Gen. 28. 19.) Luz seems to have meant separation.

The ancient name of Bethel (Gen 28:19) [BETHEL]. The spot to which the name of Bethel was given appears, however, to have been at a little distance in the environs of Luz, and they are accordingly distinguished in Jos 16:2, although the name of Bethel was eventually extended to that town. A small place of the same name, founded by an inhabitant of this Luz, is mentioned in Jdg 1:26.

The ancient name of a part at least of Bethel, Gen 28:19 Joh 16:2 18:13; afterwards given to a smaller place founded by a refugee from Bethel, Jdg 1:26 . See Bethel, Jdg 1:26 . See BETHEL.\par

Luz. (almond tree). It seems impossible to discover with precision whether Luz and Bethel represent one and the same town -- the former the Canannite, the latter the Hebrew, name -- or whether they were distinct places, though in close proximity. The most probable conclusion is that, the two places were, during the times preceding the conquest, distinct, Luz being the city and Bethel the pillar and altar of Jacob that, after the destruction of Luz by the tribe of Ephraim, the town of Bethel arose.

When the original Luz was destroyed, through the treachery of one of its inhabitants, the man who had introduced the Israelites into the town went into the "land of the Hittites" and built a city which he named after the former one. Jdg 1:28. Its situation, as well as that of the "land of the Hittites," has never been discovered, and is one of the favorable puzzles of Scripture geographers.

(See BETHEL.) Luz was originally the city, Bethel the pillar and altar of Jacob; in Gen 12:8 it is called Bethel by anticipation (Gen 28:19), after Ephraim’s conquest the town Bethel arose. The nearness of the two accounts for their being identified in all eases where there was no special reason for distinguishing them. After one of the townsmen of ancient Luz had betrayed it to Israel he went into "the land of the Hittites," and built a city of the same name (Jdg 1:23-26). Answering to Khirbet Lozeh, close to Beitin.

Luz (lŭz), almond tree. 1. The Canaanite name for the place in which Jacob rested and had a prophetic vision, and afterward the city of Bethel; now Beitin. Gen 28:19; Gen 35:6; Gen 48:3; Jos 16:2; Jos 18:13; Jdg 1:23. 2. A city in the land of the Hittites, built by an inhabitant of the original Luz, who was spared when the city was sacked, Jdg 1:23; now Luweizîyeh, four miles northwest of Banias.

1. City of the Canaanites, afterwards called BETHEL, q.v.

2. City in the land of the Hittites, built by the man who had betrayed the city in Canaan, and who called it after the same name. Jdg 1:26. Identified by some with ruins at el Luweiziyeh, 33° 16’ N, 35° 36’ E.

By: Kaufmann Kohler

1. Older name of the city of Beth-el (Gen. xxviii. 19, xxxv. 6, xlviii. 3; Josh. xvi. 2, xviii. 13; Judges i. 23).

2. Name of a city in the land of the Hittites, built by an emigrant from Beth-el, who was spared and sent abroad by the Israelitish invaders because he showed them the entrance to the city (Judges i. 26). "Luz" being the Hebrew word for an almond-tree, it has been suggested that the city derived its name from such a tree or grove of trees. Winckler compares the Arabic "laudh" ("asylum"). Robinson ("Researches," iii. 389) identifies the city either with Luwaizah, near the city of Dan, or (ib. iii. 425) with Kamid al-Lauz, north of Heshbon (now Ḥasbiyyah); Talmudic references seem to point to its location as somewhere near the Phenician coast (Soṭah46b; Sanh. 12a; Gen. R. lxix. 7). Legend invested the place with miraculous qualities. "Luz, the city known for its blue dye, is the city which Sennacherib entered but could not harm; Nebuchadnezzar, but could not destroy; the city over which the angel of death has no power; outside the walls of which the aged who are tired of life are placed, where they meet death" (Soṭah 46b); wherefore it is said of Luz, "the name thereof is unto this day" (Judges i. 26, Hebr.). It is furthermore stated that an almond-tree with a hole in it stood before the entrance to a cave that was near Luz; through that hole persons entered the cave and found the way to the city, which was altogether hidden (Gen. R. l.c.).

3. Aramaic name for the os coccyx, the "nut" of the spinal column. The belief was that, being indestructible, it will form the nucleus for the resurrection of the body. The Talmud narrates that the emperor Hadrian, when told by R. Joshua that the revival of the body at the resurrection will take its start with the "almond," or the "nut," of the spinal column, had investigations made and found that water could not soften, nor fire burn, nor the pestle and mortar crush it (Lev. R. xviii.; Eccl. R. xii.). The legend of the "resurrection bone," connected with Ps. xxxiv. 21 (A. V. 20: "unum ex illis [ossibus] non confringetur") and identified with the cauda equina (see Eisenmenger, "Entdecktes Judenthum," ii. 931-933), was accepted as an axiomatic truth by the Christian and Mohammedan theologians and anatomists, and in the Middle Ages the bone received the name "Juden Knöchlein" (Jew-bone; see Hyrtl, "Das Arabische und Hebräische in der Anatomie," 1879, pp. 165-168; comp. p. 24). Averroes accepted the legend as true (see his "Religion und Philosophie," transl. by Müller, 1875, p. 117; see also Steinschneider, "Polemische Literatur," 1877, pp. 315, 421; idem, "Hebr. Bibl." xxi. 98; idem, "Hebr. Uebers." p. 319; Löw, "Aramäische Pflanzennamen," 1881, p. 320). Possibly the legend owes its origin to the Egyptian rite of burying "the spinal column of Osiris" in the holy city of Busiris, at the close of the days of mourning for Osiris, after which his resurrection was celebrated (Brugsch, "Religion und Mythologie," 1888, pp. 618, 634).

Bibliography:

Jastrow, Dict.;

Levy, Neuhebr. Wörterb.

LUZ.—1. Gen 28:19; Gen 35:6; Gen 48:3, Jos 16:2; Jos 18:13, Jdg 1:23-26. The exact locality is uncertain, and a comparison of the above passages will show that it is also uncertain whether Luz and Bethel were one or two sites. In Gen 28:19 it is stated that Jacob changed the name of the place of his vision from Luz to Bethel (cf. also Gen 35:6, Jdg 1:23). The two passages in Joshua, however, seem to contradict this; both of them speak of Luz and Bethel as two distinct places. A possible solution is that Luz was the name of the old Canaanite city, and Bethel the pillar and altar of Jacob outside the city. 2. Luz is also the name of a city built on Hittite territory after the destruction of the original Canaanite city (Jdg 1:26).

T. A. Moxon.

Perverse

(לוּז, lūz):The Hebrew word means “almond tree” or “almond wood” (OHL, under the word). It may also mean “bone,” particularly a bone of the spine, and might be applied to a rocky height supposed to resemble a backbone (Lagarde, Uebersicht., 157 f). Winckler explains it by Aramaic laudh, “asylum,” which might be suitably applied to a sanctuary (Geschichte Israels). Cheyne (EB, under the word) would derive it by corruption from חלצה, ḥălucāh, “strong (city).”

(1) This was the ancient name of Bethel (Gen 28:19; Jdg 1:23; compare Gen 35:6; Gen 48:3; Jos 16:2; Jos 18:13). It has been thought that Jos 16:2 contradicts this, and that the two places were distinct. Referring to Gen 28:19, we find that the name Bethel was given to “the place,” ha-māḳōm, i.e. “the sanctuary,” probably “the place” (Gen 28:11, Hebrew) associated with the sacrifice of Abraham (Gen 12:8), which lay to the East of Bethel. The name of the city as distinguished from “the place” was Luz. As the fame of the sanctuary grew, we may suppose, its name overshadowed, and finally superseded, that of the neighboring town. The memory of the ancient nomenclature persisting among the people sufficiently explains the allusions in the passages cited.

(2) A Bethelite, the man who betrayed the city into the hands of the children of Joseph, went into the land of the Hittites, and there founded a city which he called Luz, after the ancient name of his native place (Jdg 1:26). No satisfactory identification has been suggested.