Ephrath

Ephrath (also spelled Ephrathah) was the old name for Bethlehem, used in the patriarchal narratives and preserved through later Israelite memory. As Jacob and his family traveled south from Bethel after Rachel had reluctantly given up Laban's household gods, Rachel went into labor "and they were still some distance from Ephrath, and Rachel suffered hard labor" (Genesis 35:16-19). She named her son Ben-oni ("son of my sorrow") with her dying breath, but Jacob renamed him Benjamin. "So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem), and Jacob set up a pillar over her grave" (Genesis 35:19-20). The blessing the elders of Bethlehem pronounced over Boaz and Ruth was "May you act worthily in Ephrathah and be renowned in Bethlehem" (Ruth 4:11). Most famously, the prophet Micah named Bethlehem-Ephrathah as the small clan from which Israel's future ruler would come — fulfilled centuries later in the birth of Jesus the Messiah (Micah 5:2, Matthew 2:6).