'House of Bread' (Beit-Lechem) — first named in the Bible here, under its older name Ephrath, when Rachel dies in childbirth 'on the way to Ephrath, that is Bethlehem' and Jacob marks her grave with a pillar (35:19-20). A small town six miles south of Jerusalem, it becomes the town of Ruth and Boaz (Ruth 1-4) and the home and city of DAVID (1 Samuel 16), from which Micah foretells the ruler 'whose origins are from of old' will come (Micah 5:2) — the prophecy Matthew and Luke set over the birth of Jesus (Matthew 2; Luke 2). So the wayside where the mother of Israel lies buried, weeping, becomes the road to the Messiah's cradle.