Strengthen your faith in God's word

Luke says that Jesus “led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them,” and was “carried up into heaven” (Luke 24:50–51). In Acts the disciples “returned … unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem a sabbath day’s journey” (Acts 1:12). But Bethany was “about fifteen furlongs off” from Jerusalem (John 11:18), more than a sabbath day’s journey.

Bethany lay on the mount of Olives. Mark names them together: “when they came nigh to Jerusalem, unto Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount of Olives” (Mark 11:1). Luke says He led them “as far as to Bethany,” toward it, and Acts gives the mount where He was taken up and from which they returned. Gill takes Bethany here to be the tract of the mount named for the town, which began a sabbath day’s journey from the city, where the town itself lay further on; Haley, that Bethany was on the mount’s eastern slope, so that those who came back from it came over the mount. Either way, Luke wrote both accounts (Acts 1:1), and names the same place each way.