Landon Is Not in the Bible — but Scripture Names Its Ground

Names and Their Biblical MeaningsSee all 223 articles in this series

Landon is not in the Bible. It means a piece of ground — “long hill,” in Old English.

Which makes it one of the few names whose meaning the Bible takes very seriously indeed.

From Old English lang dun, long hill. It began as the name of a place, became the name of a family from that place, and only recently became a name given to children.

There is no person behind it. There is only a hill somebody lived on.

No. It is English and comparatively recent as a given name.

But Scripture is unusually attentive to ground, and to the practice of naming it.

Jacob sleeps in the open with a stone for a pillow, dreams of a stair reaching into heaven, and wakes up:

Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it… He called that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz. (Genesis 28:16, 19)

Bethel means “house of God.” He renamed a piece of countryside after what had happened to him there.

He does it again after wrestling through the night at the ford of the Jabbok: So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.” (Genesis 32:30)

Samuel does the same after a battle: Then Samuel took a stone and set it up… He named it Ebenezer, saying, “Thus far the Lord has helped us.” (1 Samuel 7:12)

Thus far. Not “all the way,” not “for ever.” Only up to here, which is all anyone can honestly say.

Hills in particular run through Scripture as the places where things are decided.

Abraham on Moriah. Moses on Sinai. Elijah on Carmel. The Sermon delivered on a mountainside. The transfiguration on a high mountain apart. Golgotha, which was a small rise outside a city wall and is the hill the whole story turns on.

And the psalm that begins by looking at them: I lift up my eyes to the mountains — where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. (Psalm 121:1-2)

That is a correction, not a celebration. The hills were where the shrines of other gods stood. The psalmist looks up at them, asks the obvious question, and answers it somewhere else.

A name meaning “long hill” says that someone’s family came from somewhere. That is not a small thing in a century when most of us do not know where we are from.

Scripture’s habit is to mark ground where God has been met, so that it can be gone back to. Jacob returns to Bethel years later, at God’s instruction, and builds an altar there (Genesis 35:1-7). The stone is not magic. It is a memory that stays put when we do not.

Most of us could name a place like that if we thought about it. Few of us have marked one.

May we notice the places where God has met us, and say so at the time.

May we set up a stone where it is honest to — thus far, and no further claim than that.

And may we lift our eyes to the hills without confusing the hills for the help.

What does Landon mean?

“Long hill,” from Old English lang dun. It began as a place name, became a surname, and only lately became a first name.

Does the Bible name places?

Constantly. Jacob renames Luz as Bethel (Genesis 28:19) and the Jabbok ford as Peniel (Genesis 32:30), each after what happened to him there.

What does Ebenezer mean?

“Stone of help.” Samuel set one up and said, “Thus far the Lord has helped us” (1 Samuel 7:12) — thus far, which is all anyone can honestly claim.

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