Beulah

Beulah (meaning: married) is a metaphorical name used in Isaiah 62:4 as a prophetic designation for the land of Israel in the coming age of restoration. The verse sets two contrasting pairs of names against each other: the land that had been called Desolate and the nation that had been called Forsaken would be renamed Hephzibah (my delight is in her) and Beulah (married), because the Lord delights in Israel and the land shall be married—espoused anew to God after the estrangement of exile.

The marital metaphor underlying Beulah draws on the prophetic tradition, most fully developed in Hosea and Jeremiah, of understanding the covenant relationship between the Lord and Israel as a marriage. Exile and judgment represent the rupture of that covenant marriage; restoration represents a new betrothal and renewed union. John Bunyan immortalized the name in Pilgrim's Progress, where Beulah Land is the country of heavenly rest near the Celestial City, a usage that entered Christian hymnody and devotional literature and made Beulah a familiar symbol of eschatological peace and blessing far beyond its single prophetic occurrence.