November 21, Genesis 35
God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there. Make an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.” - Genesis 35:1
This chapter may seem like an odd collection of events, each described briefly. It's almost like a slideshow made up of snapshots that do not seem to tell one story, but many little ones. But there is a movement and unity in most of what is here, if we're willing to look carefully and consider how at least some of the pieces fit together.
Remember how God called Jacob to come back to Canaan after it became clear he was no longer welcome in Laban's family business? In a similar way, God called Jacob to leave Shechem after the massacre left a bad smell in the surviving neighbors' nostrils. God called him back to Bethel, where he had first seen the vision of the ladder full of angels and encountered the presence of God.
Jacob understood God was calling him back to a place of worship in the presence of the Lord. So he told his family to surrender their idols and paraphernalia for idol worship they had brought with them from Paddan-Aram. They gave them to Jacob and he buried them. At least for a brief time, the covenant family was idol-free. But as subsequent history will show, somebody either dug them up or got more idols from the Canaanite neighbors. Idolatry would be Israel’s besetting sin throughout its history for more than 1,000 years to come. There was a solemnness about going to worship, a special sense of God's presence. Jacob insisted that the whole company bathe and put on clean clothes. (Do you think that may be the ancient root of Saturday night baths and wearing one's Sunday best to worship?)
I love Jacob's description of his God: "the God who answers me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone." What finer sense of our Shepherd and Lord could we have in our hearts than that? He answers and rescues his people from their deepest distresses and saves them from their worst problem. He is with us not just in a location like a church building, but wherever we go. He never leaves, never forsakes. Jacob's beautiful description anticipates so many doctrines yet to be unfolded in God's word to his people.
Jacob and Company pulled up their tent stakes (the literal meaning of the original Hebrew for “journeyed”) and headed for Bethel. They were protected all along the route by God himself. Just as the Lord put a fear of him on Jericho before Israel's invasion and attack, so the cities along Jacob's route allowed Jacob to pass without confrontation or pursuit.
At Bethel, God appeared to Jacob and blessed him again as the covenant head of the people of God. His father Isaac is still alive at the time. But Isaac will be dead before this chapter ends, after the son is reunited with his father after Jacob’s 20 year absence.
Jacob enjoyed many blessings from God, but he was not immune to the trials and sorrows of life. His mother Rebekah was already dead, but her beloved nurse Deborah was now in Jacob's company, and they mourned her death along the way to Bethel. Jacob suffered a heartbreaking loss when his beloved Rachel died in childbirth after they left Bethel. The baby survived, the twelfth of the twelve sons, Benjamin. Remember Rachel's impassioned words to her husband back in chapter 30? "Give me children, or I die!" It's sad that she did die giving birth to the second child God granted her with Jacob.
Jacob knew other troubles, too. There's a one-verse account of the shameful behavior of the firstborn son, Reuben, who lay with his father's concubine Bilhah. It's hard to see why this is in the record, except that it sets up the nature of the blessing Jacob will pronounce on his sons in chapter 49.
There's a strong sense of "generations" as the chapter ends. Jacob's twelve sons are named, sorted by rank and then birth order. Then Isaac died at 180 years old. Esau and Jacob buried their father at Machpelah. Esau's family line will be chronicled in the next chapter, and Esau will leave the Genesis stage. But Jacob is clearly at the head of the family that will become the nation. The nation of his descendants will bear the name God reiterated to him at Bethel, Israel.
Copyright © 2021 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Today in God's Word—November 2024
East Tallassee Church of Christ
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