Genesis 35
Genesis 35:1-29 (NLT)
1 Then God said to Jacob, “Get ready and move to Bethel and settle there. Build an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother, Esau.”
2 So Jacob told everyone in his household, “Get rid of all your pagan idols, purify yourselves, and put on clean clothing.
3 We are now going to Bethel, where I will build an altar to the God who answered my prayers when I was in distress. He has been with me wherever I have gone.”
4 So they gave Jacob all their pagan idols and earrings, and he buried them under the great tree near Shechem.
5 As they set out, a terror from God spread over the people in all the towns of that area, so no one attacked Jacob’s family.
6 Eventually, Jacob and his household arrived at Luz (also called Bethel) in Canaan.
7 Jacob built an altar there and named the place El-bethel (which means “God of Bethel”), because God had appeared to him there when he was fleeing from his brother, Esau.
8 Soon after this, Rebekah’s old nurse, Deborah, died. She was buried beneath the oak tree in the valley below Bethel. Ever since, the tree has been called Allon-bacuth (which means “oak of weeping”).
9 Now that Jacob had returned from Paddan-aram, God appeared to him again at Bethel. God blessed him,
10 saying, “Your name is Jacob, but you will not be called Jacob any longer. From now on your name will be Israel.” So God renamed him Israel.
11 Then God said, “I am El-Shaddai—‘God Almighty.’ Be fruitful and multiply. You will become a great nation, even many nations. Kings will be among your descendants!
12 And I will give you the land I once gave to Abraham and Isaac. Yes, I will give it to you and your descendants after you.”
13 Then God went up from the place where he had spoken to Jacob.
14 Jacob set up a stone pillar to mark the place where God had spoken to him. Then he poured wine over it as an offering to God and anointed the pillar with olive oil.
15 And Jacob named the place Bethel (which means “house of God”), because God had spoken to him there.
16 Leaving Bethel, Jacob and his clan moved on toward Ephrath. But Rachel went into labor while they were still some distance away. Her labor pains were intense.
17 After a very hard delivery, the midwife finally exclaimed, “Don’t be afraid—you have another son!”
18 Rachel was about to die, but with her last breath she named the baby Ben-oni (which means “son of my sorrow”). The baby’s father, however, called him Benjamin (which means “son of my right hand”).
19 So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem).
20 Jacob set up a stone monument over Rachel’s grave, and it can be seen there to this day.
21 Then Jacob traveled on and camped beyond Migdal-eder.
22 While he was living there, Reuben had intercourse with Bilhah, his father’s concubine, and Jacob soon heard about it. These are the names of the twelve sons of Jacob:
23 The sons of Leah were Reuben (Jacob’s oldest son), Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun.
24 The sons of Rachel were Joseph and Benjamin.
25 The sons of Bilhah, Rachel’s servant, were Dan and Naphtali.
26 The sons of Zilpah, Leah’s servant, were Gad and Asher. These are the names of the sons who were born to Jacob at Paddan-aram.
27 So Jacob returned to his father, Isaac, in Mamre, which is near Kiriath-arba (now called Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had both lived as foreigners.
28 Isaac lived for 180 years.
29 Then he breathed his last and died at a ripe old age, joining his ancestors in death. And his sons, Esau and Jacob, buried him.
The promise made to Abraham and Isaac was then being fulfilled through descendants who were not what you might have thought to be appropriate for the roles. While Isaac, the one who went to the mountain with his father to be sacrificed, was yet alive, it was Jacob’s activities that were establishing the foundation for the most significant of the promised nations, Israel. This son with a stolen birthright and blessing was wrestling angels for blessings, bribing his brother for favor, bearing children through multiple wives and concubines, experiencing family upheavals that included rape and mass murder, all while receiving divine protection, favor, blessing, and personal communication and direction from the God of his fathers. Somehow, his continual return with honor to the presence of the Lord overrode disastrous character traits that should have disqualified him from any notable participation in the Creator’s eternal promises of possession and power. If family associations could be detractors from legitimacy as an effective leader in a God-fulfillment, Jacob had an abundance of them that should have forced another choice as Nation Namer. Yet, even with his first-born having sexual relations with his concubine, Jacob, through diligent pursuit and passionate honoring of his God, set himself as the exact person God would impart His promise and blessing.
Gratefully, the ways of God consistently fly in the face of man’s ways. He doesn’t confine Himself to the elite merit-based structures that would exclude the vast masses of His creation from participation in His plans. His grace is already actively qualifying the most unpredictable candidates for integral roles in His plans for salvation and restoration. The blood of Jesus has made the way for even the most objectionable, according to religious stipulations, to yet be the precise ones to define His fulfilled promises because of their honor over their perfection and their presence over their status. No matter the previous and current status of any candidate in the kingdom, there is an overriding power in the choice of worship that gains access to the presence of the Master by the blood of Jesus over the qualifications of man. We have all been given equal access that changes our qualifications by our own choosing to boldly go over our own goodness to show.