Reflections on Genesis 35

Genesis 35 (Contemporary English Version)
1. God told Jacob, "Return to Bethel, where I appeared to you when you were running from your brother Esau. Make your home there and build an altar for me."
   
2. Jacob said to his family and to everyone else who was traveling with him: Get rid of your foreign gods! Then make yourselves acceptable to worship God and put on clean clothes.
   
3. Afterwards, we'll go to Bethel. I will build an altar there for God, who answered my prayers when I was in trouble and who has always been at my side.
   
4. So everyone gave Jacob their idols and their earrings, and he buried them under the oak tree near Shechem.
   
5. While Jacob and his family were traveling through Canaan, God terrified the people in the towns so much that no one dared bother them.
   
6. Finally, they reached Bethel, also known as Luz.
   
7. Jacob built an altar there and called it "God of Bethel," because that was the place where God had appeared to him when he was running from Esau.
   
8. While they were there, Rebekah's personal servant Deborah died. They buried her under an oak tree and called it "Weeping Oak."
   
9. After Jacob came back to the land of Canaan, God appeared to him again. This time he gave Jacob a new name and blessed him by saying: I am God All-Powerful, and from now on your name will be Israel instead of Jacob. You will have many children. Your descendants will become nations, and some of the men in your family will even be kings.
   
10. (SEE 35:9)
    
11. (SEE 35:9)
    
12. I will give you the land that I promised Abraham and Isaac, and it will belong to your family forever.
    
13. After God had gone,
    
14. Jacob set up a large rock, so that he would remember what had happened there. Then he poured wine and olive oil on the rock to show that it was dedicated to God,
    
15. and he named the place Bethel.
    
16. Jacob and his family had left Bethel and were still a long way from Ephrath, when the time came for Rachel's baby to be born.
    
17. She was having a rough time, but the woman who was helping her said, "Don't worry! It's a boy."
    
18. Rachel was at the point of death, and right before dying, she said, "I'll name him Benoni." But Jacob called him Benjamin.
    
19. Rachel was buried beside the road to Ephrath, which is also called Bethlehem.
    
20. Jacob set up a tombstone over her grave, and it is still there.
    
21. Jacob, also known as Israel, traveled to the south of Eder Tower, where he set up camp.
    
22. During their time there, Jacob's oldest son Reuben slept with Bilhah, who was one of Jacob's other wives. And Jacob found out about it.
    
23. Jacob had twelve sons while living in northern Syria. His first-born Reuben was the son of Leah, who later gave birth to Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. Leah's servant Zilpah had two sons: Gad and Asher. Jacob and his wife Rachel had Joseph and Benjamin. Rachel's servant woman Bilhah had two more sons: Dan and Naphtali.
    
24. (SEE 35:23)
    
25. (SEE 35:23)
    
26. (SEE 35:23)
    
27. Jacob went to his father Isaac at Hebron, also called Mamre or Kiriath-Arba, where Isaac's father Abraham had lived as a foreigner.
    
28. Isaac died at the ripe old age of one hundred eighty, then his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.
    
29. (SEE 35:28)
    
    

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    Chapter 35 records the ending of an era, during which Isaac was the bearer of the covenant, and the beginning of another era in which Jacob, who was renamed Israel, became the covenant bearer. The mantle was fully passed to Jacob/Israel at Bethel, the place of Jacob's spiritual roots. It was at Bethel that God came to Jacob when he fled from his brother Esau and went to his uncle Laban's. At that time God promised to give him and his offspring the land of Canaan, to make his offspring as plentiful as the "dust of the earth," and that "All the peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring." (28:14) Furthermore, God promised to be with him and watch over him and to bring him back to this land.
    
    When it was time for Jacob to leave his uncle Laban and return to Canaan, God came to him and told him to, "Get up, leave this land, and return to your native land." (31:13) When Jacob returned to Canaan, he first settled at Shechem. There is some question as to whether Jacob failed to fully follow God's instructions to him by not returning to Hebron, the home of his father Isaac. The question is prompted primarily by his problems at Shechem with the defilement of his daughter Dinah. But the presence of idols within Jacob's household also raises the question of whether Jacob was fully devoted to God, or at least if he was fully obedient.
    
    Whatever the situation, Jacob renewed his commitment to God by obediently packing to move to Bethel as God instructed. Included in this action was a call to his family to "Get rid of the foreign gods that are among you. Purify yourselves and change your clothes. We must get up and go to Bethel. I will build an altar there to the God who answered me in my day of distress. He has been with me everywhere I have gone." (35:2-3) Upon his arrival at Bethel, God appeared to Jacob and blessed him. This blessing was somewhat repetitious of His original blessing to Jacob at Bethel, but in addition to promising that he would inherit the land and have abundant offspring, God promised that an assembly of nations would come from him and there would be kings among his descendants. Along with these promises came a name change which was a symbol of God's covenant with him. Jacob became Israel.
    
    Jacob's relationship with God was a progressively maturing one that was not so different from what most of us experience. At his original encounter with God at Bethel Jacob did not immediately become the man God intended him to be. Nor do any of us become the people God plans us to be when we first commit our lives to Him. It is a lifetime process. At least it is if we remain faithful to Him throughout our lives and stay on the journey. In the later years of this journey it will not matter whether our deeds in God's service are considered great or small in the eyes of man. What will matter and will bring joy and fulfillment to us will be that we stayed on the journey and remained faithful. And we will be amazed at the blessings God has bestowed on us along the way.