Genesis 35

Updated
2001-05-26; 14:31:42utc

There are some surprises in this chapter. The first one is the mention of the idols that were kept by the family. The fact that Jacob, who evidently knew that they were there, had tolerated them all this time could explain why atrocities, such as the wiping out of the city of Shechem took place. Idols open the door for demonic activity and the massacre carried out by Simeon and Levi would show the presence of demons. This does not excuse the behavior of the boys, but it makes it more plausible.

The idols would have been mainly the "teraphim" we read about in Ch. 31:19. There we learned "When Laban had gone to shear his sheep, Rachel stole her father's household gods." But it could be that other ones had been added afterwards. Several commentators suppose that the people who were captured at Shechem had brought their own deities with them.

Another surprise, although less surprising, is the fact that Jacob has to be reminded by God of the vow he made twenty years before. In Ch. 28:20-22 he had said: "If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear So that I return safely to my father's house, then the LORD will be my God And this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God's house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth." Jacob had not been in a hurry to fulfil his pledge. If he had gone straight to Bethel instead of settling down in Shechem and building houses and stables there, the rape of Dinah and its consequences would have been prevented. We save ourselves a lot of problems by doing what we promise God.

There must have been some between Jacob's worry about the consequences of his sons crime and his hearing of the voice of God. If everything would have gone well, Jacob might not have heard the voice of God speaking to him. His deep distress conditioned him to receive God's communication. It is quite possible that we miss a lot of God's Word to us, because we are not paying attention. God had to shake Jacob up out of his lethargy to make him listen. It could very well be that he would have spent the rest of his life at Shechem.

On the other hand, the atrocity committed by Simeon and Levi had made the place unsafe for further residence. But leaving the area and travelling through a country where the inhabitants had heard about the raid, was not appealing either. Jacob faced the dilemma that it was not safe to stay and it was not safe to go. We do not read that he turns to God, but God turns to him and He reminds him of his promise to go to Bethel. Then Jacob knew that he should have gone to Bethel. He must have realized that he knew all the time what to do. It is strange but true that when God reveals His will to us we often have to admit that we knew it already.

In our spiritual life it is a good principle to visit Bethel from time to time. We have to return to the place where it started in order to see how far we have come. A return to the place, to the time in our life where we first became aware of God's presence and His dealing with us keeps the vision alive. It keeps us from becoming stagnant. It reminds us of our promises.

God tells Jacob to go to Bethel by reminding him of his promise. He quotes Jacob back to himself. Jacob has to admit: "It is true; I said this; I better go and do it!"

Jacob's life, from the human viewpoint, seems to have existed in fleeing from someone or something. He fled from Esau to his uncle Laban, he fled from Laban to Shechem and now he flees from Shechem. Yet, in all these flights there is an element of divine revelation. Every time God appears to him to make him understand that he is following the Lord's guidance. What is visible to the human eye looks like a defeat. Nobody flees in victoriously. But seen from above Jacob follows the divine road. Most often God's victories are our defeats. Peniel was a defeat, so was Paul's escape from Damascus.

Jacob has enough insight in the spiritual significance of his journey to Bethel to realize that it has to be done in holiness. There can be no mixed allegiance. Everything that does not belong to God has to disappear. So the teraphim are handed over to him as well as all the other spiritualistic garbage, such as rings and earrings. We understand that those objects were not just ornaments, but charms that were probably decorated with astrological designs. Some idols may have come from the women who were captured at Shechem. Jacob buries them all, probably after destroying them first.

There seems to have been no remonstration by any members of the family. Some of the fear for their safety, which Jacob felt, had probably spread over the whole group. They all feel they need divine protection.

Besides the throwing away of idols the family subjects to a ritual of purification. We do not know how often people in the Old Testament bathed and changed clothes. Probably less often than Westerners. There is a considerable difference in habits of cleanliness between Europeans and North Americans. We should not discuss that subject here, however tempting it may be. One gets the impression that people in the Old Testament were in the habit of wearing a habit till they got attached to it. As far as the priests serving in the tabernacle was concerned, there were elaborate laws regarding the garments they could wear and how many baths they should take. Human body odors are evidently offensive to the Lord, for Ezekiel 44:18 states about the priests "They are to wear linen turbans on their heads and linen undergarments around their waists. They must not wear anything that makes them perspire."

So the whole family of Israel took a bath and changed into new clothes. This was to express a inner condition in the same way as the baptism that was administered by John was an outward token of an inward confession of sins.

The result of the spiritual renewal is amazing. Everybody in the area the pass through realizes that these people are under a supernatural protection and that it would be very dangerous to put anything in their way. Verse 5 says: "Then they set out, and the terror of God fell upon the towns all around them so that no one pursued them."

That "the terror of God" kept the enemies at a distance, does not mean, of course, that God had approved of the criminal act of Simeon and Levi. He had evidently forgiven them for Jacob's sake. Unfortunately, this will not have been the message that was conveyed to the cities of Canaan. The people of the land must have thought that, if they attacked Israel and his family, they would be wiped out as Shechem was. In their eyes God protected a bunch of criminals. I do not know how such a fatal misunderstanding could have been cleared up. But, probably, none of the Canaanites would have been interested in understanding, or would have been longing for the salvation of his sins, such as Jacob had received. "The terror of the Lord" seems to fall mainly upon people who are unrepentant.

Finally Jacob arrives at Bethel, where he builds an altar to the Lord. By now it will have been twenty-five to thirty years that he had put down his head upon a stone there and had seen heaven open above him and heard the voice of God in his dream. As we said before, he would have saved himself a lot of suffering if he had made a beeline for this place instead of settling down in Shechem.

He calls the place El Bethel, meaning, according to Adam Clarke, "The strong God, the house of the strong God." The Pulpit Commentary simply translates it with "The God of Bethel." It remarks also: "It has been proposed, after the LXX, to avoid the seeming incongruity of assigning such a name to a place, to read, he invoked upon the place the El of Bethel." This seems to me a very logical conclusion and I have little doubt that this was Jacob's intention.

There is some confusion about the meaning of verse 8 - "Now Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died and was buried under the oak below Bethel. So it was named Allon Bacuth." The impression one gets is that Deborah was a member of Jacob's extended family, travelling with him. She had left Paddan Haran about 150 years before, when Eliezer came to get Rebekah for Isaac. I believe the verse does not necessarily state that Deborah was in Jacob's company and that she died when Jacob visited Bethel for the second time. It could simply mean that she had died at an earlier time and was buried under the oak tree, close to where Jacob built his altar. Adam Clarke seems to agree with this interpretation. The verse may say that when Jacob visited Bethel, he was reminded of his mother, since he saw the grave of his mother's nurse there. Of Rebekah's death we know nothing. She faded out of the picture when Jacob left his parental home.

The presence of Deborah's grave and the memory of the first night with the dream at Bethel seem to determine the atmosphere at this place. Jacob is reminded of the transitory character of life and of its eternal character.

At this point God appears to Abraham again. It says in verse 9 "After Jacob returned from Paddan Aram, God appeared to him again and blessed him." Some commentators probably take this verse and the following verses to be a double of the preceding mention of a theophany. It seems to me that the verse is saying that Jacob had only really returned to Canaan when he arrived at Bethel. The time he spent at Shechem was lost time in God's agenda.

God's appearance to Jacob describes in verse 9 - 12 is different from the dream he had over twenty years earlier. This is not a dream. God comes down to him and speaks to him personally in the same way as He had done earlier to Abraham. God confirms to Jacob the victory at Peniel and He repeats the blessing that had been given about two centuries earlier to Abraham.

Evidently Jacob needed to be reminded of his new name. He bore the stigma of his victory in his body, since he was probably permanently maimed in the struggle with the angel. It could be that he had started to concentrate on his physical handicap instead of upon the spiritual experience that lay at the base of it. God had not given him his limp to drag him down, but to pull him up. His own unsteady feet should make him lean more heavily upon the Lord and not on his walking stick. So God reminds him that he is no longer Jacob, but Israel.

Jacob had earlier received the promise that he would posses the land. But here the Lord repeats in detail what He had said to Abraham. The promise of descendants, which had been such a test of faith both for Abraham and Isaac, was not hard to accept for Jacob. He had already twelve children and the thirteenth was probably on its way at this time. This is the third time that God mentions kings, which would be born from Jacob. At a later stage Jacob must have received more insight into this part of the promise, because in blessing Judah, he mentions "Shiloh," the King of kings. In Ch. 49:10 we read: "The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be." (KJV)

But the promise of God does not only pertain to the coming of the Messiah, it paints also in large strokes the history of Israel and the Kingdom of heaven. The "nation" obviously refers to the people of Israel itself, but the "community of nations" points to the heathen who will enter the Kingdom through the preaching of the Gospel. This promise runs parallel to the one God gave to Abraham, when He said: "all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." (Ch. 12:3). The kings mentioned in this verse include, of course also

the name of David and Solomon, who are considered to be great potentates in the history of the world.

Finally, there is a reference to the fact that human authority over men is a reflection of God's own omnipotence. God reveals Himself as "El Shaddai," God Almighty. In examples of kings in world history, who considered themselves representatives of God's omnipotence on earth are few and far apart. In the Old Testament David was the only one who maintained his theocratic vision till the end. Salomon lost the vision later in life.

The audience ends with God's promise to give the land to Jacob. It is the same promise that was given to Abraham in Ch. 13:14-17 - "The LORD said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, 'Lift up your eyes from where you are and look north and south, east and west. All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you.'" And to Isaac in Ch. 26:3,4 - "Stay in this land for a while, and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and your descendants I will give all these lands and will confirm the oath I swore to your father Abraham. I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and will give them all these lands, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed."

We turn again to Heb. 11:13-16, where the intent of the promise is made clear. "All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country; a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them."

The fact that verse 13 mentions specifically "Then God went up from him at the place where he had talked with him," indicates that Jacob did not have a dream or a vision as in the previous instances when God revealed Himself, but that this was a theophany of the type that Abraham experiences at the time of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorra.

As we saw earlier, Jacob had a strong sense of ceremony. He erects another monument at the place where God spoke to him. This time he will have made something less primitive than the stone he erected years earlier, when he was on his way to Paddan Aram. He does not just turn up the stone he used as a pillow, but he makes a pillar upon which he pours oil and wine. This is the first time we read in the Bible that a libation was made as an offering. We have to remember that he had already built an altar and brought animal sacrifices. That was the reason why he had returned to Bethel. He does not change the name of the place, but simply reconfirms that this is the "House of God."

The oil and the wine acquired later the significance of symbols of the Holy Spirit and the covenant in blood. Although it would have been impossible for Jacob to know the full implication of the symbols, it is obviously that his act is symbolical and we may interpret it as such. God can only reveal Himself to man on the basis of His covenant, which is the eternal covenant sealed by the blood of Jesus. And in speaking to man God imparts His Spirit upon him.

We do not read anything about Jacob's reaction to God's speaking to him. The erection of the pillar and the poring out of the elements are done in silence, as far as we know. But it would have been impossible that God's revelation would not have touched Jacob deeply. One does not get used to divine revelations. Jacob may not have been shaken up like before, because he had dealt with his sins at Peniel. His encounters with God will have taken on the form of a fellowship, of a walking with Him, such as God intends man to do. Originally there was no place for sin in the relationship between God and man. And the atonement restores this relationship to its intended form. This does not take the awe away from it. Bethel has always been a place of awe. Ch. 28:17 says that when Jacob was at Bethel for the first time "he was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven." A person who enters the house of God without this sense of awe has no idea who God is.

Remains the fact that it wasn't Jacob who sought God, but God came down to Jacob. This miracle is the basis of all miracles. From the very beginning in paradise, it was God who came to the garden, both before Adam and Eve fell into sin and after. Finally the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. This miracle will become greater and more glorious to us in as much as we enter into God's presence. The more we understand of this, the more incomprehensible it will be to us that we never understood this before. As John says in his Gospel: "The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him." (John 1:9-11)

Verse 16-20 tell us about the birth of Benjamin and the death of Rachel in childbirth. Jacob had moved away from Bethel and found himself at Bethlehem when Rachel started labor. We are told that labor was hard, but no further details are given. It seems that Rachel passed away immediately after Benjamin was born. As we mentioned before in connection with chapter 31, some commentators interpret Rachel's death in the light of the curse Jacob pronounced, unknowingly, upon her. We read in Ch. 31:32 that Jacob tells Laban, who accuses him of stealing his teraphim: "But if you find anyone who has your gods, he shall not live. In the presence of our relatives, see for yourself whether there is anything of yours here with me; and if so, take it." Now Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen the gods." Whether there is any link between this curse and Rachel's premature death, we do not know.

Rachel's last recorded word is the name she gives to her son, "Ben-Oni," meaning "son of suffering." Jacob changes this into "Benjamin." Jacob never kept it a secret that Rachel was his favorite wife and that Joseph and Benjamin were his favorite sons. This foolishness, this lack of parental wisdom, caused terrible suffering in the family. Even Jacob's multiple encounters with God did not change this situation.

The words of the Rachel's midwife, "Do not be afraid for you have another son," are typical for the tragedy of Rachel's life. In a world where fecundity was considered the greatest virtue for a women, Rachel occupied the lowest place. As we have seen in chapter 30 jealousy between the two sisters, that is Jacob's two wives, poisoned the atmosphere in the family. So the birth of Benjamin was considered a major victory for Rachel. But at what expense it was obtained. The poison kept working even after Rachel's death. The children who were raised had been infected and demonstrated the same spirit among each other as the parents had breathed upon them.

There is still a place, close to Bethlehem, which is called Rachel's tomb. It is supposed to be the monument Jacob erected. The death of Rachel, probably at a rather young age, must have meant a deep felt loss for Jacob. She had been the only one he really loved in the family. After her death he transferred this love to her two sons, Joseph and Benjamin, much to the chagrin of his other sons.

After moving on and arriving at Migdal Eder, another tragic incident takes place. Reuben commits incest with his father's concubine Bilhah. He must have been in his late teens or early twenties, or maybe older. He may have been married already. From the incident at Shechem we get the impression that several of Jacob's sons were married and had their own families. Bilhah had been Rachel's slave girl. It could be that Reuben's act was more an act of revenge then a giving in to sexual desire. He may have wanted to get back at his father for showing strong preference to Rachel and her children to the neglect of the rest of the family. The fact that Jacob hears it but does not react could mean that he got the message. It wasn't until Jacob was on his deathbed that he mentions the fact. In Ch. 49:3-4 we hear him say: "Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, the first sign of my strength, excelling in honor, excelling in power. Turbulent as the waters, you will no longer excel, for you went up onto your father's bed, onto my couch and defiled it."

What Reuben did was a terrible sin. It is strongly condemned in the Mosaic law. In Leviticus, we read: "Do not have sexual relations with your father's wife; that would dishonor your father."[ 1 ] In connection with this kind of sin, the Lord says that the land of Canaan had been defiled. Besides showing guilt, Jacob's lack of action also shows that he was not the spiritual guide in the family that he should have been. He should have disciplined his children. But neither in the case of the massacre that Simeon and Levi carried out, nor in this case of Reuben's sin was there any indication that Jacob acted. Yet, he was the only one who knew God face to face. Had Jacob's personal behavior as husband of one wife and father of the family been an example to follow, he would have had more ground to stand on. It is hard to discipline if you are not an example. The model is more important that the word.

At this point, from verse 23 through 25, the author interrupts his narration to give us the names of Jacob's family members. Only the names of the sons and their mother's are mentioned, Dinah is left out. And Benjamin, who was actually born in Canaan, is grouped with the other sons who were all born in Paddan Aram. The obvious intent of Moses was to indicate the first arrival in Canaan of Israel as a nation in a nutshell. This was a historic

moment in the history of the people. It was the first time that the twelve tribes set foot on the Promised Land.

Then we read in Ch. 35:27 "Jacob came home to his father Isaac in Mamre, near Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had stayed." Probably more than thirty years after he had fled to Paddan Haran Jacob returns. When he left he expected to never see his old father again. But he hoped to find his mother. When Jacob left, Isaac had already given up on life, but he lived in the darkness of his blindness till Jacob returned with his large family. Although Jacob was not Isaac's favorite son, his return must have been a comfort and encouragement for him. How long Isaac lived after Jacob's return we do not know. We are only told that Jacob and Esau met again for the occasion of their father's funeral.

There is a problem in the configuration of Jacob's age at this point. If Isaac was sixty when Jacob and Esau were born, the sons must have been 120 when their father died. We read in Ch. 25:26 "Isaac was sixty years old when Rebekah gave birth to them." But when Jacob meets Pharaoh in Ch. 47, we are only ten year further. Gen 47:9 tell us: "And Jacob said to Pharaoh, 'The years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty. My years have been few and difficult, and they do not equal the years of the pilgrimage of my fathers.'" We have to conclude that much of the following record in Genesis should be inserted in between the verses of our present chapter.

The story of Jacob virtually ends here. In the next chapter we read the genealogy of Esau and from chapter 37 on Joseph is the main character.

[ 1 ] Lev. 18:8