Genesis · chapter 35 of 50
Updated on
Genesis 35 tells how God tells Jacob to return to Bethel. Jacob asks his household to put away their foreign gods, goes up with them to Bethel and builds an altar, and God renews the name Israel and his promise. On the way Deborah and Rachel die, Rachel giving birth to Benjamin. The chapter closes with the list of Jacob's twelve sons and the death of Isaac at age 180.
Genesis 34 ended with Jacob's family in danger because of the violence of Simeon and Levi. Genesis 35 is God's answer: he orders Jacob to go up to Bethel, the place where he met him when he was fleeing. The chapter is a new beginning with spiritual renewal, but also a chapter of mourning, because Deborah, Rachel and finally Isaac die in it.
God tells Jacob to go up to Bethel, to live there and to make an altar to the God who appeared to him when he fled from Esau. Jacob tells his household and all who are with him to put away the foreign gods, purify themselves and change their clothes. They give him the gods and their earrings, and Jacob buries them under an oak near Shechem. A terror from God falls on the cities around them, and no one pursues them.
Jacob reaches Luz, which is Bethel, and builds an altar called El-bethel. There Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, dies and is buried under an oak. God appears to him again, blesses him and confirms his new name, Israel. He identifies himself as God Almighty, tells him to be fruitful and multiply, and promises that a nation, a company of nations and kings will come from him, and that the land of Abraham and Isaac will be his. Jacob sets up a stone pillar, pours a drink offering and oil on it, and names the place Bethel.
Then they leave Bethel, and near Ephrath Rachel goes into hard labor. The midwife encourages her, because she has a son. Rachel dies, and she names the child Ben-oni, but his father calls him Benjamin. Jacob buries her on the way to Ephrath, that is, Bethlehem, and sets up a pillar over her grave. While Israel lives in that land, Reuben lies with Bilhah, his father's concubine, and Jacob hears of it. The twelve sons of Jacob are listed. Finally Jacob reaches Hebron, where Isaac dies at age 180 and is buried by Esau and Jacob.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
Jacob asks his household to put away the foreign gods, purify themselves and change their clothes. It is a call to change allegiance before drawing near to God, and it shows that the idols of Rachel and the servants were still present in his household.
Jacob recalls that God answered him in the day of his distress and was with him on his journey. He goes up to Bethel with gratitude, convinced that the Lord has been faithful since he fled from Esau.
God identifies himself as Almighty, tells Jacob to be fruitful and promises him a nation, kings and the land given to Abraham and Isaac. It is the renewal of the Abrahamic promise, now in the hands of Israel.
As Rachel dies, she names her son Ben-oni, meaning son of my sorrow, but Jacob calls him Benjamin, son of my right hand. It is a moment of grief and hope together, in which the father turns a name of pain into one of honor.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: To go up to Bethel, live there and make an altar to the God who appeared to him when he fled from Esau. — Genesis 35:1
Answer: To put away the foreign gods, purify themselves and change their clothes. — Genesis 35:2
Answer: A terror from God fell on the cities around them. — Genesis 35:5
Answer: Israel, the name first given at Peniel. — Genesis 35:10
Answer: His mother called him Ben-oni, but his father called him Benjamin. — Genesis 35:18
Answer: He was 180; his sons Esau and Jacob buried him. — Genesis 35:28-29
Genesis 35 invites us to return to the places and commitments where God first met us. Jacob went back to Bethel, and before doing so he cleaned his household of foreign gods. In a Sunday school class, the chapter raises the question of what we keep in our house that competes with loyalty to God.
The chapter also does not ignore pain: Deborah, Rachel and Isaac die, and Reuben fails. God renews his promise in the middle of these losses, not after them. Ask how to walk with those who grieve without offering easy answers, and how to hold on to God's promises in the hour of mourning.
Genesis 35 ends with the death of Isaac and the list of the twelve sons of Israel. Genesis 36 continues with the genealogy of Esau, and then, from chapter 37, the story will turn to Joseph and his brothers.
Burying them was a way of taking them out of use and leaving them behind. The idols and the earrings, tied to pagan religious practice, were put beyond the family's reach. The text shows that rejecting idols came before worship at Bethel.
Rachel dies giving birth to Benjamin near Ephrath, that is, Bethlehem. Her tomb, marked with a pillar, remained a landmark on the road, and the prophet Jeremiah mentions it when speaking of mothers weeping, a text that Matthew 2:18 connects with Bethlehem.
Reuben lay with Bilhah, his father's concubine, an act of dishonor. The text tells it briefly and without detail, but in Genesis 49:3-4 Jacob will tell him that for this reason he will lose the preeminence of the firstborn.