Genesis 35:1-15--God Blesses and Renames Jacob

READ:  https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+35%3A1-15&version=ESV
LISTEN:  https://www.biblegateway.com/audio/mclean/esv/Gen.35.1-Gen.35.15
​
God Blesses and Renames Jacob

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.” 2 So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods that are among you and purify yourselves and change your garments. 3 Then let us arise and go up to Bethel, so that I may make there an altar to the God who answers me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.” 4 So they gave to Jacob all the foreign gods that they had, and the rings that were in their ears. Jacob hid them under the terebinth tree that was near Shechem.



5 And as they journeyed, a terror from God fell upon the cities that were around them, so that they did not pursue the sons of Jacob. 6 And Jacob came to Luz (that is, Bethel), which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him, 7 and there he built an altar and called the place El-bethel, because there God had revealed himself to him when he fled from his brother. 8 And Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died, and she was buried under an oak below Bethel. So he called its name Allon-bacuth.



9 God appeared to Jacob again, when he came from Paddan-aram, and blessed him. 10 And God said to him, “Your name is Jacob; no longer shall your name be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name.” So he called his name Israel. 11 And God said to him, “I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body. 12 The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you.” 13 Then God went up from him in the place where he had spoken with him. 14 And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he had spoken with him, a pillar of stone. He poured out a drink offering on it and poured oil on it. 15 So Jacob called the name of the place where God had spoken with him Bethel.

---

We've already had a foreshadowing of this event a few chapters ago when Jacob wrestled with either an angel or maybe even with God Himself at Peniel (Genesis 32).  Jacob asked to be blessed before he released the man he was wrestling with and was told, "Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” (Genesis 32:28).  It was already a done-deal with God--He had already declared that Jacob would be chosen to become Israel but Jacob is finally ready to receive that new identity here and now in chapter 35.

God once again appears to Jacob and identifies Himself as the God who was active in a particular event in history.  We have seen this in the past with God reminding Abraham that He was the one that called Abram out of the land of Ur of the Chaldeans and He will tell his people over and over again in the Old Testament "I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt," both during and after the Exodus.  But here, God identifies Himself as the one who appeared to Jacob when he was running form his brother Esau.  God gives Jacob instructions to arise and go to Bethel (the place that Jacob had promised to return to in order to worship God if God protected him during his time with Laban), and for Jacob to live there.

Jacob realizes that God is not just calling him to a change of physical address, but he's calling him to live a life of worship and to constantly exist there in the place where he was closest to God.  Jacob makes a call for all of his camp to put away any false gods that they owned and to purify themselves (taking a bath was not common back then) and put on new, clean garments, because God deserved to have their undivided worship, to have them at their best, and these outward actions should have been a reflection of what was going on inside the people--put away the idolatry in our hearts, be cleansed from our sin, and be given a new "garment" of righteousness by Christ because our sin-soiled souls are not acceptable and pleasing to God and cannot be cleaned enough, we must take them off and put on the "new clothes" of Christ's righteousness.  Only then are we ready to go to the altar in worship, both in thanksgiving for what He has done for us and in faith that all of His promises are "Yes and amen," as He is sure to bring them to pass.

It appears that it is here that Jacob would have probably discovered that Rachel had stolen her father's idols as Jacob took all the idols that the people had and hid them under the terebinth tree that was near Shechem.  Personally I think he should ground them to dust and burned them so that there was no chance of the people coming back to dig them up later, but this is just like us.  We like to leave our idols in a place where we know exactly where they are, even if they are hidden so that we can return to them easily, even though we realize that it's God alone who had provided for us and cared for us this entire time.

God brought Jacob to Bethel and he built and altar there called El-bethel ("The God of Bethel") because this is where God revealed Himself to Jacob when he was fleeing from Esau and running to Laban.  While we're not sure of the significance of Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, we are told that she died here in Bethel and was buried here and that the oak where she was buried would get a name translated "The Oak of Weeping."  Apparently this was a very sad day for Jacob and all of the people.

God once again blessed Jacob there and the passage reminds us that he had been travelling form Paddan-aram (the place where Laban lived) this whole time and had been without a home until now when God told him that his how would be in Bethel.  God spoke to Jacob and gave him the same message that was given to him in Peniel, "Your name is Jacob; no longer shall your name be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name.” (Genesis 35:10).  

Then God once renewed his covenant with Jacob (now Israel) when He swore by Himself saying, "I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body. 12 The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you.” (Genesis 35:11-12).  Jacob set up a pillar there and worshiped God and the name of that place was officially named Bethel--though we've had it referenced that way several times previously, it was only now that it received that name as a permanent change and would no longer have its Canaanite name of Luz.

This passage has been all about changes in identity and the acts of worship that take place when we encounter a God that radically changes our lives to make us into a new people consecrated to Himself--so much so that we have to cast aside things from our old lives, be sanctified and clothed in a new garments (a spiritual metaphor of God giving us a new heart) and taking on the new identity and new name that God has given us.  Only God has the authority to to change our identity and our name here.  He did not deny the name that had been given by Jacob's parents, but instead God revealed to Jacob that there was a deeper a spiritual identity in God's covenant that was even more true than his physical traits or personality that was evidenced from the time of his natural birth.  In a sense we see that Jacob is "born again" here as an old man, and it took a lot of work for God to bring him to this place where I think we can finally say that He understands and truly believes--though he had great faith before this, especially on Mount Moriah where he was willing to lay down his life and let his father Abraham sacrifice him.

We are about to reach the end of the narrative for Isaac as the next passage will be about the death of Isaac and Rebekah.  However, right after that, we're going to jump back in time and start talking about Joseph and we're going to see that Isaac is very much alive.  Why is that?  Again, remember that Genesis is an anthology if biographies of key people in the line of the history of the beginnings of peoples, nations, and covenants.  While Joseph, our next main character in Genesis, is not part of the Messianic line, he is a type of Christ in that he will be used to provide a type of salvation for his people, but this is also a necessary part of the story to explain how the children of Israel would end up living in Egypt and end up in slavery there for about 400 years, which is something that God already told Abraham about in Genesis 15:13.  None of this is taking the Lord by surprise and in taking them out of the land of Canaan, he will be protecting them from the wickedness of the Canaanites until the time they are ready to be judged, even if the that "protection" comes in the form of being slaves in the land of Egypt.  We would hardly think of slavery as a "good" thing or a form of God's protection, but we can't see things the same way that God can.