Jacob’s Journey With God
Genesis 35
In Genesis 35, we come to the end of Jacob having center stage in the book of Genesis. Genesis 36 will dispense with the history of Jacob’s brother Esau before Genesis 37 begins the story of Jacob’s sons. Jacob will not die until the end of Genesis 49, but the focus shifts to his sons, especially Joseph and Judah.
Jacob’s life has been a rocky journey. His story began back in Genesis 25 when God answered Isaac’s prayer for his barren wife Rebekah. We have seen that Jacob wrestled and struggled all his life. When Rebekah’s twins struggled together in the womb (Gen. 25:22), the LORD told her that she carried two nations, two peoples,
and that the older would serve the younger (Gen. 25:23). Jacob wrestled his older brother Esau for his birthright (Gen. 25:29–34), then wrestled his father, Isaac, for his blessing (Gen. 27). Jacob met God in Bethel when he fled from the homicidal anger of his brother Esau (Gen. 28). In exile in Haran, Jacob wrestled his uncle Laban (Gen. 29–31), who tricked Jacob into marrying both of his daughters (Gen. 29:25), who then wrestled against each other for their Jacob’s affection (Gen. 29:31–30:24).
Finally free from Laban after twenty years, Jacob returned to Canaan. As he prepared to meet his brother Esau, he was met at night by a man who wrestled him until dawn (Gen. 32:24). When the man injured Jacob’s hip, Jacob clung to him and pleaded for a blessing (Gen. 32:26). There God said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed” (Gen. 32:28). All Jacob’s wrestling—with his brother, his father, his uncle, his wives—had ultimately been wrestling with God.[1]
Genesis 33 related Jacob’s surprisingly warm reunion with Esau and how Jacob settled at Shechem in the land of Canaan (Gen. 33:18). Then last time in Genesis 34, we saw the shameful episode of how Jacob’s sons Levi and Simeon deceived and slaughtered the men of Shechem as revenge for the defiling of their sister Dinah. Jacob greatly feared reprisal from the Canaanites for this treachery.
Today we will see that Genesis 35 is a journey. You’ll see that keyword “journeyed” in Genesis 35:5, 16, and 21.[2] Jacob and his household journeyed south from Shechem to Bethel (Gen. 35:5), then from Bethel to Bethlehem (Gen. 35:16), and finally from Bethlehem to Eder (Gen. 35:21) to Hebron (Gen. 35:27), where his father Isaac lived.
Here we see Jacob returning to life as a pilgrim like his father Isaac and his grandfather Abraham (Gen. 12:9; 20:1). He is on a journey, a journey with God. God was not even mentioned in Genesis 34 when Jacob was living in Shechem. But in Genesis 35 the name “God” appears eleven times. It is also present eleven more times in the names Israel, Bethel, El Bethel, and El-Shaddai (Gen. 35:11).[3]
Follow along in your Bibles as I read our text, Genesis 35:1-29:
1 Then God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there; and make an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you fled from the face of Esau your brother.” 2 And Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods that are among you, purify yourselves, and change your garments. 3 Then let us arise and go up to Bethel; and I will make an altar there to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me in the way which I have gone.” 4 So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods which were in their hands, and the earrings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the terebinth tree which was by Shechem. 5 And they journeyed, and the terror of God was upon the cities that were all around them, and they did not pursue the sons of Jacob.
6 So 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 he built an altar there and called the place El Bethel, because there God appeared to him when he fled from the face of his brother. 8 Now Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died, and she was buried below Bethel under the terebinth tree. So the name of it was called Allon Bachuth. 9 Then God appeared to Jacob again, when he came from Padan Aram, and blessed him. 10 And God said to him, “Your name is Jacob; your name shall not be called Jacob anymore, but Israel shall be your name.” So He called his name Israel. 11 Also God said to him: “I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall proceed from you, and kings shall come from your body. 12 The land which I gave Abraham and Isaac I give to you; and to your descendants after you I give this land.” 13 Then God went up from him in the place where He talked with him. 14 So Jacob set up a pillar in the place where He talked with him, a pillar of stone; and he poured a drink offering on it, and he poured oil on it. 15 And Jacob called the name of the place where God spoke with him, Bethel.
16 Then they journeyed from Bethel. And when there was but a little distance to go to Ephrath, Rachel labored in childbirth, and she had hard labor. 17 Now it came to pass, when she was in hard labor, that the midwife said to her, “Do not fear; you will have this son also.” 18 And so it was, as her soul was departing (for she died), that she called his name Ben-Oni; but his father called him Benjamin. 19 So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem). 20 And Jacob set a pillar on her grave, which is the pillar of Rachel’s grave to this day.
21 Then Israel journeyed and pitched his tent beyond the tower of Eder. 22 And it happened, when Israel dwelt in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine; and Israel heard about it. Now the sons of Jacob were twelve: 23 the sons of Leah were Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn, and Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun; 24 the sons of Rachel were Joseph and Benjamin; 25 the sons of Bilhah, Rachel’s maidservant, were Dan and Naphtali; 26 and the sons of Zilpah, Leah’s maidservant, were Gad and Asher. These were the sons of Jacob who were born to him in Padan Aram. 27 Then Jacob came to his father Isaac at Mamre, or Kirjath Arba (that is, Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had dwelt. 28 Now the days of Isaac were one hundred and eighty years. 29 So Isaac breathed his last and died, and was gathered to his people, being old and full of days. And his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.
Here we find Jacob as a pilgrim on the move in obedience to God and thinking the sort of thoughts that a faithful man should think.[4] Where he goes is important, but how he journeys is even more important. Our outline will follow the three journeys that Jacob made in Genesis 35: to Bethel, to Ephrath (Bethlehem), and to Mamre (Hebron). In each of these, we will see important aspects of Jacob’s journey with God. My hope is that this will also instruct us as pilgrims in our journey with God.
1. Journey to Bethel (Gen. 35:1-15)
God commanded Jacob to journey to Bethel (Gen. 35:1), “Then God said to Jacob, ‘Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there; and make an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you fled from the face of Esau your brother.’” It was at Bethel that Abraham the pilgrim “built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD” (Gen. 12:8). Abraham came back to Bethel after his disastrous backsliding in Egypt. It was at Bethel that Jacob saw the ladder, met the LORD God, believed God’s promises, and vowed that Yahweh would be his God (Gen. 28). God had reminded Jacob that He was the God of Bethel when He commanded Jacob to leave Paddan-Aram to return to Canaan (Gen. 31:3,13). To come back to Bethel was to come back home.[5]
But although Jacob has been back in the land for perhaps ten years, he has fallen short of returning to Bethel. Now God makes it clear that Jacob must go there. God’s commands include three imperatives for Jacob: “Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there; and make an altar there to God.” (Gen. 35:1). Arise, go up, dwell, make an altar. It was a call for Jacob not only to return to a place but to return to the LORD his God. It is a call to renewed worship. Robert Rayburn reminds us that “The Bible, perhaps more than you realize, is a book about worship – huge sections of the book are devoted to this subject.”[6]
Now Jacob was obedient to God’s call. His first step was personal and family cleansing. Jacob said to his family, “Put away the foreign gods that are among you, purify yourselves, and change your garments. Then let us arise and go up to Bethel; and I will make an altar there to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me in the way which I have gone.” (Gen. 35:2-3). Jacob was enough of a man of faith to know that if he was going to worship God, he had to leave some things behind. There had to be cleansing. He couldn’t let his family haul their idols to the house of God (Bethel).
But why do they have foreign gods? Isn’t this the family of Abraham and Isaac? Where did Jacob’s family get these foreign gods? Remember that Abraham’s distant family in Ur and Haran also had other gods. When Jacob’s family fled from Laban, Rachel stole her father’s household idols (Gen. 31:19). Chances are, she still had them with her. Perhaps his family had adopted the practices of their neighbors in Succoth and Shechem. The sons of Jacob had just taken as plunder the and possessions of Shechem. No doubt this included valuable images and things made of precious metals and stones that were used in pagan worship.
The God of Jacob is not like the false gods of the surrounding nations. He is not like Laban’s household gods. And not like the Canaanite gods Jacob’s sons found as they plundered Shechem (34:29). Those gods do not answer in the day of distress[7] like the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. They cannot protect like the LORD who, Jacob says, “has been with me in the way which I have gone.” (Gen. 35:3).
Not only must they put away the foreign gods, but also purify themselves and change their garments—outward cleansings that were a sign of the inward cleansing of their hearts. Following Jacob’s example, his family also responded in obedience, “So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods which were in their hands, and the earrings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the terebinth tree which was by Shechem.” (Gen. 35:4). They left all these things behind, buried them, and made a clean break with false worship. Then they could go to the house of God to worship.
Ridding themselves of idols would set a pattern for the nation of Israel who came after them. Joshua called Israel to renew her devotion to the LORD saying, “Now therefore, fear the LORD, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the LORD!” (Joshua 24:14; also 23). Samuel would later say a similar thing to Israel at Mizpah: “If you return to the LORD with all your hearts, then put away the foreign gods … from among you, and prepare your hearts for the LORD, and serve Him only…” (1 Samuel 7:3-4).
It sets a pattern for us as well. Coming back to God begins by recognizing from God’s word that you are not where God wants you to be. Jacob was in Shechem; God wanted him in Bethel. Then we respond in obedience to the command of God to arise, go up, and worship Him. What will it look like to obey the Lord? Getting rid of idols—those things that take the place of God in your life. We cleanse ourselves by confessing our sins before God (1 John 1:9). Then we demonstrate that inward repentance by our outward behavior, bearing “fruits worthy of repentance” (Luke 3:8).
So, Jacob and all the people who were with him arrived at Bethel, the house of God. There he built an altar and worshipped God, calling Him El Bethel, the God of the house of God. Before, Jacob had emphasized the place where he met God, Bethel, the house of God. Now He focuses on the God of the house of God. Bethel means nothing without the God of Bethel.
It was here at Bethel that Deborah, Rebekah’s maid, died. We are not told why or when she came to stay with Jacob. It is possible that she came bearing the news of Rebekah’s death and then stayed on with Jacob. No doubt Deborah was one to whom Jacob felt very attached, he wept at her burial, calling the place “Allon Bachuth,” oak of weeping.
God appeared to Jacob again (Gen. 35:9) reminding him of his new name, Israel (Gen. 35:10). God repeated the covenant promises He had made to Jacob saying, “I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall proceed from you, and kings shall come from your body. The land which I gave Abraham and Isaac I give to you; and to your descendants after you I give this land.” “God Almighty” is El Shaddai. It pointed to God’s all-sufficient power and faithfulness to keep His covenant promises.
After God left, Jacob did the same thing he did 30 years before at Bethel: He set up a pillar and poured out an offering on it. He worships. This is the way of the pilgrim. This is how we journey with God—listening to God’s word to us, responding in obedience, repenting of sin, consecrating ourselves, believing God’s promises, and worshiping with a full heart.
That is Jacob’s journey to Bethel. Next, we see his,
2. Journey to Bethlehem (Gen. 35:16-20)
Jacob had just returned to God, gotten rid of foreign Gods, purified himself and his family, and worshipped God at Bethel. Now that he had turned the corner and was obeying God, some might think that God would give him a more trouble-free life. But obedience to God doesn’t guarantee a life free from trials.[8] In fact, it’s often the trials and afflictions of life that keep us holding on to God and help to mature our faith. In this chapter where Jacob returns to spiritual worship, there are no less than four tragedies that brought sorrow into Jacob’s life.
The first was the death of Deborah which we already saw at Bethel. The second was the death of his beloved wife Rachel. Somewhere between Bethel and Bethlehem, Rachel went into hard labor. As her child was being born the midwife tried to encourage Rachel by informing her that it was the son she wanted so badly. Remember that Rachel had called her first son Joseph, meaning, literally, “add to me” (Gen. 30:24), because she desired for God to add to her another son. With her dying breath, Rachel sees the answer to her prayer. She named him Ben-oni, meaning “son of my sorrow.” Jacob would not allow that name to stand, however, and changed it to Benjamin, “the son of my right hand.” Rachel was then buried on the way to Bethlehem, and Jacob and his household proceeded on, having set up a pillar along the way.
Although Moses doesn’t detail Jacob’s grief here in Genesis 35, we see he is still grieving for her 40 years later, when Jacob on his deathbed poignantly recalls, “But as for me, when I came from Padan, Rachel died beside me in the land of Canaan on the way, when there was but a little distance to go to Ephrath; and I buried her there on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem)” (Gen. 48:7).
Two more trials come as Jacob makes his,
- Journey to Hebron (Gen. 35:21-29)
Jacob’s third trial comes as “Israel journeyed and pitched his tent beyond the tower of Eder” (Gen. 35:21). His oldest son “Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine” (Gen. 35:22). This was probably Reuben’s attempt to grab the family inheritance for himself, much as Absalom in his rebellion publicly went in to David’s concubines, and Adonijah later attempted to usurp power from his brother, Solomon, with the same scheme. The text says that Jacob heard about it, and apparently he did nothing—not yet anyway. Again, on his deathbed, Jacob recalls Reuban’s treachery and removes his birthright.
Now that Jacob’s family is now complete with the birth of his twelfth son Benjamin, Moses lists all Jacob’s sons according to their mothers. With Abraham and Isaac God had chosen to fulfill His covenant through only one son to the exclusion of others. Now, God’s people will include all the sons of Jacob. This was another assurance that the promises of God were good. The names are firstfruits, as it were, of the great nation to follow.[9]
Jacob’s final sorrow in this chapter is the death of his aged father, Isaac. The text might make us think that Jacob arrived just before Isaac’s death. But if we follow the timeline closely, we see that Jacob lived in Hebron with Isaac about ten or twelve years before Isaac died. But Isaac’s death is presented here to wrap up this part of Jacob’s history. It was another sorrow for Jacob, as another link with the past was removed.[10] Jacob’s trials in this chapter seem to drive him to trust God more.
Trials can either make us self-focused or God-focused. If we allow the trials to help us put God back in the rightful center of our lives, we will journey with God, as Jacob did.[11]
More than anything else this Genesis 35 shows us again the great theme we have followed throughout the whole book of Genesis: the faithfulness of God to accomplish His purposes and fulfill His promises even through human sin and weakness. The covenant of God and the promise of salvation and the hope of mankind depended absolutely not on the faithfulness of men, but wholly on God’s own faithfulness to His promise, to His Word. The chapters that follow continue to demonstrate that greatest of all truths.
Ultimately, God would fulfill His plan of salvation through Israel, the nation He chose. Yet it would not be because of their faithfulness, but His. God would bless all the peoples of the earth through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by sending His own beloved Son to be the Savior of the world. He would be the true son of Israel and also the Son of God. He would leave the heavenly Bethel, the house of God, to be born in the humble town of Bethlehem, the house of bread. He would be like Ben-oni, “A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53:3). Jesus Christ was the perfect lamb of God who “has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Isa. 53.4).
5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. (Isa. 53:4-6).
Because the sinless Son of God, Jesus Christ, humbled Himself to die on the cross for our sins—God raised Him from the grave and has exalted Him as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is God’s true Benjamin, “son of my right hand.” It is Jesus who “when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb. 1:3). “It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.” (Rom. 8:34).
This is what we celebrate and sing about during this Christmas season—the child born in Bethlehem, the Son of sorrow, is also the Son the right hand. He is the Son of God, the Savior, the Lord, who is seated on the throne of God; able to save all who trust in Him. So, as in the great hymn by Charles Wesley,
Joyful, all ye nations, rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
With th’angelic host proclaim,
“Christ is born in Bethlehem!”
Hail, the heaven born Prince of Peace!
Hail, the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings,
Risen with healing in His wings.
Come to Christ, repent of your sin, cast away your idols and your burdens at the cross. Receive His forgiveness and the gift of eternal life by believing in Jesus who died for your sins, who was raised for your justification, and who sits at the right hand of God interceding for you until He comes again in power and great glory to judge the world and consummate His kingdom. Don’t delay. Come to Him now. He is your only hope and salvation.
[1] Mathis, David, God Answers in Our Time of Crisis, https://www.citieschurch.com/sermons/god-answers-in-our-time-of-crisis
[2] Mathis.
[3] Boice, James Montgomery. 1998. Genesis: An Expositional Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.
[4] Rayburn, Robert, The Pilgrim Way Genesis 35:1-15, https://www.faithtacoma.org/genesis/the-pilgrim-way-genesis-351-15
[5] Phillips, John. 2009. Exploring Genesis: An Expository Commentary. The John Phillips Commentary Series. Kregel Publications; WORDsearch Corp.
[6] Rayburn.
[7] Mathis.
[8] Cole, Steven, Getting Out of a Spiritual Slump (Genesis 35:1-29), https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-62-getting-out-spiritual-slump-genesis-351-29
[9] Ross, Allen, and John N. Oswalt. 2008. Cornerstone Biblical Commentary: Genesis, Exodus. Vol. 1. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers.
[10] Cole.
[11] Cole.
