Bible 101 Day 44: Genesis 35-36

Bible 101 Day 44: Genesis 35-36. Part of Bible 101, a daily walk through the entire Bible in one year. Listen and read along at bible101.humanonpurpose.co

Transcript

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Welcome to day forty four. Jacob has arrived, after twenty years in Padenarum, after fleeing Esau, wrestling God, reconciling with his brother, after the violence at Shekem that left his family's name in ruins. He has arrived, but not yet where he belongs, because God spoke to Jacob at Bethel decades ago, in a dream of ladders and angels, and a voice promising descendants and land and presents. And Jacob made a vow that day, If God brings me back safely, this place will be my house of God. He made it back, barely, but he hasn't gone to Bethel. He stopped short, set up camp near Shekim, bought land, settled in, and then catastrophe unfolded. His daughter Dinah was assaulted, his sons responded with massacre, and now the surrounding Canaanite clans are furious. This is a family in crisis. And into that crisis, God speaks again. Go up to Bethel, not a rebuke, an invitation. Come back to the place where we first met. Come back to the altar. Come back to me. That's where today's passage begins. And it's going to take Jacob through renewal on one side and devastating loss on the other. Here is today's passage. God said to Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel and live there. Make an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you fled from the face of Esau, your brother. Then 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. Let's arise and go up to Bethel. I will make an altar there to God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me on the way that I went. They gave to Jacob all the foreign gods which were in their hand, and the rings which were in their ears, and Jacob hid them under the oak, which was by Shechem. They travelled, and a terror from God was on the cities that were around them, and they didn't pursue the sons of Jacob. So Jacob came to Luce, that is Bethel, which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him. He built an altar there, and called the place El Bethel, because there God was revealed to him when he fled from the face of his brother. Deborah, Rebecca's nurse, died, and she was buried below Bethel under the oak, and its name was called Alan Bakuth. God appeared to Jacob again when he came from Paden Aram, and blessed him. God said to him, Your name is Jacob, your name shall not be Jacob anymore, but your name will be Israel. He called his name Israel. God said to him, I am God almighty, be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations will be from you, and kings will come out of your body. The land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac, I will give it to you, and to your offspring. After you I will give the land. God went up from him in the place where he spoke with him. Jacob set up a pillar in the place where God spoke with him, a pillar of stone. He poured out a drink offering on it, and poured oil on it. Jacob called the name of the place where God spoke with him Bethel. They travelled from Bethel. There was still some distance to come to Ephrath, and Rachel travailed. She had hard labor. When she was in hard labor, the midwife said to her, Don't be afraid, for now you will have another son. As her soul was departing, for she died, she named him Benoni, but his father called him Benjamin. Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephraith, the same as Bethlehem. Jacob set up a pillar on her grave. The same is the pillar of Rachel's grave to this day. Israel travelled, and spread his tent beyond the tower of Adar. While Israel lived in that land, Reuben went and lay with Bilha, his father's concubine, and Israel heard of it. Now the sons of Jacob were twelve, the sons of Leah, Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun, the sons of Rachel, Joseph, and Benjamin, the sons of Bilhah, Rachel's servant, Dan and Naphtali, the sons of Zilpah, Leah's servant, Gad and Asher. These are the sons of Jacob, who were born to him in Paden Aram. Jacob came to Isaac his father, to Mamri, to Kirath Arbah, the same as Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac lived as foreigners. The days of Isaac were one hundred eighty years. Isaac gave up the ghost and died, and was gathered to his people, old and full of days. Esau and Jacob, his sons, buried him. Stay with me here, because there's more happening in this passage than at first appears. The chapter opens with Jacob receiving one of the simplest commands in his entire story Get up, go back to Bethel. But before Jacob moves, before he takes a single step toward the altar, he stops and addresses his household. Put away the foreign gods that are among you. This is remarkable. After all this time, all these miles, all these encounters with God, there are still foreign gods in Jacob's camp. Rachel had stolen Laban's household idols back in chapter thirty one, and apparently others had collected their own, the earrings, the charms, the small carved figures. They had been carrying them the whole way. This moment is less about religious purity as a rule, and more about what it means to belong somewhere. You cannot return to Bethel, the house of God, while still holding on to everything else. You cannot come home to the one thing while still gripping the other things. So Jacob buries them under the oak tree at Shekem. He leaves them behind, literally in the ground. And then something shifts. The text says a terror from God fell on the surrounding cities, and no one pursued them. Jacob's family had made enemies in Canaan. There was every reason to fear retaliation, but God cleared the road. When we let go of what competes for our loyalty, God makes a way. They arrive at Bethel. Jacob builds the altar, and here, finally here, God appears to Jacob again and confirms what he said at the Jabuk. Your name is no longer Jacob, your name is Israel. The Hebrew name Yisrael carries the weight of the whole journey. One who struggles with God, one who has prevailed. God is not renaming Jacob to make him forget who he was. He's redefining what that struggle was for. And God repeats the covenant. Be fruitful, nations will come from you, kings will come from you. The land is yours. This is not the first time Jacob has heard these words, but something is different now. Jacob is not running. He is not sleeping on a stone, surprised by a dream. He is standing at an altar he built. He is here on purpose. There is a difference between receiving God's promise in a moment of fear and receiving it in a moment of return. Both are real, but only one is chosen. Jacob sets up a stone pillar and pours oil on it, mirroring what he did the first time he was here. The bookend is intentional, the circle is closing. But then the passage turns. Rachel goes into labor. The midwife tries to comfort her. Don't be afraid, you're having another son. But Rachel dies. She names him Benoni, son of my sorrow, before she goes. Jacob gives him a different name Benjamin, son of my right hand. There is pastoral grace in that renaming. Jacob will not let his son's identity be grief. He transforms the sorrow into strength. But the loss is not softened. Rachel, the love of his life, the one he worked fourteen years to marry, is buried on the road to Bethlehem, a pillar of stone on a lonely stretch of road. This is not coincidental geography. Bethlehem, the place where Israel's greatest king will one day be born, the place where a child will come into the world, who is himself called the son of sorrow, and the king of glory. Jacob's grief marks the ground, but grief often marks holy ground. And then the text keeps moving. Reuben sins, Isaac dies, loss stacks on loss. The chapter ends with a genealogy, twelve sons listed simply as if to say life continued. God's purposes continued, because they did. What strikes me about this chapter is how it refuses to separate the sacred from the sorrowful. Renewal at Bethel and the death of Rachel happen within the same few verses. There is no clean ark here, no Jacob returned to God, and everything became beautiful. Renewed faithfulness does not insulate us from loss, but here is what the text holds together, even when we cannot. God's presence does not require our perfect circumstances. His covenant does not depend on our comfort. He made promises to Jacob before the tragedy, and those promises did not dissolve when Rachel died on the road. That is worth sitting with. All of it, the worship, the naming, the burial, the stone marker on a road. All of it is part of the same story. Here's a practice for today. We all carry something we haven't buried yet, not necessarily foreign gods in a literal sense, but the competing loyalties that divide our attention, the old identities we cling to, the fears we've been managing instead of releasing. Jacob didn't just receive God's invitation to return to Bethel. He prepared himself for it first. He asked his household to put things down before they moved forward. Today, name one thing you're still carrying that belongs in the ground. You don't have to resolve it. You don't have to have it fully figured out. Just name it honestly before God. Then take one small step toward the altar. A moment of prayer, a return to a practice you've let lapse, an act of trust, however small, in the direction of the promises you've already heard. God met Jacob on the road to Bethel. He will meet you wherever you are today. Now I invite you into a time of prayer and reflection. Peace be with you.