Genesis 35:3-13

3 We must get up and go to Bethel. I will build an altar there to the God who answered me in my day of distress. He has been with me everywhere I have gone."[a]
4 Then they gave Jacob all their foreign gods and their earrings, and Jacob hid them under the oak near Shechem.
5 When they set out, a terror from God came over the cities around them, and they did not pursue Jacob's sons.[b]
6 So Jacob and all who were with him came to Luz (that is, Bethel) in the land of Canaan.
7 Jacob built an altar there and called the place God of Bethel[c] because it was there that God had revealed Himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother.
8 Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died and was buried under the oak south of Bethel. So Jacob named it Oak of Weeping.[d]
9 God appeared to Jacob again after he returned from Paddan-aram, and He blessed him.
10 God said to him: Your name is Jacob; you will no longer be named Jacob, but Israel will be your name. So He named him Israel.
11 God also said to him: I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply. A nation, indeed an assembly of nations, will come from you, and kings will descend from you.[e]
12 The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you. And I will give the land to your descendants after you.
13 Then God withdrew[f] from him at the place where He had spoken to him.

Genesis 35:3-13 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS 35

This chapter gives an account of Jacob's going to Bethel, and building an altar there by the order and direction of God, Ge 35:1-7, where Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died and was buried, Ge 35:8, and where God appeared to Jacob, confirmed the new name of Israel he had given him, and renewed to him the promises of the multiplication of his seed, and of their inheriting the land of Canaan, Ge 35:9-13; all which is gratefully acknowledged by Jacob, who erected a pillar in the place, and called it Bethel, in memory of God's gracious appearance to him there, Ge 35:14,15; from hence he journeyed towards his father's house, and on the way Rachel his wife fell in travail, and bore him a son, and died, and was buried near Ephrath, Ge 35:16-21; near this place Reuben committed incest with Bilhah, Ge 35:22, and the names of the twelve sons of Jacob are given, Ge 35:23-26; and the chapter is closed with an account of Jacob's arrival at his father's house, of the death of Isaac, and of his burial at the direction of his two sons, Ge 35:27-29.

Footnotes 6

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