Genesis 35:3

3 We are going to leave here and go to Bethel, where I will build an altar to the God who helped me in the time of my trouble and who has been with me everywhere I have gone."

Genesis 35:3 Meaning and Commentary

Genesis 35:3

And let us arise and go up to Bethel
Thus prepared and purged, their tents clear of idols, their bodies washed with pure water, and their garments new, neat, and clean; all symbolical of inward purity, and of freedom from idolatry and evil works, as became those who go to the house of God, and are his worshippers, see ( Hebrews 10:22 ) .

I will make there an altar unto God;
as he has directed, and sacrifice to him, and worship him, and give the tenth unto him, and so make it a Bethel, an house of God indeed, as he had vowed, ( Genesis 28:22 ) ;

who answered me in the day of my distress;
on account of his brother Esau, from whose wrath he fled:

and was with me in the way which I went;
from his father's house to Padanaram; in which journey he was alone and destitute, and exposed to many difficulties and dangers, but God was with him, and preserved him, and directed and brought him to Laban's house in safety.

Genesis 35:3 In-Context

1 God said to Jacob, "Go to Bethel at once, and live there. Build an altar there to me, the God who appeared to you when you were running away from your brother Esau."

2 So Jacob said to his family and to all who were with him, "Get rid of the foreign gods that you have; purify yourselves and put on clean clothes.

3 We are going to leave here and go to Bethel, where I will build an altar to the God who helped me in the time of my trouble and who has been with me everywhere I have gone."

4 So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods that they had and also the earrings that they were wearing. He buried them beneath the oak tree near Shechem.

5 When Jacob and his sons started to leave, great fear fell on the people of the nearby towns, and they did not pursue them.