Genesis 35

The Explanation

Genesis 35 opens with God telling Jacob to go back to Bethel. Bethel is the place where, years earlier, Jacob had that famous dream of the stairway to heaven while he was on the run from his brother Esau. Now, decades later, God tells him: go back there. Build an altar. Remember.

Before Jacob leaves, he does something remarkable. He tells his whole household to hand over their foreign gods and the earrings connected to them, and to purify themselves and change clothes. Jacob buries all of it under an oak tree at Shechem. Apparently, even in the family of a man who wrestled with God, other gods had crept in. Jacob knows: you cannot go to God's mountain with idols in your pocket.

They travel, and God sends a kind of terror over the surrounding cities so no one attacks them. At Bethel, Jacob builds his altar and God appears to him again. God repeats the new name He gave Jacob at the Jabbok: Israel. He renews the promise He first made to Abraham: descendants, a land, kings that will come from his line.

Then the tone shifts. Deborah, Rebekah's old nurse, dies and is buried under an oak. The tree is called Allon Bacuth, "the oak of weeping." A little further along the road, Rachel goes into labor. It is a hard birth, and it kills her. With her last breath she names her son Benoni, "son of my sorrow." Jacob renames him Benjamin, "son of the right hand." Rachel, the woman Jacob loved most, is buried on the road to what will one day be called Bethlehem.

The chapter keeps piling on loss. Reuben, the oldest son, sleeps with his father's concubine Bilhah. It is a betrayal, and the text simply says: "Israel heard of it." No outburst, no scene. Just silence that speaks. Then a list of the twelve sons, the twelve tribes to come. And at the end: Jacob arrives at his father Isaac, who dies at 180. Esau and Jacob, once bitter enemies, bury their father together.

What Does This Mean?

This chapter is about returning. Jacob has to go back to the place where God first met him. Sometimes faith is not about pressing on to something new but about going back to what you already know is true, and letting go of everything that has crept in along the way.

Notice how the chapter is layered. Worship and death. Promise and grief. A new name from God, and a son named "son of my sorrow." God does not remove Jacob's pain when Jacob obeys. Deborah still dies. Rachel still dies. Reuben still betrays. Isaac still dies. Life does not become easier at Bethel. But God is present in it.

That is a very different picture of faith than the one you sometimes get sold. Faith is not a shortcut around suffering. It is knowing whose Presence is with you when suffering comes.

The Common Thread

Rachel dies on the road to Ephrath, "which is Bethlehem." Read that name again. Centuries later, in that same town, a woman named Mary will give birth to a son. She will not die, but her son will. And He too will be given two names of sorts: Jesus, savior, and a name people will nail above His head as an accusation.

Benjamin was born as Benoni, "son of my sorrow," but his father gave him a new name: "son of the right hand." Jesus is exactly that, the true Son of Sorrow who became the Son at the right hand of the Father. Where Rachel's story ends in a grave beside the road, Jesus' story ends with a grave that could not hold Him.

And the twelve sons listed here become the twelve tribes of Israel. Later, Jesus will call twelve disciples. He is building a new Israel, rooted in this same promise God spoke to Jacob at Bethel.

For You

There is a question in this chapter that will not leave you alone: what are the foreign gods in your pocket? Not literal statues. But the things that quietly compete for the center of your life. Your phone. The image you perform online. A relationship you have made into your source of worth. Ambition. The opinion of people whose names you barely know. Jacob buried them under a tree. What would that look like for you?

Second thing. If you are in a season where things keep collapsing, deaths, breakups, disappointments in people you trusted, this chapter is honest with you. Faith does not exempt you. But God keeps showing up. He met Jacob at Bethel again, even though Jacob was not the same young man anymore. He meets you too, even in the version of yourself you are least proud of.

And finally: notice that Esau and Jacob bury their father together. Wounds that seemed permanent can be quietly healed over years. Do not write off relationships as forever broken.

Talk About It

What are the "foreign gods" you sense you would need to hand over before you could really meet God at your own Bethel?

This chapter refuses to pretend that following God removes suffering. Does that make faith harder for you, or easier? Why?

Praying Together

God of Bethel, You keep meeting people who thought they had lost their chance. Show me what I am carrying that needs to be buried. Meet me again, even in the parts of my life that feel like a road with graves along it. Teach me to trust You when nothing gets easier, only deeper. Amen.