Read with Me
Genesis 35:1-8 (HCSB)
God said to Jacob, “Get up! Go to Bethel and settle there. Build an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.”
So Jacob said to his family and all who were with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods that are among you. Purify yourselves and change your clothes. 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.”
Then they gave Jacob all their foreign gods and their earrings, and Jacob hid them under the oak near Shechem. When they set out, a terror from God came over the cities around them, and they did not pursue Jacob’s sons. So Jacob and all who were with him came to Luz (that is, Bethel) in the land of Canaan. Jacob built an altar there and called the place God of Bethel because it was there that God had revealed Himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother.
Deborah, the one who had nursed and raised Rebekah, died and was buried under the oak south of Bethel. So Jacob named it Oak of Weeping.
Listen with Me
Jacob was living in fear that the neighboring people groups would hear how the men in Jacob’s group had massacred the people of Shechem and would exact revenge on him. It was into that place of fear that God’s voice came to him to reassure him. God called him to head south to Bethel for a while, to the place where He had first appeared to him in a vision (Genesis 28:10-22).
Jacob called the people in his camp to him to let them know that they were moving out. Up to this point, Jacob had turned a blind eye to the idols that his group had with them. Some of them were brought with Rachel who had stolen them from her father, Laban (Genesis 31:19, 32-35). Others they had looted from the city of Shechem.
But now, having been called to God’s “house” in Bethel (Genesis 28:22), Jacob realized that it would be completely inappropriate to appear before God with pagan gods among his belongings. So, he commanded his family to bring any idols in their possession to him, along with all the pagan jewelry they had taken from Shechem. But even though he knew that the pagan things were unacceptable to God, Jacob was not willing to destroy them. So, he buried them under an oak tree so that they could find them again when they returned.
When they reached Bethel, Jacob replaced the standing stone he had placed there with a proper altar, so that he could make thanksgiving offerings to God. Moses also noted briefly that Deborah, the nurse of Jacob’s mother, Rebecca, who had come west with her when she had come to marry Isaac, died and was then buried under an oak tree just below Bethel, although he does not specify how Deborah had come to live with Jacob in his camp in the first place.
Pray with Me
Father, Jacob’s character has been shown over and over again to be timid until he was incited to anger. That timidity kept him silent about the idols that were scattered across his camp. He knew that they were unacceptable in your sight, but his faith in You was tinged with superstition and fear of those false gods. Paul told us that false gods are nothing (1 Corinthians 8:4-6), but that we are not to have anything to do with them. Help us to be stronger than Jacob, Lord, and to uproot any idols that have been allowed space in our lives, so that there is no division in our devotion to You. Amen.