Chapter 21. Genesis 35 and 36. Jacob at Bethel.
WHEN Jacob and Esau had separated, Jacob went to Shalem and stayed there. His family soon forgot God and began to worship idols; his sons were disobedient, passionate and cruel, and caused him much sorrow. But God said to Jacob: “Arise go up to Bethel, and dwell there; and make there an altar unto God.” It was at Bethel that Jacob had seen the ladder, many years before, when God had promised to keep him and be with him wherever he went. We saw how faithfully God kept his promise, in spite of Jacob’s distrust and unfaithfulness.
Jacob obeyed God’s command and told his family to put idols away from among them, to be clean and change their garments, for they were going to Bethel, to build an altar there unto “God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went.” So they gave Jacob their idols and their earrings, and he hid them under an oak tree in Shechem, and they went to Bethel, where Jacob built an altar, and called the place El-Bethel, meaning, the God of Bethel. God came to Jacob and blessed him in Bethel. He called him by his new name, and told him again that his children should possess the land of Canaan.
Soon after this, death came into Jacob’s family. First, Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse died, and was buried under an oak at Bethel. And when they came to Ephrath Rachel, too, died, and Jacob buried her, and set a pillar upon her grave. She left a baby boy called Benjamin.
Jacob had now twelve sons, who became the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel. Their names were: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulon, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Joseph and Benjamin. Jacob and his family went on to Hebron, Jacob’s old home, where Abraham and Isaac had lived so many years. Rebekah had died—Jacob never saw his mother again; Isaac was alive, and was now one hundred and eighty years old, but he died soon after, and his two sons, Esau and Jacob buried him.
Although the two brothers had become reconciled, they could not live together, for, like Abraham and Lot, they were both very rich, and there was not room enough for all their cattle. So Esau went back to Mount Sier, where he lived like a king, and had great possessions and became very powerful. He is the father of the Edomites. Jacob remained in Canaan where his fathers, Abraham and Isaac had lived, in the land which God had promised to give them and their children. He was now an old man, and had known much sorrow in past years—Esau’s hatred; Laban’s unkindness; his long journey far from his home; the death of his dear wife, Rachel; and of his parents. But through them all he could see God’s gracious care and love, and, had he known these lines, he might have sung as we do:
“How good is the God we adore,
Our faithful, unchangeable Friend;
Whose love is as great as His power,
And knows neither measure nor end!
‘Tis Jesus, the first and the last,
Whose Spirit shall guide us safe home;
We’ll praise Him for all that is past,
And trust Him for all that’s to come.”
ML 06/27/1909