A reminder of where we were before Cafe church last week, Jacob had finally in his middle years be reconciled with his older twin Esau who we read he had swindled out of his inheritance in Genesis 33. He then realised where he stood with God and set up an alter to his God. The theme or key point of the message was what he called his alter, ‘Mighty is the God of the one who struggles with God.’ That point was really a realisation of Jacob about who the God of his father and grandfather was then how mighty this God now, his God was and is.
I’m going to very quickly skim past chapter 34 which in the English Standard Version of the Bible is entitled: “The Defiling of Dinah” in the New International Version, “Dinah and the Shechemites” which is about Jacob’s daughter, her being raped. Then two of her brother's Simeon and Levi’s revenge on not just the man who assaulted her but their killing all the males of his city, which Jacob tells them off for. There is a bit of a parallel here with respect, in my opinion, to what is happening between here between the modern state of Israel and the Palestinians on the Gaza strip as far as unbalanced retribution goes. Moving on...
In chapter 35 we see this definite deepening of the relationship that Jacob has with God.
This chapter starts with a wee heads up on who it was that appeared to Jacob when he was fleeing from Esau, God says to Jacob in verse one “Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an alter there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.” Bethal was the place of the dream of angels ascending and descending in chapter 28.
So off he trots with the family and all the groupies that had attached themselves to his merry little band.
This is when Jacob realises or maybe he has realised for some time that there were other gods within this company of people that were travelling together. Foreign gods, false gods, idols, objects for worshipping and the like have been around for a long time. Of interest here is that oak trees are often sacred places in the bible and some commentators point to the burial of those items as being a surrender of them to Yahweh as an act of submission and from that time all of Jacob’s tribe only worshipping the one true God. Of note: in our age there is even a danger to turn God, the God we know into a god of our own making a making that does not align with the God of the Bible. There’s even a commandment they didn’t have at the time that we have about false gods and how we are not to worship them. Biblical understanding of who God is, is very important, listening to his still small voice and not the voices of the world or that of Satan is also key to knowing God. There is a real danger currently to make Jesus who people want him to be. Interestingly Jesus had a thing about repentance and his followers not continuing in their sin. He talked often about Hell and its reality. It is best for all Christians to understand who Jesus really is, he really is the one who came to save us by defeating sin and death. William Booth said this many years ago; “The chief danger that confronts the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, heaven without hell.”
There are those who find this sort of talk offensive, the gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ is offensive when we are out of line with God’s will for our lives. Back to Adam and Eve, we are a fallen race us humans, remember that the rescue plan started with Jacob’s grandad Abraham.
Jacob: Jacob’s instruction was for the people to rid themselves of their foreign gods, purify themselves and change their clothes. A complete change. He had them take the gods and they also took earrings which must have also had a spiritual dynamic and buried them under the oak at Shechem. As a result of their actions as they set out was that their actions had the result was that the terror of God fell upon the towns around them and no one tried to hunt them down. They were physically safe in their travels and spiritually safe because of their obedience to God.
So, they headed off to Canaan, built an alter to God as that is where he revealed himself to Jacob and they called the alter El Bethel, meaning “God of Bethal”. Now there was a death in the family with Rebekah‘s nurse Deborah dying and being buried below the oak below Bethal, the place was named Allon Bacuth or in English ‘oak of weeping.’
In verse nine we hear again that God calls Jacob Israel, or in english “he who struggles with God.” He is told to be fruitful and increase in number, nations and communities will come from you, kings will come from your body, the land I gave to Abraham and Isaac will be given to you and your descendants after you. An interesting point to remember here is that the son of a carpenter, a rabbi, the King of Kings would come from him.
Once again we get this theme which has been the theme of God’s journey with Abraham and Isaac of ‘land, offspring and blessings.’ This is no small thing when we understand history and have seen these things come into being through this family line of Abraham. We are all here today because of the blessing for all mankind.
So Jacob set up a stone pillar at that place where God had talked with him. He poured out an offering on it, the place was then named Bethal, which means ‘the house of God.’
As they move from Bethal and Rachel died in childbirth her son, Jacob’s youngest was born. She was to name him Ben-Oni meaning ‘son of my trouble.’ but Jacob renamed him Benjamin meaning ‘son of my right hand.’
So, Jacob buried Rachel and over her tomb was placed a pillar. This is the site her tomb, the photo was taken by someone last year. Power Point.
The dysfunction in this family is interesting it leaves most soap opera writers in the dust, there’s one verse about Jacob moving on again and then how Reuban one of the sons of Jacob, aka Israel slept with one of his dad’s concubines. The concubine Bilhah was his half-brothers Dan and Naphtali’s mother.
There may have been several reasons for Reuban’s behavior, but it swings around to bite him, when on his death bed Jacob denies Reuben his first born any headship over his siblings or their families, rebuking him and calling him out for his defiling behavior. That is in Chapter 49:3-4. Reuben was Jacob’s oldest child (born to Leah).
He might well have had two reasons for what he did. First, he wanted to prevent Bilhah from taking Rachel’s place as the favorite wife, as might otherwise have been expected since Bilhah had been Rachel’s maid. Reuben may have felt lingering resentment that Jacob had not favored Leah, his own mother. Reuben also had wanted to assert authority over his father. Williams, W. G. (1999). Genesis: A Commentary for Bible Students (p. 248). Wesleyan Publishing House.
Chapter 35 finishes with Jacob coming home to his father Isaac at Mamre near. Isaac was now one hundred and eighty years old. The final verses record that “he lived to be 180 years old, he breathed his last died and was gathered to his people, old and full of years. And his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.” Of interest in this verse is that Isaac had lived quite some time, possibly quite infirmed from the time, when Jacob had tricked Esau out of his inheritance and that the two brothers, together buried their father. Just prior to this we also get a lineup of who Jacobs’ sons are.
Now I don’t know if you have noticed there are a couple of topics that run through the chapter.
Alter or place of worship that Jacob made at Bethal is mentioned three times, an alter at Bethal, because God answered Jacob in his distress at that place. Because of Jacob’s response and leading his people were spiritually safe because of their obedience to God, the family were now back on the right path.
Burial, burial of false gods and ear-rings, Deborah’s burial, both under oak trees, Rachel's burial and of course Isaac’s burial.
So, where do we go with this chapter that holds many themes and seems disjointed? The thought that I have is that of reconciliation and moments with God.
Jacob knew his people were out of sorts with God. They had not yet been given the law, that passage of the journey of the people of Israel was yet to come. Maybe and it is thought by a number of commentators, that Jacob could have been worshipping other Gods along with others in his household prior to his reconciliation and understanding that God was God, that the God of his father and grandfather was his creator, the highest El.
God had asked Jacob to change his name previously and now it was time to use that name. Israel.
There are people today who are like this; one week committed to God, the next suffering in uncertainty of where they stand with him and falling back into old ways, why? It could be a few reasons.
The ones that this chapter points to is their worship of gods other than the One True God. Or messed up relationships that need to be rectified with other people. Or that their surrender to God is not full and the desire to slip into the ways of the old man or the old woman is something that they don’t really hold back against with too much power, that power being surrender to God rather than self and sin. Because of Jacob’s response and leading his people were spiritually safe because of their obedience to God, there is a simple solution to being spiritually messed up it all over to God.
I don’t say this to slam people. The question here is when was Jacob’s life in balance? I am talking about Jacob and not his dysfunctional family. When was he spiritually right, when he had surrendered to God fully surrendered to God.
As Christians often the up’s and downs we have control over are because we continue to surrender to self, before we surrender to God. Paul in Romans 6:11-13 says this:
“Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, [bury it, bury it] but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, [bury it, bury it] and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.”
Jacob was in that right place when he listened and obeyed God, when he worshipped God and was reconciled with those that he deceived.
Surrender to self leads to suffering where surrender to God leads to salvation, Jacob builds an alter to his God and called it El Bethal, God of Bethal, in our hearts our alter should be one where we surrender all to God and experience the freedom of that surrender of burying the old and worshipping the One True God.
