Good Monday to you my “Walking with Jesus”
Family reunions can be wonderful things, can’t they? I left you yesterday watching one of the most joyful family reunions recorded in the Bible, the reunion of Jacob & Esau after 20 years estranged from each other. Following their celebration, Esau returned home, and Jacob continued his southern journey toward his boyhood home from which he had fled.
Along the way God once again gave Jacob clear guidance saying: “Go up to Bethel and settle there and build an altar there to God who appeared to you when you were fleeing from Esau.” (Gen. 35:1) God’s instructions could not have been clearer. It had been more than 20 years since Jacob’s dream at that place he named Bethel (Gen. 28:18,19) and oh so much had transpired in those two decades. But now with reconciliation accomplished with his brother Esau, Jacob could return to Bethel with his soul content, perhaps anticipating a fresh encounter for his family with God in that special place.
But Jacob knew some spiritual housecleaning was needed first, and so he gathered his large family and challenged them with these words: “Get rid of your foreign gods which you have with you and purify yourselves and change your clothes. Then come, let us go up to Bethel, where I will build an altar to God who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone.” (Gen. 35:2,3) For the first time Jacob stepped up to spiritual leadership of his family and challenged them to give up their worship of any god other than the God of Abraham and Isaac who had met with Jacob at this special place 20 years before.
It was time for them to prepare to meet with God! Let’s just pause a moment and imagine yourself standing there watching the personal house cleaning going on here. Whatever they knew about the God of Jacob’s family was about to change as they approached Bethel, the place Jacob’s life had changed.
Is there such a place in your life journey my friends? Some place where you’ve had such a powerful encounter with God that your life changed and you’ve never been the same? Have you ever taken your family there and told them your God story?
Amazingly Jacob’s family brought to him quite a pile of what I’ll call ‘fetishes’. Probably little wooden, carved idols, some amulets and other paraphernalia which they had used in their religious practices which did not involve the God of Abraham. Likely, they had purchased or been gifted these things by people they met along the journey of life who saw them as good luck charms or mystical things that might protect or be helpful in life.
May I ask us all to think about this a moment. Are there things in your possession that have nothing to do with Holy God, but you hang on to them just in case they might bring you some advantage in certain situations? That’s dangerous my friends, and I’d urge you to dispose of them and keep your spiritual focus on Almighty, Holy God untainted by anything. Jacob took this collection of ‘stuff’ and dug a hole in the ground and buried it, not for safe keeping, but as a final separation from them.
Then Jacob led his family procession to a field that he remembered had been his place of encounter with God 2 decades before. He built an altar there and led his family in worship of the one, true, Almighty, God.
God appeared to Jacob and repeated the message Jacob had received from the wrestling angel a few days before: “Your name is Jacob…but your name will now be Israel. I am God Almighty, be fruitful and increase in number… The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I also give to you and to your descendants after you.’ Then God went up from Jacob at the place where He had talked with him.” (Gen. 35:10-13)
Jacob set up a stone pillar there, poured oil on it and once again declared that place to be “Bethel“, ‘the house of God’. The Covenant promise from God first to Abraham more than 100 years before, and then to Isaac was now being given to Jacob. God’s plan was clear. Jacob would carry God’s Covenant to the next generation!
Now God had told Jacob to settle here in this place, Bethel, (Gen. 35:1) but the next verse tells us “Then they moved on from Bethel…” (Gen. 35:16) That disappoints me, but I presume Jacob’s motivation was to arrive home to see his father Isaac before he died and restore their relationship, if possible, especially now that Jacob & Esau had reconciled.
Gen. 35:16 tells us Rachel, Jacob’s favorite wife, was pregnant with her second child and as they traveled she went into premature labor and actually died giving birth to a 12th son for Jacob. “As she breathed her last, Rachel named her son Ben-Oni. But his father named him Benjamin.” (Gen. 35:18) “Ben-Oni” meant ‘son of my sorrow’. “Benjamin” meant ‘son of my right hand’. Certainly, Rachel had lived a life full of sorrow, but Jacob, perhaps knowing this would be his last son and certainly the last of his beloved Rachel, chose a name that proclaimed promise and privilege, for the most honored son always sat at the right hand of his father.
The record says: “So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is Bethlehem). Over her tomb Jacob set up a pillar and to this day that pillar marks Rachel’s tomb.” (Gen.35:19,20) This is the first mention of Bethlehem in the Bible, and it is true that location had been a hallowed, revered place for centuries, until fairly recently when ISIS demolished and desecrated this place honoring Rachel, the mother of Joseph and Benjamin.
After grieving a while, Jacob moved on, leading his family south to Hebron. While he had been raised in Beersheba, (Gen. 26:23-33) word must have come to Jacob that his father had moved to Hebron, where he hoped his father would still be living. The record says: “Jacob came home to his father Isaac, near Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac had stayed. Isaac lived 180 years. Then he breathed his last and died, old and full of years. His sons Esau and Jacob buried him.” (Gen. 35:27-29) While the record does not tell us, we presume God was gracious and enabled Jacob and Isaac to reconcile before his death. Thus, when Esau came for the funeral, the family had been restored to relationship and Isaac’s sons, who had been enemies, were united as brothers laying their father’s body to rest beside that of his father Abraham and his mother Sarah, in the cave Abraham had purchased for a family final resting place. (Gen. 23:19,20)
We can presume Jacob and Esau, and whatever family Esau had brought with him, spent several days together in traditional mourning for their father Isaac. There is no mention of their mother Rebekah there.
Because both Esau and Jacob had such large families and great numbers of animals, there was insufficient grazing land for them to remain near one another so Esau moved his family and possessions permanently to the region south and east of the Dead Sea, called Seir, (Gen. 36:1-9) while Jacob made his family homestead his homeland with all his large family. (Gen. 37:1)
In God’s Sovereignty the mantle of family heritage in God’s Covenant had once again been formally passed. First from Abraham to Isaac, not his brother Ishmael, and now to Jacob and not his brother Esau. Jacob, his three wives and twelve sons and one daughter settled down claiming the land which had been deeded by God to Abraham and his descendants.
As God had promised the descendants from Abraham were now a great many with both Isamael and Esau bountifully blessed and leaders of what would become great nations of Arab peoples.
This is history in the making my friends, so let’s pause and ponder what we’ve witnessed as God’s Sovereign plan has developed in Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Tomorrow we’ll find the story of Joseph takes center stage in God’s unfolding “Grand Narrative”. As Jacob and his family settled after Isaac’s funeral, if they had known this song, I believe they would have sung it with enthusiasm and profound gratitude for all God had done in their journey thus far. Let’s worship our Sovereign God…
Today’s Scripture: Genesis 35 & 36.
Choose below to read or listen.
 |  |
Genesis 36
Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
Archived back issues of “Walking with Jesus” and other resources are available by clicking here to open our ‘home page’ (or go to HOME at upper right of this page).
Share with friends. Subscribe below for daily “Walking with Jesus”.