Genesis 35 Devotional

Back to Bethel

“Then let us arise and go to Bethel. I will build an altar there to God, who answered me in my day of distress. He has been with me wherever I have gone.””Genesis 35:3 (BSB)

After the disaster at Shechem, God tells Jacob to go back to Bethel, where God first met him as a fugitive (35:1). Jacob tells his household to get rid of their foreign gods and purify themselves, because they are going to the God who answered him in his distress and has been with him wherever he went (35:2-3). They bury the idols under an oak and set out.

At Bethel God appears again, confirms Jacob's new name, Israel, and renews the promises of nations and kings and land (35:10-12). But the chapter is also full of loss. Rebekah's nurse Deborah dies, Rachel dies giving birth to Benjamin, Reuben sins against his father, and Isaac dies and is buried by his two sons (35:8, 35:18-19, 35:22, 35:29). God's promises do not shield Jacob from grief, but they hold through it. Returning to God means letting go of the idols we have picked up, and finding that he has been with us the whole time.

To think about: What would it look like for you to put away a rival god and return to the God who has been with you?