Jacob at Bethel
1 God said to Jacob, “Go up to Beth el and settle there. Build an altar there to God who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.”
2 Jacob said to his family and to all those who were with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, purify yourselves and change your clothes.
3 We will then go up to Bethel. There I will make an altar to God who helped me when I was in trouble and who was with me during my journey.”
4 So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had as well as their earrings and Jacob hid them under the oak that was near Shechem.
5 They then left and a terror fell on all the surrounding towns with the result that no one followed in pursuit of them.
6 When Jacob and all those with him came to Luz in Canaan—which is Bethel—
7 he built an altar there and called the place El-Bethel because it was there that God had shown himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother.
8 At that time Rebekah’s nurse, Deborah, died and was buried below Bethel near the oak. That is why it was called the Oak of Tears.
9 God appeared again to Jacob when he arrived from Paddan-aram and blessed him
10 and said to him, “Your name is Jacob, but no longer will you be called Jacob, for Israel will be your name.” So he was called Israel.
11 Then God said to him, “Be fruitful and grow in number! A nation or rather a group of na tions will come from you.
12 The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you and to your descendants after you.”
13 Then God left him.
14 Jacob set up a stone in the place where God had spoken to him and offered a libation on it and poured oil on it.
15 Jacob called the place where God had spoken to him, Bethel.
16 They moved on from Bethel and were still some distance from Ephrath when Rachel gave birth and the delivery was very difficult.
17 When she was in great pain the midwife said to her, “Courage! For now you will have another son.”
18 And as she breathed her last—for she was dying—she called him Benoni (which means: son of my pain), but his father named him Benjamin.
19 So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath—that is Bethlehem—
20 and Ja cob placed a pillar over her tomb which marks the place of the tomb to this day.
21 Israel journeyed on and pitched his tent beyond Migdal-eder.
22 While Israel was living in that region, it happened that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah, his father’s concubine, and Israel heard of it.
The twelve sons of Jacob
Jacob had twelve sons.
23 By Leah: Reuben, Jacob’s eldest son, then Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar and Zebulun.
24 The sons by Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin.
25 The sons by Bilhah, Rachel’s slave girl: Dan and Naphtali.
26 The sons by Zilpah, Leah’s slave girl: Gad and Asher. These were the sons born to Jacob in Paddan-aram.
27 Jacob came home to his father Isaac at Mamre or Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) where Abraham and Isa ac had lived.
28 After living a hundred and eighty years
29 Isaac breathed his last and was gathered to his people at a good old age. His sons Esau and Jacob buried him.
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Comments Genesis, Chapter 35
• 35.1 One cannot live one’s faith in isolation; thus Jacob begins to form a community by first re quiring that his people get rid of their idols. When they take this concrete and visible step, which is a great sacrifice for them, they become the first community capable of giving witness to the world, of faith in the one God.
• 22. We mentioned that the Bible preserves some memories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in legends (see 11:26). Outside of those three, it has been proven that the other names such as Reuben, Simeon, Judah… do not refer to real people. Wandering tribes had their own way of recording the events of the past. They created stories in which each tribe was represented by a person of the same name. So, for example, if twelve tribes had merged into a single people: they would express that by saying that 12 ancestors with the names of those tribes were the sons of only one father, Jacob-Israel! Moreover, as four of those tribes, those of Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah had formed a different group from the tribes of Joseph and Benjamin, the members of the first group were considered to be the sons of Leah, one of Jacob’s wives and the others, sons of Jacob’s other wife, Rachel. Likewise the sons of the slave girls were the figures of second rate tribes: Naphtali, Zebulun…
The story in chapter 34 refers to a violent episode when the tribes of Simeon and Levi were in conflict with the people of Shechem. (Shechem is a city, not a person). We must interpret what is said of “Laban, the Aramean” (chapter 31) and of Judah and his sons (26:30 and 36:1) in a similar way.
This explains why, ever since ancient times, biblical experts have considered many things in the history of the patriarchs as symbolic.
Twelve tribes made up the people of Israel and they always wanted to remember this number which was considered sacred (see chapter 48). Jesus will later remember this ancient structure of the people of God when he establishes his church as the new people of God and chooses twelve apostles to lead it.