We have arrived at the end of the Jacob story. Well, it’s actually the end of the Isaac story, but the way Genesis is structured, the “family history” of Isaac is told through the narrative of his sons, Esau, and especially, Jacob.

We have called this section in Genesis Jacob and the Struggle for Salvation. “Struggle” is perhaps the defining word for Jacob’s life, and the reason for the struggle has to do with God’s purposes of salvation being worked out through his life. We have worked through the various ups and downs and twists and turns that have characterized Jacob’s life, and we have traced how God’s promise made to Abraham and Isaac is being carried on through Jacob.

Throughout history, God's people draw encouragement from the hope that all of God's promises will at last be fulfilled. That remains true for Christians to this very day, so long as we have some clarity on exactly what it is that God has in fact promised to do. Here, as we come to the end of the Jacob narratives, we can think through this again as we see Jacob establishing sacred space, receiving the assurance of the divine promise, and enduring the challenges of waiting for the promise’s fulfillment.

Establishing Sacred Space

First, we see Jacob here, in response to a command from God, returning to Bethel and establishing sacred space. Sacred space is what Genesis 2 and the Garden of Eden are all about. Sacred space is what was lost when Adam and Eve sinned and were exiled east of Eden. Sacred space is critical for the great promise of God to save his world to be fulfilled.

Back to Bethel

So when God says to Jacob in verse 1, “Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there,” and tells him to “make an altar there,” this is more important than we might have thought. Bethel was the place where Jacob encountered God when he left home in Genesis 28, running for his life to escape the anger of his brother. Jacob called the place Bethel because he encountered God there. The name Bethel means “house of God,” indicating that Jacob had come to sacred space, the very place where God lived.

So the call to go to Bethel not only completes the journey for Jacob, the one begun in Genesis 28. When God tells him to “dwell” there, we get the sense that Jacob is called to live where God lives. To remain in God’s presence, to dwell in God’s house.

And he didn’t even have to die to get there! Who would have thought?

You might recall that Jacob had made a vow when he had last been to Bethel. “If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the LORD shall be my God, and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house. And of all that you give me I will give a full tenth to you” (Gen 28:20-22). In commanding Jacob to return to Bethel, we get the sense that God wants Jacob to fulfill that vow he made.

It’s not as though God needed anything from Jacob. Jacob’s promise to give God 10% is the promise to give back to God what God had first given to him. This is all about relationship between Jacob and Jacob’s God. It is about God and man dwelling together on earth. This is what God wants. And it is not simply a blessing to Jacob but the way in which the blessing will come to the whole world.

Preparing to Meet God

But it is no small thing to be in the very presence of God. That’s why, here in verses 2-4, Jacob commands his household to “put away the foreign gods that are among you and purify yourselves and change your garments” (v. 2). The specific acts required here fit what we see elsewhere in the Pentateuch; Jacob’s family has blood on their hands from the events in the previous chapter, and this has brought defilement upon them (see Num 31:19).[1] As we discussed last week, this defilement is what prevents God from being with his people on earth. God’s house—sacred space—must be kept clean.

So, Jacob and his family, in preparing to live in the very presence of God, are required to purify themselves ahead of time. But this is not because they are preparing to die and meet God in heaven; it is because they are alive, preparing to meet God on earth—indeed to dwell with God on earth.

This is what Israel after the exodus will also discover, that in order for God to come and dwell with them, the place has to be clean. God made clear that he wanted to be with them. In Exodus 29:45 he says, “I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God.” Or in Exodus 25:8, God says, “And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst.”

We Christians understand that Jesus has provided by his own death on the cross the disinfectant that purifies sacred space. But we need to emphasize that he has done this work not simply so we can be assured of being with him when we die, but so that we can be assured of him being with us right now while we are alive. Yes, and of course, when we die, too, but that is what we would expect if he has already done his great work to be with us now—not even death can separate him from us (Rom 8:38-39).

But if we are meant to be with God now, then we must get on with the business of laying aside the sin that defiles us, that “clings so closely” (Heb 12:1) to us. It’s not as though Jesus made us clean and it is up to us now to stay clean. That’s not the point. The point is that Jesus died to make the dwelling of God and human beings a reality, and why not live in that reality?

An Act of War

In verses 5-7, Jacob and his family arrive in Bethel, “And there he built an altar and called the place El-bethel, because there God has revealed himself to him when he fled from his brother” (v. 7).

But we get a hint from what is said in verse 5 that in establishing sacred space, Jacob and his family are not simply having a private religious ritual. “And as they journeyed, a terror from God fell upon the cities that were around them, so that they did not pursue the sons of Jacob.” When the Israelites left Egypt and marched to the promised land a similar kind of thing happened.[2]

Commentators talk about what this terror from God is; I simply want us to note what it suggests to us: the call to establish public worship and total devotion to God is to declare war on all other kingdoms. The command to go live in Bethel, and to build some sort of sanctuary for God there, and to live publicly in the presence of God—it is an overtly political act. It’s like moving tanks and armies and missiles to the border of a rival country. It’s like war games or the test of a ballistic missile. There’s a new king in town, and the people around them cannot help but notice.

Receiving Assurance

Next, we see in verses 9-15 that Jacob, having arrived in Bethel and having established sacred space, receives assurance of the divine promise.

Blessing Again

There’s little doubt that these verses are meant to be a climactic moment in the story. Here is Jacob, coming now at the end of his life narrative, receiving the absolute assurance and reaffirmation of God’s promise to give him the Abrahamic blessing, just as God had declared to Abraham most definitively at the end of his story following the near sacrifice of Isaac on Mount Moriah in Genesis 22.[3]

Although this is a climactic moment for Jacob, it may be quite anti-climactic for us, simply because we’ve seen this promise of blessing over and over and over again in Genesis. It is the often-repeated refrain found throughout the stories of the patriarchs.[4] By now we know of what this promise consists: land, descendants, and a blessing which will have some sort of universal scope. This is the gospel message, the heart of the biblical story, and we simply cannot miss this if we want to understand what the Bible is all about.

This blessing is the promise of salvation, the hope of the world. When God says in verse 11, “be fruitful and multiply,” we are taken all the way back to the first chapter of Genesis, when God said the same thing to the human beings he created in his image (Gen 1:28). The same blessing was announced to Noah; similar things are said to Abraham in Genesis 17. Clearly God does not intend to abandon his original creation. He plans to save it. And this is where it is happening.

A Prophecy to Israel

Just where is it happening? In Israel. We were told about Jacob’s name being changed to Israel in chapter 32, but it is repeated here lest we forget that what God is promising to do, the promise to save the world, he is doing in and through Israel. The promise in verses 11-12 is a prophecy given to the ancient nation of Israel.

God begins the prophecy by calling himself “God Almighty,” El Shaddai. The two times we’ve seen this name for God before are in Genesis 17:1 and Genesis 28:3, two passages that are worth comparing with this one. In the first one, God reaffirmed the covenant promise to Abraham; in the second one, Jacob’s father, Isaac, pronounces the covenant blessing upon Abraham’s grandson. Now the name El Shaddai occurs again, at this climactic moment in Jacob’s life. This name for God characterizes him as one who intervenes to do extraordinary things. What is extraordinary about this prophecy?

Notice there in verse 11 that the blessing on Jacob is that “a nation and a company of nations shall come from you.” Earlier, in Genesis 28:3, when Isaac blessed Jacob, he said may you “become a company of peoples.” But here he says, “a company of nations.” Abraham and Isaac could be promised that “nations” would come from them, explainable by the fact that both had other children besides the one child who would be chosen to carry on the patriarchal blessing (e.g. Ishmael, Esau). But with Jacob’s name change to Israel, all his children together comprise the one chosen nation that would bear the new name given to Jacob. How is it, then, that he could become a company of nations?

There does not appear to be any clear indication of the fulfillment of this prophecy in the Old Testament, suggesting that its fulfillment post-dates the Old Testament period.[5] At the same time, the Old Testament did foresee that when Israel was restored following their exile, it would have global ramifications. “At that time . . . all nations shall gather . . . to the presence of the LORD . . . and they shall no more stubbornly follow their own evil heart,” the prophet Jeremiah announced (Jer 3:17). When Israel was restored and the kingdom of God had arrived once and for all, then, at that same moment, “the people of God would then consist of the nation of Israel, and a multitude of nations who have returned to Yahweh to worship him.”[6]

Something only God Almighty could do! And the declaration of the New Testament is that he has, in fact, already done it.

You see, when we ask the question, “Who is Israel?” we find ourselves at the key to understanding so much of how the New Testament and the Old Testament go together. Here in the story of Jacob we see that Israel is one person who will soon enough expand to include many biological descendants. But by the time we get to the first century, the question, “Who is Israel?” was very much in the air, with different groups of Jews claiming to be the true Israel.

Then along came Jesus claiming to be the chosen one, the embodiment of the chosen nation in his own person. And the Apostle Paul can say in Galatians 6:16 that now, because of the victory of Jesus Christ, “the Israel of God” is the identity that only Jesus’s church can claim. “Just as Gal 6:16b is the only NT text in which ‘Israel’ could very likely refer to both Jewish and Gentile believers, Gen 35:11 is also the only OT text that specifically refers to ‘Israel’ becoming ‘a nation and a company of nations.’”[7] In Jesus both passages come together, a great prophecy and its climactic fulfillment.

Worship in Response

So, Jacob responds with the building of a pillar, apparently something of a memorial of this dramatic encounter with God in which God reaffirmed and even expanded on his great promise of salvation.[8] Jacob performs acts of worship, worship in response to what God has promised and reaffirmed to him.

Isn’t this why you and I worship to this very day? We look back and see what God has done, and what else can we do but praise him? We look forward to what God will continue to do, and what else can we do but praise him for that, too? Christian worship is inspired by the great promise of God that has both been put into motion already but is not yet brought to its fullest completion. And we need it more than we know.

Enduring the Challenges

Because, after all, that “not yet” part is anything but easy. Surrounding the great re-affirmation of God’s promise here at the end of the Jacob story, there are still plenty of struggles, the same kinds of struggles that have characterized Jacob’s entire life. Salvation is sure and certain, yet the struggle remains. For Jacob. For all of us. And so we must endure the challenges that come.

Sadness

One such struggle is sadness. There are three deaths mentioned in this chapter, two of which come with notes of deep grief and sadness. In verse 8 we are told that “Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died, shortly after arriving in Bethel.” This obituary comes as something of a surprise: we know about this woman, Rebekah’s nurse, only from Genesis 24:59, and only here do we learn her name. She is, in other words, quite a minor character in the story, but it is her death, and not Rebekah’s, that is mentioned. It isn’t clear why that would be the case. Jacob called the name of the place where she was buried “Allon-bacuth,” which means “oak of weeping.” We are to understand that Deborah’s death brought to Jacob a great degree of sadness. As his mother’s nursemaid, Deborah would have been a significant person in Jacob’s childhood,[9] and those kinds of childhood memories often stir up deep emotions in us, don’t they?

The second death mentioned is Jacob’s wife, Rachel, who tragically dies in childbirth. Her baby survived; Jacob named him Benjamin. But Rachel’s last word was to name him “son of my sorrow.” The location of Rachel’s tomb, the narrator tells us, was known to his audience, and would play a role in later prophecy. “Rachel weeping for her children” is, according to the Gospel of Matthew, a prophecy of Herod’s brutal slaughter of the male children in Bethlehem as he tried to eliminate the newborn child, Jesus (Matt 2:16-18).

Brothers and sisters, the day will come when there will be sorrow and sadness no more. That day is not yet here, so the experience of deep grief and lament is not only to be expected; it is to be embraced by the people of God. In our grief we express the grief of God himself who does not stay away from us in our sadness but comes and weeps with us. God shows up at funerals.

Sinfulness

And so, sadness. A second challenge for Jacob and for us in spite of the assurance we have in God’s coming salvation can be observed from the incident mentioned so briefly in verse 22. Reuben’s actions here are not simply owing to lustful passions: this act would be understood to be a power play. Reuben is demanding his right to his father’s estate and claiming authority over his father.[10] Such an act is absolutely forbidden by the Mosaic Law, yet all we are told here is that “Israel heard of it.” Jacob’s silence reminds us of his silence when he heard that his daughter Dinah had been raped.

We are left in suspense, “wondering how and when the storm will break.”[11] As the chapter winds down, we get a list of the twelve sons of Jacob in verses 23-26, and we are set up for the rest of Genesis and what will happen to the family of Israel.

Signs of Hope

We have reached a turning point in the book of Genesis. The notice of Isaac’s death, “old and full of days,” brings us to the end of this major section in the book that has been concentrated on the life of Jacob. It’s time now to see how things turn out for Jacob as the attention will turn to the lives of his twelve sons.

But notice the last words here in chapter 35. Isaac’s “sons Esau and Jacob buried him” (v. 29). It is a fitting end to the Jacob narratives which began with these same two brothers struggling with each other in their mother’s womb.

What have we learned from the life of Jacob? That the story of salvation, the story of how God has promised to rescue his creation through a covenant he made with Abraham, lives on, though not without great struggle. We have every reason to be confident, to be assured of God’s coming salvation, but let us not for a moment conclude that the path will be easy.

What is easy for us, however, is the answer to the question of just how in the world we can endure the rather harsh realities we still struggle with. Hebrews 12 tells us what to do: keep your eyes on Jesus. “Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted” (Heb 12:3). The Christian has this ultimate ground of assurance, that in Jesus all of God’s promises find their fulfillment.

I love what the Apostle John says, toward the end of his first general letter: “And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life” (1 Jn 5:20). In a world in which it is becoming increasingly difficult to know what is true, let this be our anchor. John says next, and with this ends his letter, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 Jn 5:21). Let us have clean hands and a pure heart and not life out souls to another, brothers and sisters. Come on now, with Jesus as our assurance, why do we need to be influenced by whichever media outlet is your “go to,” or by the voices of the podcasts in your ear?

You don’t need idols when you have Jesus who has promised to be with us wherever we go.

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[1] Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 16–50, Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 2, ed. Bruce M. Metzger, David A. Hubbard, Glenn W. Barker (Dallas: Word Books, 1994), 324.

[2] Wenham, Genesis 16–50, 324. See Exod 23:27.

[3] Wenham, Genesis 16–50, 325.

[4] Joel S. Kaminsky, Yet I Loved Jacob: Reclaiming the Biblical Concept of Election (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2016), 81.

[5] Chee-Chiew Lee, “גימ in Gen 35-11 and the Abrahamic Promise of Blessings for the Nations,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 52, no. 3 (September 2009): 474.

[6] Lee, “גימ in Gen 35-11,” 479-80.

[7] Lee, “גימ in Gen 35-11,” 481.

[8] Tremper Longman III (Genesis, The Story of God Bible Commentary [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016], 439) notes that these kinds of “standing stones” were at times forbidden because they were idolatrous, but sometimes (like here) they function more like a memorial of an encounter with the living God.

[9] Kenneth A. Mathews, Genesis 11:27–50:26, The New American Commentary, vol. 1B, ed. E. Ray Clendenen (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2005), 621.

[10] See Wenham (Genesis 16–50, 327) who also points out the similarity with 2 Sam 3:7-8.

[11] Wenham, Genesis 16–50, 330.