Genesis 35:1 - Meaning and Application

Here, God reminds Jacob of the vow he made at Bethel and sends him there to keep it (Genesis 35:1). Jacob had said in his distress, “If God brings me back in peace, this stone will be God’s house” (Genesis 28:22). God had already kept his part, and Jacob had more than enough for food and clothing. He had become a wealthy man with two large companies, but it seems he had either forgotten his vow or delayed it too long.

Seven or eight years had passed since he came back to Canaan. He had bought land there and built an altar to remember God’s last appearance to him, when God called him Israel (Genesis 33:19, Genesis 33:20). Even so, Bethel was still neglected. Time easily makes us forget God’s kindness and weakens the feelings they once stirred in us, though it should not be that way.

God had already tested Jacob with a very painful trouble in his family (chapter 34), hoping it would bring his vow back to mind. But even that had not done it. So God came directly and told him, “Arise, go to Bethel.” God does this for those he loves, reminding them of duties they have put off, sometimes through conscience and sometimes through events in life.

When we make a vow to God, it is best not to delay keeping it (Ecclesiastes 5:4). Still, it is better to be late than never. God told Jacob to go to Bethel and dwell there, which means he was to go himself and take his family with him so they could join in worship. Bethel, the house of God, should be the place where we want to live (Psalm 27:4). It should be our home, not just a place we visit.

God does not repeat Jacob’s vow here, but he points him back to the time when he fled from Esau’s anger. The memory of past troubles should also bring back what our hearts felt in those troubles (Psalm 66:13, Psalm 66:14).

Jacob then told his whole household to prepare for this solemn journey and for the worship that would happen there (Genesis 35:2, Genesis 35:3). Before serious acts of worship, there should be serious preparation. “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, then come” is the right order (Isaiah 1:16-18). Heads of families should use their authority to help religion flourish at home. Not only we ourselves, but our households too, should serve the Lord (Joshua 24:15).

Jacob gave his family the same kind of command Abraham once gave his household (Genesis 18:19). First, they had to put away the foreign gods. Foreign gods in Jacob’s family were shocking, especially in a household that knew the true God. Jacob himself had been visited by God more than once, so his failure here was a weakness on his part. Even good people cannot always keep those around them as faithful as they should be.

In religious homes, there is often still much that is wrong, and more false worship than we might expect. Rachel, Jacob’s wife, seems to have had her household idols, and it is likely she used them in a superstitious way. The people from Shechem may have brought their gods with them, and Jacob’s sons may have taken some idols in the plunder. However they got them, they now had to give them up.

Second, they had to cleanse themselves and change their clothes. They were to show proper respect and make the best outward preparation they could. Simeon and Levi, who had blood on their hands from the slaughter at Shechem, especially needed to wash and put off garments stained by guilt. These actions were only signs of a greater need, the cleansing and change of the heart. Clean clothes and new clothes mean little without a clean heart and a new heart.

Some have understood their washing as Jacob admitting the Shechemite and Syrian converts into his faith by baptism, since circumcision had become disliked. But whatever the exact outward act, the point is clear: they were to prepare themselves carefully for God’s worship.

Third, they were to go with Jacob to Bethel (Genesis 35:3). Heads of families should bring their households with them when they go up to the house of God.

Then the family gave up everything that was connected with idolatry or superstition (Genesis 35:4). If Jacob had called for this sooner, perhaps they would have given them up sooner too, since their own consciences had already shown them how worthless these things were. Sometimes a call to reform succeeds better than we expect, and people are less resistant than we feared.

Jacob’s servants, and even the people attached to his household, gave him all the foreign gods and the earrings they wore, either as charms or as honors given to false gods. They gave up all of it. Reform is not sincere unless it is complete. We hope they parted with these things freely and gladly, like Ephraim later did when he said, “What have I to do with idols anymore?” (Hosea 14:8), or like the people who said to their idols, “Get out of here” (Isaiah 30:22).

Jacob made sure the idols were buried, likely in some hidden place where no one could easily find them again. We must be fully separated from our sins, as if they were dead and buried out of sight. We should throw them away as worthless things, fit only for the moles and bats (Isaiah 2:20).

From Shechem to Bethel, he traveled without being attacked (Genesis 35:5). The fear of God fell on the cities around them. The Canaanites had reason to be angry at Jacob’s sons because of how they had treated the people of Shechem, yet God restrained them. They could not take advantage of this journey to strike back.

The way of duty is the way of safety. While sin remained in Jacob’s house, he feared his neighbors. But when the foreign gods were put away and they all went together to Bethel, the neighbors feared him instead. When we are doing God’s work, we are under his special protection. God is with us when we are with him, and if God is for us, who can stand against us? God still rules the world in ways we do not always notice, often by putting secret fears into people’s minds.