Put away the foreign gods: back to Bethel
1 God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel, and live there. Make there an altar to God, who appeared to you when you fled from the face of Esau your brother.” 2 Then Jacob said to his household, and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods that are among you, purify yourselves, and change your garments. 3 Let’s arise, and go up to Bethel. I will make there an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me on the way which I went.” 4 They gave to Jacob all the foreign gods which were in their hands, and the rings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem. 5 They traveled, and a terror of God was on the cities that were around them, and they didn’t pursue the sons of Jacob. 6 So Jacob came to Luz (that is, Bethel), which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him. 7 He built an altar there, and called the place El Beth El; because there God was revealed to him, when he fled from the face of his brother. 8 Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died, and she was buried below Bethel under the oak; and its name was called Allon Bacuth. 9 God appeared to Jacob again, when he came from Paddan Aram, and blessed him. 10 God said to him, “Your name is Jacob. Your name shall not be Jacob any more, but your name will be Israel.” He named him Israel. 11 God said to him, “I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations will be from you, and kings will come out of your body. 12 The land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac, I will give it to you, and to your offspring after you I will give the land.” 13 God went up from him in the place where he spoke with him. 14 Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he spoke with him, a pillar of stone. He poured out a drink offering on it, and poured oil on it. 15 Jacob called the name of the place where God spoke with him “Bethel”.
God sends Jacob back to the place of his vow, and the household turns out to have been carrying idols the whole way.
Arise, go up to Bethel, and live there. The command comes immediately after the massacre at Shechem, when Jacob is exposed and afraid, and it sends him to the one place in his life where God had met him with nothing asked in return.
God's own way of identifying himself is a reminder with an edge: God, who appeared to you when you fled from the face of Esau your brother. Twenty years ago Jacob vowed at that stone that if God brought him back in peace, Yahweh would be his God and he would give a tenth Genesis 28:20–22. He has been back in the land for some time, living at Shechem, buying property, building an altar — and he has not gone to Bethel.
What he says to his household shows he knows exactly what the summons requires: Put away the foreign gods that are among you, purify yourselves, and change your garments.
The astonishing thing is the first clause. There are foreign gods among them, in the household of the man who wrestled with God at the Jabbok, on the way to the promised land. Rachel took her father's teraphim out of Laban's house Genesis 31:19, and evidently she was not the only one, since what is collected is all the foreign gods which were in their hands, and the rings which were in their ears. Idols and amulets, in quantity, from a family that has been under the covenant for three generations.
He buries them under the oak by Shechem — not smashed, not carried along, but put in the ground and left in the town they are leaving.
The result is stated in one clause that answers Jacob's panic in the previous chapter: a terror of God was on the cities that were around them, and they didn't pursue the sons of Jacob. He had said he would be destroyed by the neighboring peoples, and the protection comes from the direction he had not looked in.
At Bethel he builds the altar he should have built years earlier, and the naming records what the place is for: because there God was revealed to him, when he fled from the face of his brother.
A death is set down in a single verse between the altar and the appearing: Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died. She has never been mentioned in the narrative and she came from Haran with Rebekah two generations ago Genesis 24:59. She is buried under an oak named the oak of weeping, and the fact that her death is recorded at all says something about what she was to that family. Rebekah's own death is never mentioned anywhere.
Then God appears and blesses him, and confirms the new name directly: Your name shall not be Jacob any more, but your name will be Israel. It was given in the dark at a ford by a man who would not say who he was; it is confirmed at an altar, in the land, by God identifying himself as God Almighty — the name used to Abraham at the giving of circumcision Genesis 17:1.
And the promise passes on intact: a nation and a company of nations, kings from his body, and the land given to Abraham and Isaac. Three generations, one covenant, and the same wording each time.
settled What this mark means