Genesis 35 Contemporary English Version

Jacob Returns to Bethel

35 ^(A) God told Jacob, “Return to Bethel, where I appeared to you when you were running from your brother Esau. Make your home there and build an altar for me.”

²Jacob said to his family and to everyone else who was traveling with him:

Get rid of your foreign gods! Then make yourselves acceptable to worship God and put on clean clothes. ³Afterwards, we'll go to Bethel. I will build an altar there for God, who answered my prayers when I was in trouble and who has always been at my side.

⁴So everyone gave Jacob their idols and their earrings,^[a] and he buried them under the oak tree near Shechem.

⁵While Jacob and his family were traveling through Canaan, God terrified the people in the towns so much that no one dared bother them. ⁶Finally, they reached Bethel, also known as Luz. ⁷Jacob built an altar there and called it “God of Bethel,” because that was the place where God had appeared to him when he was running from Esau. ⁸While they were there, Rebekah's personal servant Deborah^[b] died. They buried her under an oak tree and called it “Weeping Oak.”

God Blesses Jacob at Bethel

^9-11^(B)^(C) After Jacob came back to the land of Canaan, God appeared to him again. This time he gave Jacob a new name and blessed him by saying:

I am God All-Powerful, and from now on your name will be Israel^[c] instead of Jacob. You will have many children. Your descendants will become nations, and some of the men in your family will even be kings. ¹²I will give you the land that I promised Abraham and Isaac, and it will belong to your family forever.

¹³After God had gone, ¹⁴^(D) Jacob set up a large rock, so that he would remember what had happened there. Then he poured wine and olive oil on the rock to show that it was dedicated to God, ¹⁵and he named the place Bethel.^[d]

Benjamin Is Born

¹⁶Jacob and his family had left Bethel and were still a long way from Ephrath, when the time came for Rachel's baby to be born. ¹⁷She was having a rough time, but the woman who was helping her said, “Don't worry! It's a boy.” ¹⁸Rachel was at the point of death, and right before dying, she said, “I'll name him Benoni.”^[e] But Jacob called him Benjamin.^[f]

¹⁹Rachel was buried beside the road to Ephrath, which is also called Bethlehem. ²⁰Jacob set up a tombstone over her grave, and it is still there. ²¹Jacob, also known as Israel, traveled to the south of Eder Tower, where he set up camp.

²²^(E) During their time there, Jacob's oldest son Reuben slept with Bilhah, who was one of Jacob's other wives.^[g] And Jacob found out about it.

Jacob's Twelve Sons

^23-26Jacob had twelve sons while living in northern Syria.^[h] His first-born Reuben was the son of Leah, who later gave birth to Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. Leah's servant Zilpah had two sons: Gad and Asher.

Jacob and his wife Rachel had Joseph and Benjamin. Rachel's servant woman Bilhah had two more sons: Dan and Naphtali.

Isaac Dies

²⁷^(F) Jacob went to his father Isaac at Hebron, also called Mamre or Kiriath-Arba, where Isaac's father Abraham had lived as a foreigner. ^28-29Isaac died at the ripe old age of 180, then his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

Footnotes

35.4 earrings: These would have had symbols of foreign gods on them.
35.8 Deborah: See 24.59 and the note there.
35.9-11 Israel: See the note at 32.28.
35.15 Bethel: See the note at 28.19.
35.18 Benoni: In Hebrew “Benoni” means “Son of my Sorrow.”
35.18 Benjamin: In Hebrew “Benjamin” can mean “Son at my Right Side” (the place of power).
35.22 other wives: See the note at 22.24. Bilhah had been Rachel's servant woman (see 29.28-30).
35.23-26 northern Syria: See the note at 24.10.