Genesis 35:10

Bethel is where Jacob, on his way out of the land years before, dreamed of a ladder reaching to heaven and received God’s covenant promises (Genesis 28:10–22). He named the place then and made a vow there. Since then he has spent twenty years in Padanaram, the region in Mesopotamia that Abraham’s family came from, where Jacob found refuge and married. On the way home he met Esau and was reconciled to him (Genesis 33), and then came the grievous events at Shechem involving his daughter Dinah (Genesis 34).

God then told Jacob to go up to Bethel and build an altar there. Jacob had his household put away their foreign gods and earrings, buried them under the tree by Shechem, and went (Genesis 35:1–5). He built the altar (Genesis 35:7), and our passage tells what God did next.

“And God appeared unto Jacob again” looks back to that first meeting. The relationship God began at Bethel still stands after all the years and all of Jacob’s failings, and God is the one who comes to Jacob. He appears “when he came out of Padanaram”, at the turning point when the long years away are over and Jacob is back in the land God promised.

God begins with the name Jacob has always carried: “Thy name is Jacob”. Yaʻăqôb means heel-catcher, and so supplanter. It recalls his birth, when he took hold of Esau’s heel (Genesis 25:26), and his later deceit in winning his father’s blessing (Genesis 27). Then God declares, “thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name”, and the verse closes with God’s own act: “and he called his name Israel.” The word “name” comes four times in this verse, and the word behind it each time is shêm.

Yisrâʼêl is built from a verb meaning to prevail or have power, joined to ʼêl, God. Strong’s renders it “he will rule as God”, and Genesis 32:28 ties the name to Jacob’s having power with God. In Hebrew thought a name often reflected a person’s character or calling, so when God changes a name he marks a new identity and purpose, as when Abram became Abraham (Genesis 17:5) and Sarai became Sarah. The old name recalls a man who grasped at blessing by his own cunning. The new one comes from God, out of a night of wrestling with him, and it would become the name of a whole people.

“I am God Almighty” is the name God gives himself as he renews the covenant, in Hebrew ʼêl Shadday, El Shaddai. ʼêl means God, and it carries the sense of might and strength. Shadday is the title rendered “Almighty”, and “All-Sufficient One” is a possible sense, though its exact meaning is uncertain. By this name God assures Jacob that the one making these promises has the power to keep them, however impossible they look from a human point of view.

God promised the land to Abraham (Genesis 12:7) and confirmed it to Isaac (Genesis 26:3), and now he says to Jacob, “to thee I will give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land.” The word for land, ʼerets, can mean the whole earth or one country, and here it is Canaan, the real territory God appointed for his people. The patriarchs lived there as sojourners, so the land stood for security, belonging and a place to live with God in covenant.

The verb nâthan, to give, has a very wide range of use (put, set, make), and here it plainly means to give. God speaks of the land as given to Jacob’s fathers and as still to be given to Jacob and his seed, so the land is God’s gift from first to last and comes by his grace. The word for seed, zeraʻ, means seed or grain and also offspring, and here it carries the promise past Jacob’s own lifetime to the descendants who would become the nation of Israel. A psalm later sings of this as God’s everlasting covenant and his promise of the land (Psalm 105:8–11).

“And God went up from him in the place where he talked with him.” The verb ʻâlâh is the plain word for going up or ascending. It marks the end of this appearing, as when God went up from Abraham after speaking with him (Genesis 17:22). God is present everywhere, so the verse tells of his appearing to Jacob drawing to its close, its purpose complete. Scripture speaks of it in human terms so that we can follow what happened.

The word for “place”, mâqôwm, means a place or spot, and it comes in verses 13, 14 and 15, which keeps our eyes on this one site. “Talked” is dâbar, the ordinary verb for speaking, and it is the same verb as “talked” in verse 14 and “spake” in verse 15. God came to Jacob and spoke with him in words. God goes up, and his words stay with Jacob.

Jacob answers God’s visit with worship he can see and touch. He sets up a pillar, matstsêbâh, a word that means a pillar, a memorial stone or a sacred pillar. Strong’s adds that it can also mean an idol, and Jacob’s pillar stands to the LORD alone. “A pillar of stone” uses a related word, matstsebeth, a monumental stone, and the stone speaks of a memorial meant to last. Jacob had set up a pillar at Bethel once before (Genesis 28:18), and the patriarchs raised such stones to mark covenants and great events, as when Jacob and Laban set up a pillar and a heap of witness.

Then he poured two things on the pillar. The drink offering is neçek, a libation, and the “poured” beside it is nâçak, to pour out, especially a libation. Drink offerings were usually wine, and the law later sets out a daily drink offering (Exodus 29:40–41). Pouring one out was an act of devotion and thanksgiving, something of value given up to God. The oil is shemen, olive oil, and its “poured” is a different verb, yâtsaq, to pour out. Oil was used to anoint and to set things apart as holy, as the tabernacle and Aaron were later anointed (Leviticus 8:10–12). With the oil Jacob dedicated the pillar and marked the place as holy to God.

Bêyth-ʼÊl means “house of God”, from the word for house and ʼêl, God. Jacob first gave the place this name after his dream (Genesis 28:19). Now he gives it again, reaffirming the name after God has met him there a second time, renamed him and renewed his covenant. It also answers the vow Jacob made on his first visit, that this place would be God’s house if God would be with him (Genesis 28:20–22). His life has come full circle, and God has done all he said.

Naming places was a familiar practice among the patriarchs, as at Beer-sheba and Peniel, and the names kept the memory of what God had done for later generations. Israel later set up twelve stones after crossing the Jordan as a memorial of God’s mighty act (Joshua 4:6–7), and God commanded a sanctuary so that he might dwell among his people (Exodus 25:8). Bethel is holy because God met Jacob there and spoke, and it became a place of remembrance and worship.

The New Testament ties Bethel to Jesus. When Jesus told Nathanael that he would see the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man (John 1:51), he took up the ladder of Jacob’s first dream at this place (Genesis 28:12) and applied it to himself, the one mediator between heaven and earth. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14), and Jesus spoke of his own body as the temple: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19). God went up from Jacob after a short visit, and in Christ God has come to stay with his people. In him believers are built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit (Ephesians 2:20–22), lively stones in a spiritual house (1 Peter 2:5), and the believer’s body is the temple of the Holy Ghost (1 Corinthians 6:19–20).

Jacob’s offerings point to Christ as well. Jesus poured out his blood of the new covenant (Matthew 26:28), he was given the Spirit without measure (John 3:34), and by his offering once for all we are sanctified (Hebrews 10:10). He is “the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person” (Hebrews 1:3), the full revelation of the God who appeared to Jacob.

The new name points to Christ too. God promises his people a new name (Isaiah 62:2) and gives one to him that overcometh (Revelation 2:17). Those who receive Christ are given the power to become the sons of God (John 1:12). Anyone in Christ is a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17), raised to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4) and made part of a chosen people (1 Peter 2:9). God has reconciled us to himself in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:18–19) and brought us into the kingdom of his Son (Colossians 1:13–14), and every promise God made, to Jacob and to us, is sure in him (2 Corinthians 1:20).

God came to Jacob again after long, hard years and many failures, and the promises he had spoken at Bethel still held. He gave Jacob a name Jacob could never have earned, and he showed himself as God Almighty, able to bring nations and kings out of one family and to give a land to people who were still sojourners in it. He spoke, and when he went up his word stayed with Jacob.

Jacob answered by marking the place, pouring out his offerings and naming it for God. The same God has spoken to us in his Son and made us his children, and his promises run on through every generation. When we look back on where he has met us and kept his word, we have the same reason Jacob had to worship him and remember.