Genesis 35

After all that God has done for Jacob and his family, why is it only now, as he returns to Bethel, that he tells his family, “Get rid of all the idols you’ve accumulated. Purify yourselves by washing your bodies and changing into clean clothes” (35:2)?

Jacob’s most dearly loved wife, Rachel, dies giving birth to her second son: Benjamin. There’s irony in the fact that years earlier Rachel had told her husband “Give me some babies before I die of humiliation!” (30:1). He gives her children and she dies. There’s no telling if Rachel would have wanted a child so badly that she would have been willing to die in childbirth. What do you think about that? Do you think women in that culture wanted children that desperately?

“Rachel was dying and she knew it. As her soul began to slip away, she named her boy Son of Sorrow” (35:18). It’s Ben-oni in Hebrew, the language of the Jews. The name is pretty much, Son of a Gun I Killed My Mother. By changing the boy’s name, do you think Jacob did to Rachel what he had done to his father Isaac: stolen the dying wish?

As Jacob and his family moved around, no one messed with them. The Genesis writer put it this way: “All the people in the area became terrified of them, so they stayed away” (35:5). What do you think are some of the reasons the locals were afraid of Jacob and his family?

Leah, Jacob’s unloved wife, produced more children than all three of Jacob’s other wives combined. She produced six sons and one daughter. Jacob’s other wives, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah, each produced two sons, for a total of six. If you had to bet on it in Vegas, would you lay your money down on the bet that Leah’s extreme fertility was mostly a God thing or a biology thing?

Jacob’s oldest son, Reuben, slept with his stepmother, Bilhah (35:22). She was one of Jacob’s four wives and the mother of Dan and Naphtali. She was also the personal slave of Rachel, Jacob’s favorite wife. There are several possible reasons Reuben might have done this. What are some that come to mind?

LIFE APPLICATION. There is no indication Jacob did anything to punish Reuben for the adultery—until Jacob lay dying. At that point, Jacob stripped Reuben of his inheritance rights as the oldest child: a double share of the estate, twice as much as any other brother would have gotten. “You’re number one no more” (49:4). How have you seen people do that today—hold onto a grudge or a pain only to thrash out years later?

LIFE APPLICATION. Whatever lingering animosity there may have been between Jacob and Esau, they came together to bury their father Isaac when he died. What is it about scenes of life and death that bring together people who would otherwise prefer to stay far apart?