1 And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Beth-el, and dwell there: and make there an altar unto God, that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother.
2 Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments:
Symbols of repentance
3 And let us arise, and go up to Beth-el; and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went.
"who answered me in the day of my distress" - God's awesome like that
4 And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand, and all their earrings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem.
He should have destroyed them.
5 And they journeyed: and the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob.
6 ¶So Jacob came to Luz, which is in the land of Canaan, that is, Beth-el, he and all the people that were with him.
7 And he built there an altar, and called the place El-beth-el: because there God appeared unto him, when he fled from the face of his brother.
8 But Deborah Rebekah’s nurse died, and she was buried beneath Beth-el under an oak: and the name of it was called Allon-bachuth.
What's with the oaks?
10 And God said unto him, Thy name is Jacob: thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name: and he called his name Israel.
11 And God said unto him, I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins;
"be fruitful and multiply" - One wife's menopausal, one's dead... he has like 7 kids already, and he still has to be fruitful and multiply? Seriously?
12 And the land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee I will give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land.
14 And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he talked with him, even a pillar of stone: and he poured a drink offering thereon, and he poured oil thereon.
I think he's already called a few places Bethel, unless this is going back in time - is Bethel the precursor to Bethlehem?
16 ¶And they journeyed from Beth-el; and there was but a little way to come to Ephrath: and Rachel travailed, and she had hard labour.
17 And it came to pass, when she was in hard labour, that the midwife said unto her, Fear not; thou shalt have this son also.
18 And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing, (for she died) that she called his name Ben-oni: but his father called him Benjamin.
Benoni literally means "son of my sorrow" while Benjamin means "son on my right hand" - Christ sits on the right hand of God
"unto this day" - Is it still there? I want to go find it!
22 And it came to pass, when Israel dwelt in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine: and Israel heard it. Now the sons of Jacob were twelve:
I think incest is just a family trait
23 The sons of Leah; Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn, and Simeon, and Levi, and Judah, and Issachar, and Zebulun:
26 And the sons of Zilpah, Leah’s handmaid; Gad, and Asher: these are the sons of Jacob, which were born to him in Padan-aram.
Did the concubines just not have any sons, or were they just not counted as Jacob's sons?
No comments:
Post a Comment