Commentaria in Genesim
Chapter Thirty-five
Jacob purges his household of idols, builds an altar to God, and is again called Israel by God. Second, verse 16, Rachel dies in the birth of Benoni, whom his father calls Benjamin. Third, verse 27, Isaac dies.
1. In the mean time God said to Jacob: Arise, and go up to Bethel, and dwell there, and make there an altar to God, who appeared to thee when thou didst flee from Esau thy brother. 2. And Jacob having called together all his household, said: Cast away the strange gods that are among you, and be cleansed, and change your garments. 3. Arise, and let us go up to Bethel, that we may make there an altar to God: who heard me in the day of my affliction, and accompanied me in my journey. 4. So they gave him all the strange gods they had, and the earrings which were in their ears: and he buried them under the turpentine tree, that is behind the city of Sichem. 5. And when they were departed, the terror of God fell upon all the cities round about, and they durst not pursue after them as they went away. 6. And Jacob came to Luza, which is in the land of Chanaan, surnamed Bethel: he and all the people that were with him. 7. And he built there an altar, and called the name of that place, The house of God: for there God appeared to him when he fled from his brother. 8. At the same time Debora the nurse of Rebecca died, and was buried at the foot of Bethel, under an oak: and the name of that place was called, The oak of weeping. 9. And God appeared again to Jacob, after he returned from Mesopotamia of Syria, and he blessed him, 10. Saying: Thou shalt not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name. And he called him Israel, 11. And said to him: I am God almighty, increase thou and be multiplied: nations and peoples of nations shall be from thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins. 12. And the land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac, I will give to thee, and to thy seed after thee. 13. And he departed from him. 14. But he set up a monument of stone, in the place where God had spoken to him: pouring drink offerings upon it, and pouring oil, 15. And calling the name of that place Bethel. 16. And going forth from thence, he came in the spring time to the land which leadeth to Ephrata: in which when Rachel was in travail, 17. By reason of the hardness of the labour she began to be in danger. And the midwife said to her: Fear not, for thou shalt have this son also. 18. And when her soul was departing for pain, and death was now at hand, she called the name of her son Benoni, that is, the son of my pain: but his father called him Benjamin, that is, the son of the right hand. 19. So Rachel died, and was buried in the highway that leadeth to Ephrata, this is Bethlehem. 20. And Jacob erected a pillar over her sepulchre: this is the pillar of Rachel’s monument, to this day. 21. Departing thence he pitched his tent beyond the Flock tower. 22. And when he dwelt in that country, Ruben went, and slept with Bala the concubine of his father: which he was not ignorant of. Now the sons of Jacob were twelve. 23. The sons of Lia: Ruben the firstborn, and Simeon, and Levi, and Judas, and Issachar, and Zabulon. 24. The sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin. 25. The sons of Bala, Rachel’s handmaid: Dan and Nephthali. 26. The sons of Zelpha, Lia’s handmaid: Gad and Aser. These are the sons of Jacob, that were born to him in Mesopotamia of Syria. 27. And he came to Isaac his father in Mambre, the city of Arbee, this is Hebron: wherein Abraham and Isaac sojourned. 28. And the days of Isaac were a hundred and eighty years. 29. And being spent with age he died: and was gathered to his people, being old and full of days: and Esau and Jacob his sons buried him.
1. In the mean time. When Jacob, sad and anxious, feared and awaited an attack of the Chanaanites on account of the slaughter of the Sichemites, God soon took this fear away from him, and comforted and strengthened him. So St. Chrysostom.
And make an altar: of the stone which thou didst anoint and erect as a monument, chapter 28, verse 18.
2. Cast away the strange gods. There are properly no strange gods: for the God of the faithful alone is truly God; yet they are called strange gods, as being different from the true God; or rather, as the Hebrew has it, elohe nechar, that is, gods of foreigners, whom foreigners worship, namely the idolatrous and pagan Gentiles.
Hence it is clear that there were idols and idolaters in the family of Jacob. And what wonder? For he had dwelt in the house of Laban the idolater for twenty years, and had led away wives and servants thence; whence also Rachel in fleeing stole her father’s idols, chapter 31, verse 19; perhaps also from the fresh spoil of the Sichemites Jacob’s servants had taken away their idols, as Procopius will have it. For nine years now since his departure from Haran Jacob had dwelt, or rather sojourned, in Chanaan, and had not had leisure and opportunity to purge his family of idols and idolatry: he seizes the occasion now from the fear of the Chanaanites, by which all were struck on account of the slaughter done among the Sichemites; for fear teaches men to acknowledge God and to flee to Him. Let rulers and preachers learn here from Jacob, in a public disaster and calamity, to seize the occasion, by pious laws and exhortations, to purge the commonwealth and people of their vices, that so by this fear and calamity they may be freed by God.
put on sackcloth or haircloth as a sign of penance. Second, and better, as if to say: Instead of common and soiled garments put on clean and festal ones, that by them you may profess cleanness and newness of mind, and prepare and rouse yourselves to approach in a fresh dress, as the faithful now do on Sundays and feasts. For this is what “be cleansed” signifies. This clean and new garment was therefore a symbol of penance, repentance and religion, by which they protested that, having cast away the idols, they wished to worship one God, and to begin a new and pious life in the worship of the one God. So in Exodus 19:10 God commands that the Hebrews, about to receive the law on Sinai at Pentecost, change their common garment for a clean and festal one.
See the tropology in Rupert and St. Chrysostom, homily 59, where he teaches by the example of Jacob that parents should labour rather to bring up their children piously than to amass wealth for them. “Why,” he says, “dost thou gather for thyself these burdens of thorns, and perceivest not that thou art leaving to thy sons matter of wickedness? Knowest thou not that the Lord has a greater care of thy boy? Or knowest thou not that youth is of itself prone to ruin, and when it has received an abundance of wealth, it rushes far more to evil? As fire, when it finds fuel, rises in stronger flames, so when matter of money falls to a young man, it kindles such a furnace that it makes the whole soul of the youth blaze with incontinence and intemperance.”
3. He was the companion of my journey: my leader and companion on the way; leader in the going to Haran, bringer back in the return to Chanaan.