35:5
The effect of God’s blessing does not just have a direct effect on His people, it also has an effect on others. So here we read that a terror from God fell on the cities around them, so that they did not pursue “the sons of Jacob”. Notice that Jacob’s sons are increasing in prominence. God can make people afraid of us. Now sometimes God’s path for us will involve us in suffering, as many Christians around the world experience. We need to realise that God is in control at all times, He can cause people not to attack us if He chooses, at other times we will suffer because of Christ. Both are in God’s hands.
35:6-8
Bethel had been called Luz (Gen 28:18). Jacob built an altar there and called the place “El-bethel”, meaning “God of Bethel”. As we have noted on several occasions, the gods of the nations were often associated with a particular locality, or an aspect of life (e.g. fertility gods). “God of Bethel” here does not indicate that Jacob saw the Lord in a similar way, as v7 makes clear. It is the fact that God had appeared to him there that was the key point. Jacob had experienced God’s protection and blessing wherever he went. Rebekah’s nurse, Deborah, gets mentioned, which seems rather out of the blue, but we see that she was honoured and deeply missed. It is not just the “important” people who count.
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