Genesis 35:9-15

2009.Jun.26 15:00

A Different Story?

Read Genesis 35:9-15 | Full Chapter

After Jacob came back to the land of Canaan, God appeared to him again. This time he gave Jacob a new name and blessed him by saying: I am God All-Powerful, and from now on your name will be Israel instead of Jacob. You will have many children. Your descendants will become nations, and some of the men in your family will even be kings. I will give you the land that I promised Abraham and Isaac, and it will belong to your family forever.
(Genesis 35:9-12, CEV)

Sound familar? This is similar to the end of Genesis 32, in which Jacob, the night before his “reunion” with Esau, wrestles with God, or an angel, then requests a blessing. God or his representative blesses Jacob, and changes his name to Israel.

It’s possible this passage is merely a reminder of that. There’s minor differences, such as that chapter 35 says this happens at Bethel, chapter 32 at Peniel, and differences in what God says to Jacob. This could easily be explained, but we are encountering part of the difficulty in understanding the structure and history of the book, indeed of the full Bible. It’s a nice thought to suppose the Pentateuch rose fully formed from the pen of Moses somewhere in the Sinai Desert. After all, if Yahweh inspired it, why not? Why not even go ahead and include in future events, say, the death of Moses?

But I’ve seen little to suggest that that’s the way Yahweh chose to have his Word shared with us. Yahweh may not change, but his relationship with humanity has evolved, not because of him, I think, but because of us. Because just as he has a relationship with us as individuals, so does he with us as a species. I could be wrong on all that, but if not, it makes sense that even individual books of the Bible were written not in one fell swoop, but as a process. And they include both historical points and literary ones.

Because the Bible is rather redundant on the main points, I don’t see any reason to worry over things like these apparent inconsistencies of place names. I don’t know why exactly the narrative is this way, and while I think I can learn more spiritually by examing this question more, it does not ultimately matter to my faith or whether I am obedient to Yahweh.

After God had gone, Jacob set up a large rock, so that he would remember what had happened there. Then he poured wine and olive oil on the rock to show that it was dedicated to God, and he named the place Bethel.
(Genesis 35:13-15, CEV)

Okay, so different place name, and the story feels to me a bit confused, but the main point is that Yahweh agains reiterates his promise of a nation via Abraham-Sarah then Isaac-Rebekah then Jacob-Leah-Rachel-Zilpah-Bilhah. And, one way or another, Yahweh does rename Jacob as Israel.

Jacob establishes an altar in remembrance at Bethel, where he has at least had one, probably more, encounters with Yahweh. A guest speaker at my church a while back talked about the role of altars not as places of sacrifice or requests, but of reminders about Yahweh’s goodness. Even the altar of sacrifice for Israel really was that, a reminder that they are Yahweh’s chosen people, and of his continuing plan and grace in their lives. It’s a far cry from the “altars” where we run up to to pray. In some ways, an altar is not somewhere I so much go as something that I establish, and that’s what I see Jacob doing here.

And just to make a random point as though I had planned it, language itself evolves and so the stories that we have in the Bible are living and powerful in part because they are language (in particular, Yahweh’s words), but they are also subject to altering meanings, changes in interpretation. For Jacob and his descendants, this rock was a different sort of reminder: it was there, a physical object to remind me the truth of those stories, however much they might have changed in the telling. It’s essential that my faith be centered in Yahweh’s Word, but my faith is not ephemeral. It is spiritual, but it exists within the “real world,” and I must create for myself reminders, not just in the world to which I am striving, but within the world in which I daily live.