Genesis 35
v.1
Then God said the Jacob, “Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.”
The only cure for worldliness is to separate from it
v.2
So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes.
The call to rid themselves of foreign gods is a call to commit themselves exclusively to *Yahweh. This does not mean that they understood or accepted philosophical monotheism, but that they accepted Yahweh as their family patron deity. The belief in a personal god who gave protection and provision to the family was common in early second-millennium Mesopotamia. This deity was not understood to replace the great cosmic gods but was the principal object of worship and religious devotion for the individual.
v.5
Then they set out, and the terror of God fell upon the towns all around them so that no one pursued them.
v.10
God said to him, “Your name is Jacob, but you will no longer be called Jacob; your name will be Israel.” So he named him Israel.
The point of the second renaming was to give the name “Israel” a more neutral or even positive connotation. It does so by removing the notion of “struggle” associated with the wordplay in 32:28 and letting it stand in a positive light, contrasting it with the name “Jacob,” a name frequently associated throughout these narratives with Jacob’s deceptions.
v.11-12
And God said to him, “I am God Almighty; be fruitful and increase in number. A nation and a community of nations will come from you, and kings will come from your body. 12The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I also give to you, and I will give this land to your descendants after you.”
The importance of God’s words to Jacob in vv.11-12 cannot be overemphasized. First God’s words recall clearly the primeval blessing of Creation (1:28) and hence show God to be still “at work” in bringing about the blessing to all humanity through Jacob. Second, for the first time since 17:16, the mention is made of royalty in the promised line. Third, the promise of the land, first given to Abraham and then to Isaac, was renewed here with Jacob. Thus within these brief words several major themes come together.
v.14
Jacob set up a stone pillar at the place where God had talked with him, and he poured out a drink offering on it; he also poured oil on it.
v.28-29
Isaac lived a hundred and eighty years. 29Then he breathed his last and died and was gathered to his people, old and full of years. And his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.
The end of the Jacob narratives is marked by the death of his father, Isaac. This notice is not simply to record Isaac’s death but to show the complete fulfillment of God’s promise to Jacob (28:21). According to Jacob’s vow, he had asked that God watch over him during his sojourn and return him safely to the house of his father.