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Genesis 35

1God said to Jacob, “Get up, go up to Bethel, and settle there. Make an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.” 2Jacob said to his household and everyone with him, “Remove the foreign gods among you, purify yourselves, and change your clothes. 3Let us get up and go up to Bethel. There I will make an altar to the God who answered me on the day of my distress and was with me on the way I traveled.” 4They gave Jacob all the foreign gods in their hands and the rings in their ears. Jacob buried them under the terebinth near Shechem. 5They set out, and a terror from God fell on the surrounding cities, so that they did not pursue Jacob's sons. 6Jacob came to Luz, that is, Bethel, in the land of Canaan, with all the people who were with him. 7He built an altar there and named the place El-bethel, because God had revealed himself to him there when he fled from his brother. 8Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died and was buried below Bethel, under the oak. It was named Allon-bacuth.

9God appeared to Jacob again after he came from Paddan-aram, and blessed him. 10God said to him, “Your name is Jacob. Your name will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel will be your name.” So he named him Israel. 11God said to him, “I am El Shaddai. Be fruitful and multiply. A nation and an assembly of nations will come from you, and kings will come from your loins. 12The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give the land to your seed after you.” 13God went up from him at the place where he had spoken with him. 14Jacob set up a pillar at the place where he had spoken with him, a stone pillar. He poured a drink offering on it and poured oil on it. 15Jacob named the place where God had spoken with him Bethel.

16They set out from Bethel. While there was still some distance to go to Ephrath, Rachel began to give birth, and her labor was hard. 17While she was having hard labor, the midwife said to her, “Do not be afraid; this too is a son for you.” 18As her life was departing—for she died—she named him Ben-oni, but his father named him Benjamin. 19Rachel died and was buried on the road to Ephrath, that is, Bethlehem. 20Jacob set up a pillar over her grave. It is the pillar of Rachel's grave to this day. 21Israel set out and pitched his tent beyond Migdal-eder. 22While Israel was living in that land, Reuben went and lay with Bilhah, his father's concubine, and Israel heard about it.

Jacob's sons were twelve. 23Leah's sons were Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. 24Rachel's sons were Joseph and Benjamin. 25The sons of Bilhah, Rachel's slave woman, were Dan and Naphtali. 26The sons of Zilpah, Leah's slave woman, were Gad and Asher. These were Jacob's sons who were born to him in Paddan-aram. 27Jacob came to his father Isaac at Mamre, Kiriath-arba, that is, Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac had lived as foreigners. 28Isaac's days were a hundred and eighty years. 29Isaac breathed his last and died, and was gathered to his people, old and full of days. His sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

Translation notes 6

35:7–8 — Place-names. El-bethel means “God of Bethel”; Allon-bacuth means “oak of weeping.” The Hebrew verb describing God's revelation is grammatically plural alongside the divine designation, though the preceding and following account speaks of God with singular verbs.

35:11 — El Shaddai. The Hebrew designation is retained. “Almighty” is its traditional English rendering; its precise historical derivation remains uncertain. The bodily image “from your loins” refers to descendants.

35:18 — Life departing. The Hebrew uses nephesh, here the life that departs in dying. The wording itself does not explain the nature of a separable soul. Ben-oni means “son of my sorrow” or “son of my trouble”; Benjamin means “son of the right hand,” with “son of the south” another possible interpretation of the name.

35:22 — Bilhah. A concubine was a woman in a recognized sexual and household relationship with a man, with a status distinct from a full wife. Bilhah was also an enslaved woman. The Hebrew turns abruptly from Reuben's action and Israel's hearing to the list of sons; no immediate response is supplied.

35:26 — Paddan-aram. The summary groups Jacob's sons under the place where his household took shape, though the preceding verses explicitly locate Benjamin's birth on the road to Ephrath. The translation preserves both statements.

35:29 — Gathered to his people. This ancestral death expression is retained. It is distinct from the subsequent statement that Isaac's sons buried him.