Knowing The Word in Genesis 35:1-8, Make an Altar

1 God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there. Make an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.” [God is going to get Jacob back to where he first encountered God. This is the first time a patriarch is commanded to build an altar.] 2 So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods that are among you and purify yourselves and change your garments. 3 Then let us arise and go up to Bethel, so that I may make there an altar to the God who answers me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.” [True worship of God demands both inward and outward purity,] 4 So they gave to Jacob all the foreign gods that they had, and the rings that were in their ears. [Earrings were later used to make idols, such as the golden calf.] Jacob hid them under the terebinth tree that was near Shechem.

5 And as they journeyed, a terror from God fell upon the cities that were around them, so that they did not pursue the sons of Jacob. [Jacob steps out in obedience to God’s call, and God protects him.] 6 And Jacob came to Luz (that is, Bethel), which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him, 7 and there he built an altar and called the place El-bethel [House of God], because there God had revealed himself to him when he fled from his brother. 8 And Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died, and she was buried under an oak below Bethel. So he called its name Allon-bacuth [oak of weeping].