by:
02/03/2023
0
“Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you … come, let us go up to Bethel, where I will build an altar to God” (35:2). The terrible rape of Jacob’s daughter Dinah and the vicious revenge-killings perpetrated by Simeon and Levi demonstrated that Jacob’s family were still living among and even following the ways of the world. God called them to build an altar, get rid of their idols, and to remember God’s real character (35:1).
Jacob knew from experience that the patterns of the world ended in heartache and violence. The only hope for his family was in the God who “answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone” (35:3).