THE WORD OF ELOHIM

GENESIS

Chapter 35

     Elohim said to Ya’akov, “Arise, go up to Bayt el and remain there, and build an altar there to Elohim; who appeared to you, when you were fleeing from your brother Esav.”  So Ya’akov said to his household and to all who were with him, “Rid yourselves of the alien gods in your midst, purify yourselves, and change your clothes.  Come, let us go up to Bayt el, and I will build an altar there to Elohim; who answered me when I was in distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone.”  They gave to Ya’akov all the alien gods that they had, and the rings that were in their ears, and Ya’akov buried them under the terebinth that was near Shekem.  As they set out, a terror from Elohim fell on the cities round about, so that they did not pursue the sons of Ya’akov.

     Thus Ya’akov came to Luz—that is, Bayt el—in the land of Kenaan, he and all the people who were with him.  There he built an altar and named the site El-Bayt el, for it was there that Elohim had revealed Himself to him, when he was fleeing from his brother.

     Deborah, Rivqah’s nurse, died, and was buried under the oak below Bayt el; so it was named Allon-bacuth.

     Elohim appeared again to Ya’akov on his arrival from Paddan-aram, and He blessed him.  Elohim said to him,

“You whose name is Ya’akov,

You shall be called Ya’akov no more,

But Yisrael shall be your name.”

Thus He named him Yisrael.

And Elohim said to him,

“I am El Shaddai.

Be fertile and increase;

A nation, yea an assembly of nations,

Shall descend from you.

Kings shall issue from your loins.

The land that I assigned to Abraham and Yischaq

I assign to you;

And to your offspring to come

Will I assign the land.”

Elohim parted from him at the spot where He had spoken to him; and Ya’akov set up a pillar at the site where He had spoken to him; a pillar of stone, and he offered a libation on it and poured oil upon it.  Ya’akov gave the site, where Elohim had spoken to him, the name of Bayt el.

     They set out from Bayt el; but when they were still some distance short of Ephrath, Rachel was in childbirth, and she had hard labor.  When her labor was at its hardest, the midwife said to her, “Have no fear, for it is another boy for you.”  But as she breathed her last—for she was dying—she named him Ben-oni; but his father called him Binyamin.  Thus Rachel died.  She was buried on the road to Ephrath—now Beth Lechem.  Over her grave Ya’akov set up a pillar; it is the pillar at Rachel’s grave to this day.  Yisrael journeyed on, and pitched his tent beyond Migdal-eder.

     While Yisrael stayed in that land, Reuben went and lay with Bilhah, his father’s concubine; and Yisrael found out.

     Now the sons of Ya’akov were twelve in number.  The sons of Leah:  Reuben—Ya’akov’s first born—Simeon, Levi, Yehudah, Yissaskar, and Zebulun.  The sons of Rachel:  Yehoseph and Binyamin.  The sons of Bilhah, Rachel’s maid:  Dan and Naphtali.  And the sons of Zilpah, Leah’s maid:   Gad and Asher.  These are the sons of Ya’akov who were born to him in Paddan-aram.

     And Ya’akov came to his father Yischaq at Mamre, at Qiryath Arba —now Chebrown —where Abraham and Yischaq had sojourned.  Yischaq was a hundred and eighty years old when he breathed his last and died.  He was gathered to his kin in ripe old age; and he was buried by his sons Esav and Ya’akov.

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