Shadowland: Beginnings: Week 40

Losses - Genesis 35

• 35:1 God reminded Jacob of his vow in 31:13, and God now again reminds Jacob of his vow from 28:20.
• 35:2 We now learn that like leaven, the Teraphim that Rachel stole, once the secret sin of Rachel, have now infected the entire family. "Behold a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." Galatians 5:9 Reeling from the disaster in Shechem, Jacob's conscience is pricked, and he promptly acts to get rid of the leaven. Exodus 12:15 Note too how when Rachel says she cannot rise because she is unclean in 31:35, she really does sit upon an unclean thing hidden in the saddle bags. Just as Lot's family was infected by the iniquity of Sodom, and Lot himself was on the verge of being consumed by the infection (19:15), this creeping evil was in part the source of the growing immorality and violence of Jacob's family that had just shown itself in Shechem.
• 35:4 The earrings also - "and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgat me." Hosea 2:13
• 35:5 "the terror of God" - this foreshadows not only the Conquest of Caanan, but the future return of Exiled Israel.
• 35:6,7 Abraham went to Egypt in unbelief, and returned in 13:3
• 35:8 Deborah, from Laban's household dies, and is mourned and buried. It might imply that Rebecca is already dead as well.
• 35:9 Abraham's story picks up where it left off when he returned to Bethel from Egypt in 13:3, the sojourn there in unbelief being so much lost time, and worse, carrying the seeds of sin and suffering that would come through Lot's greed and Sarai's employment of Hagar to "help" God out with his promise. In the same way, Jacob's story resets after more than a decade in Shechem.
• 35:10 "thy name shall be Israel" - God says in effect "let's just pick up where you left" and just ignore that whole Shechem sojourn.
• 35:16 Coming from Bethel, with Bethlehem just in sight ahead is Rama. Rachel cries out in anguish, her cries echoing in the desolate hills and down through the centuries. Her husband has been told to return to his ancestral place, and her baby has chosen this inopportune moment to enter the world outside the womb. It is Anno Mundi 2240 (~1800BC), and there are no inns to turn them away.

  As death approaches, she sees through time and weeps for her children. 600 years later, 25000 of Benjamins descendents will be cut down, fleeing to the west through Rama. Judges 20

  Another 600 years, and she hears a voice proclaim: Thus says the LORD, "A voice is heard in Ramah, Lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; She refuses to be comforted for her children, Because they are no more." Soon, soldiers of Nebuchadnezzar gather the children of Israel at Rama to be deported to Babylon - Daniel among them. Jeremiah 31:16

  Another 600 years, and she hears another voice: "But rumors from the East and from the North will disturb him, and he will go forth with great wrath to destroy and annihilate many. "He will pitch the tents of his royal pavilion between the seas and the beautiful Holy Mountain; yet he will come to his end, and no one will help him. Daniel 11:45

  Herod's soldiers march through Bethlehem just ahead, killing not warriors, but babies. Mothers are screaming in anguish, and their screams seem to intensify Rachel's own anguish, and she cries out anew in despair. Matthew 2:17

• 35:17 She hears a voice hear at hand. It is the midwife saying, "Don’t despair, for you have another son!” Rachel names him Ben-Oni, "son of my sorrow", before the world fades away altogether.
• 35:18 When the son is presented to his father Jacob, Jacob changes his name to Benjamin, "son of my right hand". Eighteen centuries later, one toddler escapes Herod's soldiers by fleeing to Egypt. He will be called a Man of Sorrows, and his mother will also be pierced through with many sorrows. But after his anguish, his Father will say to him, "sit at my right hand".
• 35:22 Reuben's sin is mentioned before reiterating the 12 sons to show how he forfeited his birthright along with Simeon and Levi.
• 35:27 Isaac's death happens 27 years after Jacob joins Joseph in Egypt. Isaac did not go to Egypt - an important point. Joseph send wagons of supplies, so Isaac did not lack. Jacob travels back to Caanan to bury his father, as Joseph did to bury Jacob in Genesis 50.