Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Genesis chapter 35 verses 1-4, 6-7, and 11-14:
God said to Jacob, “Arise, 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.” 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 clothes; 3 then come, let us go up to Bethel, that I may make an altar there to the God who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.” 4 So they gave to Jacob all the foreign gods that they had, and the rings that were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak that was near Shechem . . . 6 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,because it was there that God had revealed himself to him when he fled from his brother . . . 11 God said to him, “I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall spring from you. 12 The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you.” 13 Then God went up from him at the place where he had spoken with him. 14 Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he had spoken with him, a pillar of stone; and he poured out a drink offering on it, and poured oil on it. 15 So Jacob called the place where God had spoken with him Bethel.
Jacob comes again to Bethel, the “House of the LORD” where twenty-some-odd years before he first encountered God and made a vow:
“If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, 21 so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God, 22 and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house; and of all that you give me I will surely give one-tenth to you,” (Genesis 28:20-22).
Jacob keeps his vow. When Jacob first laid his head on the rock to sleep at Bethel he had nothing but the clothes on his back and a staff at his side. But Bethel was a special place, a place of mysterious encounter with the divine, and it was the beginning of a change for Jacob. For the first time, no longer was he living just for himself, but now also for God. Thus the vow.
It takes Jacob two-plus decades for fulfill his vow. Through many toils he will have to come. But in the end he realizes he’s been blessed. And though we was once poor, now he is very, very rich — both in worldly goods and also in spirit — so he comes back to the sacred place of encounter, to rebuild the holy place, and to make his faithful offering to God in Bethel, “the House of God”.
So may it be with all of us also.
NOTE: I’m trying to read the whole Bible this year. Monday’s Lesson will be from Genesis chapters 38 through 45.
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