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GENESIS Heart of David Study Bible

They will gather themselves together against me and strike me, and I will be destroyed, I
and my house.”
They said, “Should he deal with our sister as with a prostitute?”
Elohim said to Ya`aqob, “Arise, go up to Bethel, and live there. Make there an altar
to Elohim, who appeared to you when you fled from the face of Esau your brother.”
Then Ya`aqob said to his household, and to all who were with him, “Put away the
foreign elohim that are among you, purify yourselves, change your garments. Let us arise,
and go up to Bethel. I will make there an altar to Elohim, who answered me in the day of
my distress, and was with me on the way which I went.”
They gave to Ya`aqob all the foreign elohim which were in their hands, and the
rings which were in their ears; and Ya`aqob hid them under the oak which was by Shekem.
They traveled, and a terror of Elohim was on the cities that were around them, and they
didn’t pursue the sons of Ya`aqob. So Ya`aqob came to Luz (that is, Bethel), which is in
the land of Kayinan, he and all the people who were with him. He built an altar there, and
called the place El Bethel; because there Elohim was revealed to him, when he fled from
the face of his brother. Deborah, Ribkah’s nurse, died, and she was buried below Bethel
under the oak; and its name was called Allon Bakuth [oak of weeping].
Elohim appeared to Ya`aqob again, when he came from Paddan Aram, and blessed
him. Elohim said to him, “Your name is Ya`aqob [supplanter]. Your name shall not be
Ya`aqob any more, but your name will be Yisrael [triumphant with the Mighty].” He
named him Yisrael. Elohim said to him, “I am El Shaddai [the Mighty One Who Gives
Blessings of the Breasts]. Be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations will
be from you, and kings will come out of your body. The land which I gave to Abraham
and Yitshak, I will give it to you, and to your seed after you will I give the land.”
Elohim went up from him in the place where he spoke with him. Ya`aqob set up a
pillar in the place where he spoke with him, a pillar of stone. He poured out a drink
offering on it, and poured oil on it. Ya`aqob called the name of the place where Elohim
spoke with him “Bethel” [house of El].
They traveled from Bethel. There was still some distance to come to Ephrath, and
Rakale travailed. She had hard labor. When she was in hard labor, the midwife said to her,
“Don’t be afraid, for now you will have another son.”
It happened, as her soul was departing (for she died), that she named him Benoni
[son of my sorrow], but his father named him Benyamin [son of my right hand]. Rakale
died, and was buried on the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem. Ya`aqob set up a pillar
on her grave. The same is the Pillar of Rakale’s grave to this day. Yisrael traveled, and
spread his tent beyond the tower of Eder. It happened, while Yisrael lived in that land, that
Reuben went and lay with Bilhah, his father’s concubine, and Yisrael heard of it.

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