Genesis (American Standard Version, 1901) · 48 of 73 · tr. American Standard Version (1901)
34:29-35:18
[34:29] and all their wealth, and all their little ones and their wives, took they captive and made a prey, even all that was in the house.
[34:30] And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, Ye have troubled me, to make me odious to the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites: and, I being few in number, they will gather themselves together against me and smite me; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house.
[34:31] And they said, Should he deal with our sister as with a harlot?
[35:1] And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Beth-el, and dwell there: and make there an altar unto God, who appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother.
[35:2] Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put away the foreign gods that are among you, and purify yourselves, and change your garments:
[35:3] and let us arise, and go up to Beth-el; and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went.
[35:4] And they gave unto Jacob all the foreign gods which were in their hand, and the rings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem.
[35:5] And they journeyed: and a terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob.
[35:6] So Jacob came to Luz, which is in the land of Canaan (the same is Beth-el), he and all the people that were with him.
[35:7] And he built there an altar, and called the place El-beth-el; because there God was revealed unto him, when he fled from the face of his brother.
[35:8] And Deborah Rebekah’s nurse died, and she was buried below Beth-el under the oak: and the name of it was called Allon-bacuth.
[35:9] And God appeared unto Jacob again, when he came from Paddan-aram, and blessed him.
[35:10] And God said unto him, Thy name is Jacob: thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name: and he called his name Israel.
[35:11] And God said unto him, I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins;
[35:12] and the land which I gave unto Abraham and Isaac, to thee I will give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land.
[35:13] And God went up from him in the place where he spake with him.
[35:14] And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he spake with him, a pillar of stone: and he poured out a drink-offering thereon, and poured oil thereon.
[35:15] And Jacob called the name of the place where God spake with him, Beth-el.
[35:16] And they journeyed from Beth-el; and there was still some distance to come to Ephrath: and Rachel travailed, and she had hard labor.
[35:17] And it came to pass, when she was in hard labor, that the midwife said unto her, Fear not; for now thou shalt have another son.
[35:18] And it came to pass, as her soul was departing (for she died), that she called his name Ben-oni: but his father called him Benjamin.
Attributing human characteristics, emotions, or form to the divine; embodied divine imagery.
God is described in embodied terms — appearing, speaking, going up from Jacob, and being revealed — attributing spatial and communicative human characteristics to the divine.
A binding agreement or relationship between the divine and a people or individual, establishing mutual obligations.
The passage explicitly reaffirms the Abrahamic covenant with its binding land promise to Jacob and his seed, establishing a continuing divine-human relationship with mutual obligations.
Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.
God directs Jacob's movements, causes terror upon surrounding cities to protect the family, blesses him, and reaffirms the land promise — the divine actively ordering human affairs toward intelligible ends.
A non-physical dimension of reality, interpenetrating the physical world, populated by forces, beings, and forms ordinarily imperceptible to physical senses and instruments, that can affect embodied life without being seen — Dion Fortune's 'mind-side of nature,' the astral plane of Western esotericism broadly construed. Distinct from astral_light (a specific transmitting medium or fluid operating within this realm, not the realm itself), pleroma (the divine fullness at the summit of a cosmic hierarchy, not a parallel plane coextensive with ordinary life), and animism (particular indwelling spirits bound to specific natural objects, not the general unseen dimension itself).
The 'terror of God' falling upon surrounding cities (35:5) implies a non-physical divine force affecting the physical world without visible mediation, and the foreign gods represent imperceptible spiritual presences among the household.
The divine conceived as active, present, and dynamic—not an abstract principle but a personal responsive reality.
God is depicted as actively appearing, speaking, commanding, blessing, and departing — a personal, responsive divine reality rather than an abstract principle.
The maintenance of a state of cleanliness—physical, moral, or spiritual—required for encounter with the divine.
Jacob commands his household to put away foreign gods, purify themselves, and change their garments as a prerequisite for the sacred journey to Bethel and altar-building.
Divine names or formulas that carry ontological power, used in prayer, liturgy, or magical practice.
God renames Jacob as Israel, and the naming of places (Bethel, El-beth-el, Allon-bacuth) and the child (Ben-oni/Benjamin) carry ontological and theological weight as acts that define identity and relationship.