After Esau had gone, Jacob went on to a place called Succoth. Here he stopped and rested his cattle before he went on to the land of Canaan.
Now God spoke to Jacob again. He told him to go to the city of Bethel and to build an altar there. Bethel was the place where Jacob had dreamed many years before about the stairs reaching to heaven with angels going up and down on it. In that dream God had promised to be with him wherever he went and to bring him back safely, and now God had done this.
Although it was more than twenty years since he had gone away, the Lord had taken care of him all that time, and at last he was safely home in his own country again. That is why God told him to go back now to Bethel where the promise had been given him and to build an altar there and worship the Lord.
So Jacob said to Rachel and Leah and to his sons, “Lets go to Bethel and build and altar there to God.”
He told them how kind the Lord had been to him many years before when he was in trouble, when he was running away from his brother Esau, and how the Lord had been with him ever since and had taken care of him.
On the way to Bethel they passed through cities where people might have robbed or killed them, But God made the people afraid, and they didn’t try to harm Jacob and his family in any way.
They arrived safely at Bethel and built an altar there and sacrificed to God to show Him their thanks.
Then God spoke to Jacob, blessed him and told him again, “Your name isn’t Jacob anymore, but Israel.” (Remember, Israel means “a prince with God”; this new name showed how much God loved him.)
God told him again that He would give all the land of Canaan to him and his children and his children’s children, that they would become a great nation, and that some of them would be kings.
Then Jacob set up a great pile of stones at Bethel, so that everyone would always remember that this was the place where God had spoken to him.
Afterwards, Jacob and those with him started off to Bethlehem. Before they arrived, Rachel had another baby, and they named him Benjamin. But Rachel died soon afterwards, and they buried her besides the road. Jacob was very sad, for he loved Rachel very much. He piled stones over her grave to show where she was buried, and the stones stayed there for hundreds of years.
Finally Jacob came to Hebron where his father lived. Yes, Isaac, his father, was still alive. Though it had been so long since he had become old and blind, God had kept him alive until Jacob came home again.
But Isaac died soon afterwards and his sons, Jacob and Esau, buried him in the cave where Abraham and Sarah where buried. He was 180 years old at the time of his death.
Then Esau took his wives, his son’s and his daughters, his cattle, and moved everything he owned to the land of Edom. For he and Jacob had so many cattle that there was not enough food for all of them to live together in the same part of the country.
Questions:
Why did God tell Jacob to go to Bethel?
What was the name of Rachels baby?
Did God keep Isaac alive until Jacob came home?
"Only Life Changes" 