Genesis 35:16-29 - Life, Death, and the Promise

Genesis 35:16-29

Death of Rachel

16 Then they journeyed from Bethel. And when there was but a little distance to go to Ephrath, Rachel labored in childbirth, and she had hard labor. 17 Now it came to pass, when she was in hard labor, that the midwife said to her, “Do not fear; you will have this son also.” 18 And so it was, as her soul was departing (for she died), that she called his name Ben-Oni; but his father called him Benjamin. 19 So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem). 20 And Jacob set a pillar on her grave, which is the pillar of Rachel’s grave to this day.

21 Then Israel journeyed and pitched his tent beyond the tower of Eder. 22 And it happened, when Israel dwelt in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine; and Israel heard about it.

Jacob’s Twelve Sons

Now the sons of Jacob were twelve: 23 the sons of Leah were Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn, and Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun; 24 the sons of Rachel were Joseph and Benjamin; 25 the sons of Bilhah, Rachel’s maidservant, were Dan and Naphtali; 26 and the sons of Zilpah, Leah’s maidservant, were Gad and Asher. These were the sons of Jacob who were born to him in Padan Aram.

Death of Isaac

27 Then Jacob came to his father Isaac at Mamre, or Kirjath Arba (that is, Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had dwelt. 28 Now the days of Isaac were one hundred and eighty years. 29 So Isaac breathed his last and died, and was gathered to his people, being old and full of days. And his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

Death came knocking on the doors of Rachel and then Isaac just as Jacob journeyed home from the House of God.  Rachel had a very difficult birth to bring Ben-Oni, Benjamin, into the world to continue the lineage of promise to Abraham through his descendants.  Her dying words named her son Ben-Oni, literally “Son of My Sorrow,” but Jacob changed that to Benjamin, “Son of the Right Hand” that was looking toward the promise and not the pain of the circumstances to better remember him by and put the focus on the LORD over the circumstances.  How easily we also take our eyes from focusing on the promises of the Lord in Christ and put them on the pain and suffering of our circumstances!  May we learn from this to train our vision to keep our eyes upon Jesus and look in His wonderful face as the hymn goes that we may walk by faith in the promises and not by the sight of circumstances.  Jacob buried his beloved wife Rachel on the way to Bethlehem Ephrath where (Micah 5:2, Ruth 4:11, Matthew 2:6) the Messiah at the end of the line of Abraham’s faith would come from to fulfill the promise of faith, the gospel of our salvation from the beginning (Genesis 3:15) come to the nations at last.  The text records from this time that Israel journeyed from there, no longer Jacob (Genesis 32:28), as the prince of God’s people of promise for the channel of salvation leading to this Messiah we call Christ.  Then it records the twelve sons of Jacob and the death of his father Isaac in Hebron “where Abraham and Isaac had dwelt” as a reminder of the channel’s path of the promise of faith to us.  Both Esau and Jacob now Israel buried their father together there as a reminder of the promised land to come.  We who are now in the fullness of the promise (John 1:14, Acts 26:6, Romans 1:2-4, Galatians 4:4, Ephesians 1:9-10, 3:6, Hebrews 9:14, 1 John 2:25) given through the channel of salvation through the physical and spiritual lineage of Adam by birth to Abraham by faith and passed on until Jesus the Christ was made flesh to live with us, suffer and die for us, and rise again from death to life (John 5:24) as an assurance of the promise of faith’s substance (Hebrews 11:1) and our own resurrection in the end to spend eternity in the promised kingdom of the heavenly country to come!  This then is the account and encouragement of life, death, and the promise of eternal life to come by God’s word and plan through His chosen ones.  describes the Life, Death, and the Promise as brought to us through the channel of salvation in Israel by the promise to Abraham and his descendants. We are the spiritual offspring of him by that same faith.