Read Gen. 35:8-15
I love it when God puts an unexpected, out-of-context sentence in that has nothing to do with the other ones. Verse 8 is one of those. They have traveled to Bethel to the same place God appeared to Jacob before and Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse dies. This is the only time she is ever mentioned. Before this we didn’t even know Rebekah had a nurse named Deborah, so this sentence must mean more than what is says. If Deborah was Rebekah’s nurse then she was the one who delivered Esau and Jacob and nursed them. She is their second mother. They buried her “under an oak”. I looked up that phrase and several things happened “under an oak”: people were buried, God appeared to people, people saw and talked to angels, sanctuaries to God were erected. So I think that under an oak had to do with portals to either heaven or the underworld. They named this one Allon-bachuth which means tree of weeping which showed how much they loved her. Deborah watched over their first birth, but she had to die before Jacob could experience his new birth. As soon as she dies, Jacob had an encounter with the Lord and God gave him a new name, Israel. Israel means “he shall rule as God”. This is the picture of salvation. When we get saved we get a new name and it is written in the Book of Life. Now, he tells him to be fruitful and multiply because he has something to reproduce. He renews his promise of the land with him and his blessing on him. Jacob set up a pillar to mark his experience and anointed it with the oil of the Holy Spirit and the wine of the blood of Christ. Of course, he didn’t know the significance of what he was doing at the time.
Lord, thank you for our new birth in you. Help us to discern the times we are living in.
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