Genesis 35

This chapter is a collection of somewhat miscellaneous items, some of them out of chronological sequence, but all of them pertinent to concluding the personal history of Jacob, reaching a climax in his accession to the patriarchal preeminence inherited from Isaac as head of the Chosen People. Alan Richardson called the chapter "a series of fragments to complete the story of Jacob."[1] There are indeed, "several brief paragraphs, in a sense disconnected, but together providing a useful transitional section in Genesis."[2]

The events recorded are:

1. the return to Bethel (Genesis 35:1-7);
   
2. the death and burial of Deborah (Genesis 35:8);
   
3. God's appearance again to Jacob, reaffirming the patriarchal promise (Genesis 35:9-15);
   
4. the death of Rachel in childbirth at the birth of Benjamin (Genesis 35:16-20);
   
5. the incest of Reuben with Bilhah (Genesis 35:22);
   
6. a list of the twelve sons of Jacob (Genesis 35:22b-26);
   
7. Jacob's final visit to his father Isaac, Isaac's last days, death and burial by Esau and Jacob (Genesis 35:27-29).
   

We shall not trouble the reader with the conflicting testimonies of critical scholars declaiming various and sundry opinions regarding the alleged "sources" of this chapter. Moses, of course, in a sense is the human source, but all of the sacred record here is of God Himself. Speiser caught a glimpse of this basic truth in the remark extolling the "credibility of each separate source (which) can only add to one's appreciation of the work as a whole."[3] It is the WORK AS A WHOLE, the Bible upon which the focus should rest. How absolutely irrelevant is the imaginary analysis of the unknown and unknowable sources upon which Moses might have relied for information! Luke was an inspired evangelist who wrote the third book of the N.T.; and he mentioned his having information gathered and written down by many people, and also that he had personally interviewed many of the "eyewitnesses" of things he wrote. It must be supposed, for sure, that Moses did the same thing. However, the truth of what is written in the Bible is assured, not by the integrity or accuracy of the persons consulted or records reviewed either by Moses or Luke, but by the inspiration and reliability of the sacred writers, or compilers themselves. What difference could it make what record Moses might have reviewed in the compilation of a given paragraph? Are the alleged "scholars" of the present time, some 3,500 years after Moses, any better qualified than was Moses to affirm or deny the integrity and accuracy of what he wrote? He is indeed naive and gullible who might think so. In addition to the question regarding the ability of present-day scholars compared with Moses, there must also be added the factor of Moses' having had the documents in hand (according to their theories). How can it be supposed that people are so skilled and intelligent that they can analyze documents they never saw better than such a man as Moses who, according to their theories, had the documents in his possession? This major assumption of critical scholarship in the current generation is preposterous, untenable, and actually ridiculous. If there was any certainty whatever about all of those imaginary "documents" or "sources," or if even one of them had ever been seen by any human being living during the last 3,000 years, there might be some point in all the talk about "J," "E," "P," "Some Fourth Source," etc., etc. We consider it a phenomenal understatement by Francisco that, "There is considerable uncertainty about this!"[4]

Regarding the fragmentary nature of the chapter, this also is in the highest tradition of all the sacred writings in both the O.T. and the N.T. Mark, for example, compiled totally unrelated and independent statements of Jesus Christ in consecutive sentences (Mark 8:38; 9:1), as attested by the wisest scholars of our generation.[5] In view, therefore, of this recurring phenomenon in the sacred Scriptures, it is exceedingly tenuous and precarious to depend blindly upon the position of either sentences or paragraphs in the text. For example, in this very chapter, the death and burial of Deborah might well have occurred many years prior to the events in which it appears to be sequenced here, although there is no problem of accepting the narrative either way.