Genesis 35:1-29
God Promise to Jacob
1 Then God said to Jacob, “Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.”
2 So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes. 3 Then come, let us go up to Bethel, where I will build an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone.” 4 So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had and the rings in their ears, and Jacob buried them under the oak at Shechem. 5 Then they set out, and the terror of God fell on the towns all around them so that no one pursued them.
6 Jacob and all the people with him came to Luz (that is, Bethel) in the land of Canaan. 7 There he built an altar, and he called the place El Bethel, because it was there that God revealed himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother.
8 Now Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died and was buried under the oak outside Bethel. So it was named Allon Bakuth.
9 After Jacob returned from Paddan Aram, God appeared to him again and blessed him. 10 God said to him, “Your name is Jacob, but you will no longer be called Jacob; your name will be Israel.” So he named him Israel.
11 And God said to him, “I am God Almighty; be fruitful and increase in number. A nation and a community of nations will come from you, and kings will be among your descendants. 12 The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I also give to you, and I will give this land to your descendants after you.” 13 Then God went up from him at the place where he had talked with him.
14 Jacob set up a stone pillar at the place where God had talked with him, and he poured out a drink offering on it; he also poured oil on it.15 Jacob called the place where God had talked with him Bethel.
2 Samuel 7:1-29
God's Promise to David
1 After the king was settled in his palace and the LORD had given him rest from all his enemies around him, 2 he said to Nathan the prophet, “Here I am, living in a house of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent.”
3 Nathan replied to the king, “Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the LORD is with you.”
4 But that night the word of the LORD came to Nathan, saying:
5 “Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the LORD says: Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? 6 I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling. 7 Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”’
8 “Now then, tell my servant David, ‘This is what the LORD Almighty says: I took you from the pasture, from tending the flock, and appointed you ruler over my people Israel. 9 I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men on earth. 10 And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people will not oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning 11 and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also give you rest from all your enemies.
“‘The LORD declares to you that the LORD himself will establish a house for you: 12 When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by men, with floggings inflicted by human hands. 15 But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. 16 Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.’”
17 Nathan reported to David all the words of this entire revelation.
David’s Prayer
18 Then King David went in and sat before the Lord, and he said:
“Who am I, Sovereign Lord, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far? 19 And as if this were not enough in your sight, Sovereign Lord, you have also spoken about the future of the house of your servant—and this decree, Sovereign Lord, is for a mere human!
20 “What more can David say to you? For you know your servant, Sovereign Lord. 21 For the sake of your word and according to your will, you have done this great thing and made it known to your servant.
22 “How great you are, Sovereign Lord! There is no one like you, and there is no God but you, as we have heard with our own ears. 23 And who is like your people Israel—the one nation on earth that God went out to redeem as a people for himself, and to make a name for himself, and to perform great and awesome wonders by driving out nations and their gods from before your people, whom you redeemed from Egypt? 24 You have established your people Israel as your very own forever, and you, Lord, have become their God.
25 “And now, Lord God, keep forever the promise you have made concerning your servant and his house. Do as you promised, 26 so that your name will be great forever. Then people will say, ‘The Lord Almighty is God over Israel!’ And the house of your servant David will be established in your sight.
27 “Lord Almighty, God of Israel, you have revealed this to your servant, saying, ‘I will build a house for you.’ So your servant has found courage to pray this prayer to you. 28 Sovereign Lord, you are God! Your covenant is trustworthy, and you have promised these good things to your servant. 29 Now be pleased to bless the house of your servant, that it may continue forever in your sight; for you, Sovereign Lord, have spoken, and with your blessing the house of your servant will be blessed forever.”
When Isaac had become an old man and was nearly blind, he called his eldest son, Esau, and said, “My son.”...“Yes, Father?”...“I’m an old man,” he said; “I might die any day now...Do me a favor: Get your quiver of arrows and your bow and go out in the country and hunt me some game...Then fix me a hearty meal, the kind that you know I like, and bring it to me to eat so that I can give you my personal blessing before I die.”...Rebekah was eavesdropping on her husband as he spoke to his son Esau...As soon as Esau had gone off to the country to hunt game for his father, Rebekah spoke to her son Jacob...“I just overheard your father talking with your brother, Esau. He said, ‘Bring me some game and fix me a hearty meal so that I can eat and bless you with God’s blessing before I die.’...“Now, my son, listen to me...Do what I tell you...Go to the flock and get me two young goats...Pick the best; I’ll prepare them into a hearty meal, the kind that your father loves...Then you’ll take it to your father, he’ll eat and bless you before he dies.”...“But Mother,” Jacob said, “my brother Esau is a hairy man and I have smooth skin...What happens if my father touches me?...He’ll think I’m playing games with him...I’ll bring down a curse on myself instead of a blessing.”...“If it comes to that,” said his mother, “I’ll take the curse on myself...Now, just do what I say...Go and get the goats.”...So he went and got them and brought them to his mother and she cooked a hearty meal, the kind his father loved so much...Rebekah took the dress-up clothes of her older son Esau and put them on her younger son Jacob...She took the goatskins and covered his hands and the smooth nape of his neck...Then she placed the hearty meal she had fixed and fresh bread she’d baked into the hands of her son Jacob...He went to his father and said, “My father!”...“Yes?” he said...“Which son are you?”...Jacob answered his father, “I’m your firstborn son Esau...I did what you told me...Come now; sit up and eat of my game so you can give me your personal blessing.”...Isaac said, “So soon? How did you get it so quickly?”...“Because your God cleared the way for me.”...Isaac said, “Come close, son; let me touch you—are you really my son Esau?”...So Jacob moved close to his father Isaac...Isaac felt him and said, “The voice is Jacob’s voice but the hands are the hands of Esau.”...He didn’t recognize him because his hands were hairy, like his brother Esau’s...But as he was about to bless him he pressed him, “You’re sure? You are my son Esau?”...“Yes. I am.”...Isaac said, “Bring the food so I can eat of my son’s game and give you my personal blessing.”...Jacob brought it to him and he ate...He also brought him wine and he drank...Then Isaac said, “Come close, son, and kiss me.”...He came close and kissed him and Isaac smelled the smell of his clothes. Finally, he blessed him, AHHH...The smell of my son is like the smell of the open country blessed by God...May God give you of Heaven’s dew and Earth’s bounty of grain and wine...May peoples serve you and nations honor you...You will master your brothers, and your mother’s sons will honor you...Those who curse you will be cursed, those who bless you will be blessed...And then right after Isaac had blessed Jacob and Jacob had left, Esau showed up from the hunt...He also had prepared a hearty meal...He came to his father and said, “Let my father get up and eat of his son’s game, that he may give me his personal blessing.”...His father Isaac said, “And who are you?”...“I am your son, your firstborn, Esau.”...Isaac started to tremble, shaking violently...He said, “Then who hunted game and brought it to me?...I finished the meal just now, before you walked in...And I blessed him—he’s blessed for good!”...Esau, hearing his father’s words, sobbed violently and most bitterly, and cried to his father, “My father! Can’t you also bless me?”...“Your brother,” he said, “came here falsely and took your blessing.”...Esau said, “Not for nothing was he named Jacob, the Heel...Twice now he’s tricked me: first he took my birthright and now he’s taken my blessing.”...He begged, “Haven’t you kept back any blessing for me?”...Isaac answered Esau, “I’ve made him your master, and all his brothers his servants, and lavished grain and wine on him...I’ve given it all away...What’s left for you, my son?”...“But don’t you have just one blessing for me, Father?...Oh, bless me my father!...Bless me!” Esau sobbed inconsolably...Isaac said to him, you’ll live far from Earth’s bounty, remote from Heaven’s dew...You’ll live by your sword, hand-to-mouth, and you’ll serve your brother...But when you can’t take it any more you’ll break loose and run free...Esau seethed in anger against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him; he brooded, “The time for mourning my father’s death is close...And then I’ll kill my brother Jacob.”...When these words of her older son Esau were reported to Rebekah, she called her younger son Jacob and said, “Your brother Esau is plotting vengeance against you...He’s going to kill you...Son, listen to me...Get out of here...Run for your life to Haran, to my brother Laban...Live with him for a while until your brother cools down, until his anger subsides and he forgets what you did to him...I’ll then send for you and bring you back...Why should I lose both of you the same day?”...Rebekah spoke to Isaac, “I’m sick to death of these Hittite women...If Jacob also marries a native Hittite woman, why live?”...
Jacob, the third of God's Patriarch's, had taken Esau's rightful birthright for some stew...And even his mother help him take his twin brother's blessing, when his father Isaac was dying...Rebekah concerned that her husband is going to bestow his blessing on Esau, hatched a plot for Jacob to trick his father into blessing him instead of Esau...And Jacob with his father dying, tricks him into getting that blessing, because of a weak-sighted father...Jacob's mom would then send him to her brother named Laban...
Jacob later in his life discovers what deception means and he is outraged...He was in service to work for Laban to gain Rachel's hand...When Laban gives his daughter Leah to Jacob whom Jacob did not want, he wanted Rachel...When Jacob finds out Leah is his wife he says, "What is this you have done to me?... I was in service for Rachel!"...And when Rachel saw that she was not bearing Jacob any children, she became jealous of her sister, who bore many children for Jacob...So Rachel said to Jacob, “Give me children, or I’ll die!”...
Also Jacob's relationship with his brother Esau was one of worry...When Jacob left to get a wife and living with Laban and his family, he eventually went back to see his brother, he was afraid of what Esau might do to him...We can guess this worry was on Jacob's mind for many years...Because of his difficult relationship with Rachel and Leah's father Laban, he would run from Laban...Jacob put all his children and his wives on camels, and he drove all his livestock ahead of him, along with all the goods he had accumulated in Paddan Aram, to go to his father Isaac in the land of Canaan...When Laban had gone to shear his sheep, Rachel stole her father’s household gods...Moreover, Jacob deceived Laban, the Aramean, by not telling him he was running away...So he fled with all he had, crossed the Euphrates River, and headed for the hill country of Gilead...So in this we can see Jacob had run away from two problems in his life...All the while God knew what was going on in Jacob's life...
Another one close to God was King David...David committed adultery with the beautiful Bathsheba...Then had her husband Uriah the Hittite put on the front lines of the war battles and he was killed...David would lose his first son with Bathsheba...His oldest son Amnon would have relations with his sister Tamar, which was forbidden...The LORD sent Nathan to David...He came to him and said to him, “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor...The rich man had very many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought...And he brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children...It used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms, and it was like a daughter to him...Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the guest who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.”...Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the LORD lives, the man who has done this deserves to die, and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.”...Nathan said to David, “You are the man!...Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul...And I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah...And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more...Why have you despised the Word of the LORD, to do what is evil in His sight?...You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites...Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’...Thus says the LORD, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house...And I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun...For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.’”...David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.”...And Nathan said to David, “The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die...Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the LORD, the child who is born to you shall die.”...Then Nathan went to his house...And the LORD afflicted the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David, and he became sick...David therefore sought God on behalf of the child...And David fasted and went in and lay all night on the ground...And the elders of his house stood beside him, to raise him from the ground, but he would not, nor did he eat food with them...On the seventh day the child died...And the servants of David were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, “Behold, while the child was yet alive, we spoke to him, and he did not listen to us...How then can we say to him the child is dead?...He may do himself some harm.”...But when David saw that his servants were whispering together, David understood that the child was dead...And David said to his servants, “Is the child dead?”...They said, “He is dead.”...Then David arose from the earth and washed and anointed himself and changed his clothes...And he went into the house of the LORD and worshiped...He then went to his own house...And when he asked, they set food before him, and he ate...Then his servants said to him, “What is this thing that you have done?...You fasted and wept for the child while he was alive; but when the child died, you arose and ate food.”...He said, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, ‘Who knows whether the LORD will be gracious to me, that the child may live?’...But now he is dead...Why should I fast?...Can I bring him back again?...I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.”...Then David comforted his wife, Bathsheba, and went in to her and lay with her, and she bore a son, and he called his name Solomon...And the LORD loved him and sent a message by Nathan the prophet...So he called his name Jedidiah, because of the LORD...
The sword shall never depart from your house”...God shattered the peace and stability David had spent a lifetime establishing, as his kingdom is torn apart by two civil wars...God would raise up evil against you out of your own house”...When King David heard of all these things, he became very angry, but he would not punish his son Amnon, because he loved him, for he was his firstborn...David had a shameful sexual sin act and killed many in war seemed to ignore the problems of family conflict...He engaged in these things quietly and secretly...But they were practiced openly by his sons, Amnon and Absalom...And David's family life was a traumatic one full of ups and downs with his family...
Jacob and King David are both important followers of God...Both men have much written about them in the book of the Bible...They were both men of faith who were called by God to do great things...David was a grandson of Jacob's...They were both flawed individuals who made mistakes, but they were also both forgiven by God and used by Him to accomplish His purposes...They were both descendants of Abraham...They were both shepherds...They were both anointed by God to be leaders...They both fought interesting opponents...Jacob would fight an angel and would always walk with a limp after that...David would fight Goliath...They both experienced in their journey through their earthly life great success and great failure...They both repented of their sins and were forgiven by God...They both had a deep love for God and a desire to do His Will...The Patriarch Jacob and King David are both examples of how God can use flawed individuals to accomplish His purposes...They are both reminders that God is a God of LOVE and forgiveness, and that He is always willing to use us, no matter how imperfect we may be...God is Full of Grace and Truth...
God made a promise to Jacob...The covenant was made at Bethel, when Jacob was fleeing from his brother Esau, who wanted to kill him... In the covenant, God promised Jacob that he would be his God and that he would give Jacob and his descendants the land of Canaan...Jacob promised to obey God and to worship Him...Jacob would then build an altar for God in Bethel...The covenant was a sign of God's LOVE, Grace, Forgiveness, and Faithfulness to Jacob and his descendants...The covenant with Jacob is one of the most important covenants in the Bible...It is the foundation of the relationship between God and the people of Israel...Jacob's name would be changed to Israel...The covenant is also a reminder of God's faithfulness and LOVE to all of us...Even though Jacob was a flawed individual, God still LOVED him and made this covenant with him...This shows that God's LOVE is unconditional and that He is always willing to forgive those who repent...The covenant with Jacob is still relevant today...It is a reminder that God is always with us and that He will always be faithful to His promises...We can trust God to keep His promises, even when we don't deserve it...God's Word is Truth...
God also made a promise to King David...The covenant was made through the prophet Nathan, and it is recorded in 2 Samuel 7...In the covenant, God promised David that he would establish a kingdom that would last forever...He also promised that one of David's descendants would be the Messiah, who would save his people from their sins...David is the Grandfather of Jesus...The covenant with David is one of the most important covenants in the Bible...King David prayed to God after this covenant...It is the foundation of the hope of the people of Israel, and it is a reminder of God's faithfulness to His promises...The covenant with David is also a reminder like Jacob's covenant that God is always with us and that He is faithful...The covenant with David is still relevant today...The Star of David is the Flag of Israel...God keeps His promises and His Word...God's Grace also serves those who are flawed, and have a troubled life, as David did...But God's Word remains the Absolute Truth...
Evangelist Dwight Moody said this of the Patriarch Jacob and the Great King David: "You find that skeptics often take one particular part of a man’s life—say, of the life of Jacob or of David—and judge the whole by that...They say these men were queer saints; and yet God did not punish them...If you go right through these men’s lives you will find that God did punish them, according to the sins they committed. "...
Let us not forget the encouraging words: "My child, don't make light of the LORD's discipline, and don't give up when He corrects you."...God would forgive Jacob and David of their sins...The faith of these two men persevered...But they did have troubles in their lives and discipline did happen...But even during His disciplinary process, God is always full of LOVE, Forgiveness, Grace and Truth...