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"Simeon and Levi are brethren; Their swords are weapons of iniquity. O my soul,
come not thou into their council; Unto their assembly, mine honor, be not thou
united!" (Genesis 49:5, 6)
But one, though undesigned, consequence of the crime proved a further blessing to
Jacob. It was quite clear that he and his family must remove from the scene of
Simeon's and Levi's treachery and cruelty. Then it was that God directed Jacob to
return to Beth-el, and fulfill the promise which he had there made on fleeing from the
face of Esau his brother. About ten years must have elapsed since the return of Jacob
from Mesopotamia, and yet he had not paid his vows unto the Lord! From what
follows, we infer that, in all probability, the reason of this delay had been that the
family of Jacob had not been purged from idolatry, and that hitherto Jacob had been
too weak to remove from his household what must have rendered his appearance at
Beth-el morally impossible. But now we read, that "he said unto his household, and
to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean,
and change your garments" (this as a symbol of purification): "and let us arise, and go
up to Bethel." And all the teraphim and idolatrous "charms" were buried deep down
below a terebinth-tree "which was by Shechem." A touching incident is recorded
immediately on their arrival at Beth-el. "Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died, and she was
buried beneath Beth-el, under an oak, and the name of it was called Allon-bachuth
(the oak of weeping)." Thus Deborah's long and faithful service in the household of
Isaac, and the family-mourning over the old, tried family friend, are deemed worthy
of perpetual memorial in the Book of God! But from the circumstance that Deborah
died in the house of Jacob, we infer not only that her mistress Rebekah was dead, but
that there must have been some intercourse between Isaac and Jacob since his return
to Canaan. Most probably Jacob had visited his aged parent, though Scripture does
not mention it, because it in no way affects the history of the covenant. At Bethel
God again appeared to Jacob; and while He once more bestowed on him the name of
Israel and the covenant-promises previously given, Jacob also paid his vow unto the
Lord, and on his part likewise renewed the designation of the place as Beth-el.
From Bethel they continued their journey towards Mamre, the place of Isaac's
residence. On the way, some distance from Ephrath, "the fruitful," which in later
times was called Bethlehem, "the house of bread," (Micah 5:2) Rachel died in giving
birth to Jacob's twelfth son. His mother wished to call her child Ben-oni, "the son of
my sorrow;" but his father named him Benjamin, which has been variously
interpreted as meaning "son of the right hand," "son of days, i.e. of old age," and "son
of happiness," because he completed the number of twelve sons. From Jeremiah
31:15, we gather that Rachel actually died in Ramah. "Jacob set a pillar upon her
grave." As the oak, or rather the terebinth, of Deborah was still known at the time of
the Judges, when Deborah's greater namesake dwelt under its shadow, "between
Ramah and Bethel in Mount Ephraim," (Judges 4:5) so the pillar which marked
(^)