Genesis 35 confronts us with something shocking, and then it gets strange. I’m going to lead with the shocking part and get to the strange part in a minute.
God tells Jacob to get up, go to Bethel, stay there, and make an altar to Him. It doesn’t get much more monumental than the voice of God speaking to you. But as Jacob gathers his whole household, we see something shocking: there are foreign gods, idols, among them. So much so that Jacob orders them to cleanse themselves and change their clothes as they prepare to go before God at Bethel. This is no longer Rachel with a few gods taken from her father’s household. This is a collection, woven throughout the camp.
They hand over all the gods and the trinkets attached to them, and it ends up as a whole pile of things. Jacob takes them and buries them under an oak tree before they journey out to follow God’s instructions. The text says Jacob “hid” them under the tree. (Gen. 35:4)
Wrap your head around this: Jacob, the man who wrestled with God, the one we tend to picture as a stalwart patriarch, is told to get up and go, but the first thing he must do is tell his family to put away their foreign gods.
Jacob knew these gods existed in his household.
He was actively allowing idolatry in his household, spiritual adultery against God in their midst, even after the life-changing moment we always associate him with.
That is hard to fathom, because in our time we are led to see conversion as a finish line. As if we are converted and then counted faithful from that point forward. I wonder if Jacob slipped into that mindset too. I wonder if he began to treat his sin as “sanctified” simply because it was in his own household, because God had blessed him, so he assumed whatever he did would be blessed going forward.
But here, we see Jacob carrying an awareness of his guilt. He knows enough about God to realize he has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. So he gathers up the cookies and the jars, leaves them under the tree, and then sets out to obey God.
And now the strange thing.
When we come to Genesis 35:10, God tells Jacob his name is no longer Jacob, but Israel, which is strange because this already happened in Genesis 32. We were told he had wrestled with God and with men and had prevailed. We were told that the end result of that wrestling is that he had clung to God, and for this he was changed, and he was named Israel, “one who wrestles with God”.
But now we have him called Jacob yet again. And God tells him:
“Your name was Jacob. No longer will your name be Jacob, for your name will be Israel.”
Is this a new declaration? Clearly not. I think it is a reminder.
Jacob was still alive within him, still steering the ship when he thought he could get away with it, perhaps when he assumed God’s attention was elsewhere, when he was left to his own devices.
Jacob was still wrestling with God and with man, but here we see that his initial victory was not permanent. On the contrary, it seems he was found losing that battle at this point in his life.
Jacob, the patriarch we assume was faithful after a conversion moment more dramatic than we could ever claim, is revealed to be anything but consistent. And now God is reminding him of who God means for him to be.
God meets him here with mercy, and with a reminder of His plans and purpose.
Then God gives him another much-needed reminder:
“I am El Shaddai.”
God reminds Jacob of who He is.
God Almighty. The All-Sufficient One.
And that moment makes me exhale in relief. It is a moment of mercy, grace, promise. A moment of faithfulness from a God whom Jacob has been unfaithful to.
Jacob had already been made new by God. He had been renamed, reborn. And yet he was found with idols interwoven, enmeshed, embedded within his household.
God did not say, “Get rid of the idols and then go.” God told him to go. But Jacob knew his hands were not clean, so he cleansed them. He had the good sense not to cling to them, not to hide them among his belongings the way Rachel once had. By this point, he knew God well enough not to come before Him while refusing to let go of what had polluted his home.
And when he did this, God reminded him that He was the God of all sufficiency, the God who is enough in any situation.
God knew what Jacob had done. God knew all along the idols had resided within his home, and possibly within his heart. Yet, in His great mercy, He reminded Jacob that He was enough, and that Jacob was meant for more.
And on this day, January 13, 2026, I am grateful for this lesson from our forefathers and from our God.
Because when we come to know Him, when we profess to be born anew, that is not where our story ends, but where our journey begins.
We, the old creature, have been invited to become a new creation, but it is not instantaneous. The invitation is there, but we must accept it. We must prepare ourselves, our hearts, our souls, our homes, our minds. We must take the journey. We must learn how to walk the path.
The danger is when we tell ourselves the striving is over. That is when we set ourselves up to baptize whatever sin still resides within us, rather than continue in repentance. (1 John 1:8)
Jacob still lives.
But Israel has been born.
The two still wrestle within him.
In order to follow God, we must be honest about that same duality within us. We must be willing to face the very real possibility that we can be living as our old self while claiming a new identity. We cannot assume we are fine simply because we had a moment with God.
It was only recently that I saw another layer to Jacob’s name beyond what we usually repeat. In addition to “heel grasper” or “supplanter,” Scripture shows us how his name was used a way of explaining sin rather than confronting it. In Genesis 27:35-36, Esau uses Jacob’s name to justify what Jacob has done, as if deception is simply who Jacob is, not a choice Jacob made.
That matters, because when sin is framed as part of our identity, it becomes easier to excuse, defend, and repeat.
So often, our old self, our version of Jacob, is the one that tries to deceive us into thinking we can go by our own wisdom, cut a spiritual corner here or there, and no ill effect will come of it.
We must stop making peace with the deceiver within us while pretending he no longer exists. We must take the time to assume the worst of ourselves for a moment, not to spiral into depression and shame, but to tell the truth. If there are idols tucked into our pockets, hidden in our habits, defended in our hearts, let us bring them out into the light and put them down.
Let us be free from the bondage we have given them over us. Let us turn our face, and our lives, once more to the God of all sufficiency, the One who can heal the brokenness within us and teach us to look to Him for all our needs.
Let’s have the wisdom and the courage to admit the truth:
In order to be deceived, we must first deceive ourselves.
God’s heart beats within us,
but our heart wrestles for the wheel.
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Lamentations 3:40
James 4:8-10
Psalm 139:23–24
Jeremiah 17:5-10
Romans 12:1–2
Joshua 24:14–15
Zechariah 1:3-4
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