Wherever I Have Gone

For the first time in his life, Jacob summons his family to worship God saying: Then let us arise and go up to Bethel, so that I may make there an altar to the God who answers me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone." Genesis 35:3 (ESV) "Wherever I have gone." These four words carry so much weight for Jacob. "Wherever I have gone" includes God's omnipresent knowledge and presence while Jacob deceives family, shows favoritism to wives and children, dabbles in witchcraft, suffers rape of family members, presides over murder, protects idolatry, and so much more. Jacob the deceiver acknowledging that God was with him through all of it. "Wherever I have gone" also is a reversal of his previous understanding of God the last time he was at Bethel in Genesis 28:17. Thinking at first that God lives in one place, and can be abandoned, bargained with, returned to at his choice. Most importantly, Jacob acknowledges God's covenant pursuit from Genesis 28:15, "I will…