35:1-5 Beth-el was forgotten. But as many as God loves, he will remind of neglected duties, one way or other, by conscience or by providences. When we have vowed a vow to God, it is best not to defer the payment of it; yet better late than never. Jacob commanded his household to prepare, not only for the journey and removal, but for religious services. Masters of families should use their authority to keep up religion in their families, Jos 24:15. They must put away strange gods. In families where there is a face of religion, and an altar to God, yet many times there is much amiss, and more strange gods than one would suppose. They must be clean, and change their garments. These were but outward ceremonies, signifying the purifying and change of the heart. What are clean clothes, and new clothes, without a clean heart, and a new heart? If Jacob had called for these idols sooner, they had parted with them sooner. Sometimes attempts for reformation succeed better than we could have thought. Jacob buried their images. We must be wholly separated from our sins, as we are from those that are dead and buried out of sight. He removed from Shechem to Beth-el. Though the Canaanites were very angry against the sons of Jacob for their barbarous usage of the Shechemites, yet they were so kept back by Divine power, that they could not take the opportunity now offered to avenge them. The way of duty is the way of safety. When we are about God's work, we are under special protection; God is with us, while we are with him; and if He be for us, who can be against us? God governs the world more by secret terrors on men's minds than we are aware of.

Verse 4. - And they gave mate Jacob all the strange gods - Rosenmüller thinks these must have been many, since the historian would not otherwise have used the term כֹּל - which were in their hand (i.e. which they possessed), and all their earrings which were in their ears; - i.e. those employed for purposes of idolatrous worship, which were often covered with allegorical figures and mysterious sentences, and supposed to be endowed with a talismanic virtue (Judges 8:21; Isaiah 3:20; Hosea 2:13) - and Jacob hid them - having probably first destroyed them, since they do not appear to have been ever after sought for or resumed by the parties who gave them up (Hughes) - under the oak which was by Shechem. Whether the oak, or terebinth, under which Abraham once pitched his tent (Genesis 12:6), that beneath whose shade Joshua afterwards erected his memorial pillar (Joshua 24:26), the oak of the sorcerers (Judges 9:37), and the oak of the pillar at Shechem (Judges 9:6) were all the tree under which Jacob buried the images and earrings cannot with certainty be determined, though the probability is that they were.

They gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hands,.... Whether in the hands of his servants or of the captives taken at Shechem, or in the hands of his sons, who had them along with the spoil they took there; so the Targum of Jonathan,"they delivered, into the hand of Jacob all the idols of the people which were in their hands, which they had took of the idols of Shechem:"

and all their earrings which were in their ears; not the earrings that women wore in common, such as Abraham's servant gave to Rebekah, and which Jacob's wives might wear, for such were not unlawful; but either which were worn in the ears of the strange gods or idols; for such used, it seems, according to some writers, to be decorated and ornamented after that manner; or rather in the ears of the idolaters themselves, worn by them in a superstitious way, having the images of these idols on them: so the Targum of Jonathan,"and the earrings which were in the ears of the inhabitants of the city of Shechem, in which were formed the likeness of their idols:"

and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem; that is, the idols, which, after he had broke to pieces, perhaps, he dug a hole under an oak, and there buried them, that they might be no more made use of in an idolatrous way; and he chose to put them under an oak, because it is a tree which often stands many years before it is cut down, and besides was used for religious purposes, and had in great veneration, and therefore seldom felled. Those idols seem not to be made of anything valuable, perhaps of wood or stone, for had they been of gold or silver, Jacob would doubtless have melted them, and converted them to other uses, and not have buried them under ground. The Jews (t) say, that the idol Jacob hid under the oak was in the form of a dove, which the Samaritans after some time found, and set it on the top of Mount Gerizim. Some take this oak to be the same with that mentioned in Joshua 24:26; but of that there can be no certainty, since Jacob, as it is highly probable, laid these images alone, and never intended any should know anything of them where they were.

(t) Shalshalet Hakabala, fol. 3. 2.

4. they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods … and earrings—Strange gods, the "seraphim" (compare Ge 31:30), as well, perhaps, as other idols acquired among the Shechemite spoil—earrings of various forms, sizes, and materials, which are universally worn in the East, and, then as now, connected with incantation and idolatry (compare Ho 2:13). The decided tone which Jacob now assumed was the probable cause of the alacrity with which those favorite objects of superstition were surrendered.

Jacob hid them under the oak—or terebinth—a towering tree, which, like all others of the kind, was a striking object in the scenery of Palestine; and beneath which, at Shechem, the patriarch had pitched his tent. He hid the images and amulets, delivered to him by his Mesopotamian dependents, at the root of this tree. The oak being deemed a consecrated tree, to bury them at its root was to deposit them in a place where no bold hand would venture to disturb the ground; and hence it was called from this circumstance—"the plain of Meonenim"—that is, "the oak of enchantments" (Jud 9:37); and from the great stone which Joshua set up—"the oak of the pillar" (Jud 9:6).

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