Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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perhaps Jacob's sons took some with the plunder. However they came by them, now they must put them away.
(2.) They must be clean, and change their garments; they must observe a due decorum, and make the best appearance they could. Simeon and Levi had their hands full of blood, it concerned them particularly to wash, and to put off their garments that were so stained. These were but ceremonies, signifying the purification and change of the heart. What are clean clothes, and new clothes, without a clean heart, and a new heart? Dr. Lightfoot, by their being clean, or washing themselves, understands Jacob's admission of the proselytes of Shechem and Syria into his religion by baptism, because circumcision had become odious.
3. They must go with him to Beth-el, Ge 35:3. Note, Masters of families, when they go up to the house of God, should bring their families with them.
3 and let us arise, and go up to Beth-el; and I will make there an altar
unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went.
4 And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their
hand, and all their earrings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem.
His family surrendered all they had that was idolatrous or superstitious, Ge 35:4. Perhaps, if Jacob had called for them sooner, they would sooner have parted with them, being convicted by their own consciences of the vanity of them.
Note, Sometimes attempts for reformation succeed better than one could have expected, and people are not so obstinate against them as we feared. Jacob's servants, and even the retainers of his family, gave him all the strange gods, and the ear-rings they wore, either as charms or to the honour of their gods; they parted with all.