7.1.8 Gen. 35: Jacob in Bethel

Interpreters who, like vRad, locate a large, annually celebrated covenant  renewal festival in Shechem, regard this story as a reference to an  important traditional pilgrimage from Shechem to Bethel. This is not  inconceivable, but there is nothing in the text about it, furthermore other  testimonies (e.g. Psalms) must have survived from such a weighty  tradition. And Jacob’s departure from Shechem might have been more  like a flight than a solemn pilgrimage for a good reason. 

A story that repeats many things from the previous chapters: the  renewed blessing for Jacob (32, 30), the encounter with God and the  building of the altar in Bethel (28, 18), and the bestowal of the honorary  name Israel (32, 29). Towards the foreign statues of the gods, on the  other hand, Jacob is here clearly rejecting, an attitude that was not yet  evident in Gen. 31. With the accounts of Benjamin’s birth, Rachel’s  death, his return home to Isaac, his death and burial.