Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #17 in Genesis 35, and we will read Genesis 35:16-20: 

And they journeyed from Bethel; and there was but a little way to come to Ephrath: and Rachel travailed, and she had hard labour. And it came to pass, when she was in hard labour, that the midwife said unto her, Fear not; thou shalt have this son also. And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing, (for she died) that she called his name Benoni: but his father called him Benjamin. And Rachel died, and was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem.  And Jacob set a pillar upon her grave: that is the pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day.

I will stop reading there.  We are continuing to look into this chapter.  We now find that Jacob and his family, the children of Israel, are journeying from Bethel, which means “house of God.”  And in the last passage going back to verse 8 when Deborah Rebekah’s nurse died and was buried beneath Bethel, it identified with the end of the church age, and the church identifies with the “house of God,” Bethel.  So given that the previous passage identified with the end of the church age when the witness of the Word of God was silenced…and the Bible pictured it as the “two witnesses” being slain at the point of Satan’s loosing, and the witness of the Word within the churches and congregations came to an end.  Spiritually, that is what is in view with this historical account of Deborah Rebekah’s nurse dying.  And verse 16 would fit right in with that idea: “And they journeyed from Bethel.”  That is, if you journey from a place, you are leaving it.  They journeyed from the house of God.

Where were they going?  It says in Genesis 35:16:

And they journeyed from Bethel; and there was but a little way to come to Ephrath: and Rachel travailed, and she had hard labour.

So Rachel was with child as they left Bethel.  There was but a little way to Ephrath, and that appeared to be their destination.  So they took their journey, and they would probably have traveled very “softly” in consideration of her condition.  And in just a little time they could have set up their tents, since they were nomads, or sojourners, and they could have just waited until the baby was born.  But apparently Rachel was doing well until it got to the point of delivering the baby, and they were near Ephrath.  We are told that Ephrath is Bethlehem, in Genesis 35:19:

And Rachel died, and was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem.

We will look at “Ephrath,” which is also called “Ephratah” in the Bible, and we will see this link with Bethlehem.  But for now, we can certainly say that we know that “Bethlehem” means “house of bread.”  The “beth” means “house,” and “lehem” means “bread.”  So let us keep that spiritual picture in mind, as they are coming from Bethel, the house of God, on their way to Ephrath, which is Bethlelem, the house of bread.  They are leaving the house of God in order to go to the house of bread.  So just think of that in relationship to our day during the Great Tribulation, which is now past.  And the Great Tribulation was the time that judgment began at the house of God, according to 1Peter 4:17.  Judgment was scheduled to begin at the house of God, and it did.  And now we have moved further into God’s judgment program as the wrath of God has transitioned from being solely on the churches to judgment on the entire world, including all the churches and all false religions.  

So this idea of  journeying  from the house of God with the destination of the house of bread fits perfectly with what we learned at the time of the Great Tribulation.  There was a definite reason and purpose as God commanded His people to depart out of the churches: “Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains.”  This was the command of God to His people, and it was to be obeyed.  We had to leave the churches because the Lord had loosed Satan, and Satan had entered into the churches, and the Spirit of God had departed out.  That is why the “two witnesses,” Moses and Elijah as it were, are lying dead in the street.  There is no power of the Spirit of God any longer in the Word of God.  So they could continue to have the Word of God.  The “two witnesses” went unburied, so the Word of God, the Bible, remained in the churches over the full 23 years of the Great Tribulation, but it was without effect.  No one was being saved.

So for the benefit of God’s true people, He commanded us to get out of the churches, and to go out into the world where the Latter Rain was falling at that time (beginning in 1994).  It was the time of the second outpouring of the Holy Spirit wherein God stretched forth His hand the second time to recover (save) the remnant of His people.  But it was necessary to be in the proper location (outside of the churches), because within the churches there was no Latter Rain, so there could be no salvation because the Holy Spirit had departed.

That also means that the “bread of life,” the Lord Jesus Christ, was outside of the house of God – He was away from Bethel.  They must journey from Bethel, the house of God, to the “house of bread.”  That is, go to God’s house and His kingdom, as that is what the mountains typified: “Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains.”  Go to the kingdom of God where there is bread (spiritual food).

And that is also exactly the same spiritual picture when the famine came upon the land of Canaan, which would happen about 30 years from this point in Genesis 35.  But this was the year 1907 B. C., and Jacob was 100 years old, and it was a very eventful year in his life, but there were still thirty years to go before he would enter into Egypt.  And we know that because upon his entry into Egypt, Pharaoh asked him how old he was, and he said he was 130.  So historically, there is still some time to go, but as far as our current passage is concerned, we are getting an inkling of that spiritual picture.  We are getting the idea that this identifies with the judgment on the churches, the Great Tribulation, and the command of God to come out of the churches.  So too, regarding the famine that will come later, God identifies that famine as “great tribulation,” or dearth.  They are the same two Greek words found in Matthew 24 that are translated “great tribulation.”   Before Joseph revealed himself to his brethren, we read in Genesis 41:54:

And the seven years of dearth began to come…

Remember that verse in Acts 7 that speaks of the famine as “great tribulation,” or great dearth.  That is what this is typifying.  It is pointing to the end of the church age as Great Tribulation, or judgment, came upon the house of God.  It says in Genesis 41:54-57:

And the seven years of dearth began to come, according as Joseph had said: and the dearth was in all lands; but in all the land of Egypt there was bread. And when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread: and Pharaoh said unto all the Egyptians, Go unto Joseph; what he saith to you, do. And the famine was over all the face of the earth: And Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold unto the Egyptians; and the famine waxed sore in the land of Egypt. And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn; because that the famine was so sore in all lands.

All the land was famished, but Joseph, representing the Lord Jesus Christ, had “bread.”  The Word that was sealed up was unsealed at the time of the end, and the Latter Rain went forth and God saved the great multitude out of Great Tribulation.  There was famine over all the face of the earth, but notice that the emphasis is on the bread that was available outside of Canaan, which typified the churches.  It was in Egypt, which represents the world, and there the Gospel rain began to fall.  Then word came to Jacob in the land of Canaan that there was corn in Egypt.  I think that is a significant order of events.  The Gospel was out in the world, and the people that had identification of God and His kingdom (and who were His representatives) did not know about it at first.  They had to hear the news of there being corn in Egypt as they were experiencing the famine within the land of Canaan.  Then it says in Genesis 42:1-2:

Now when Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, Jacob said unto his sons, Why do ye look one upon another? And he said, Behold, I have heard that there is corn in Egypt: get you down thither, and buy for us from thence; that we may live, and not die.

We really see the explanation for why on September 7, 1994 the Latter Rain went forth outside of the churches, but God’s people remained in the “house of God,” but there was no bread.  And that was the situation for quite some time, and then we began to get word (from the Bible).  We were so attached to the churches, and it was the last thing on our mind that we would have to leave the churches and go outside the churches.  Personally, what was going on in my life (and with others around me) was that we thought, “Yes, it is so terrible.  There are hardly any faithful churches, but let us start a new church, and get rid of the high places, and try to be as faithful to the Bible as possible.”  You see, there was a reluctance to leave the land of Canaan, or leave the churches and congregations.  It was not even something that was part of our thinking. 

But in this historical parable, Joseph began to orchestrate events and to arrange circumstances in order that his father and the children of Israel would have no other option but to leave Canaan.  That is why he took one of his brothers prisoner, forcing them to bring Benjamin to him.  He began arranging things where they would be drawn out of the land of Canaan and into Egypt, which had become the “house of bread,” because that is where Christ was, as typified by Joseph, and that is where the “grain” had been stored up.  So I think we can see a similar spiritual picture here when we go back to Genesis 35:16-19:

And they journeyed from Bethel; and there was but a little way to come to Ephrath: and Rachel travailed, and she had hard labour. And it came to pass, when she was in hard labour, that the midwife said unto her, Fear not; thou shalt have this son also. And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing, (for she died) that she called his name Benoni: but his father called him Benjamin. And Rachel died, and was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem. 

She died enroute to Bethlehem.  It was in the way to the house of bread, but she did not make it there.  And her son she called “Benomi,” which means “son of my sorrow,” but Joseph changed his name to Benjamin, which means “son of the right hand.”  And it is interesting that Rachel died giving birth to Benjamin, and Benjamin was born in this sort of “in between” place.  They are outside of Bethel, but they had not yet reached Bethlehem.  And this was the location where Benjamin was born, and he was the last of the 12 sons of Jacob.  Joseph was the eleventh, and Benjamin was the twelfth.  That was all the sons of Israel, but once they were in Egypt Jacob would bless Joseph with a “double portion,” and Joseph’s sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, would become two full tribes.  And that is why we say that there are 12 tribes of Israel, but actually 13.”  Also, there were 12 disciples, but the Apostle Paul insisted he was also an Apostle, so there were actually 13.  We have talked about this before.

But it is curious that Benjamin, the last of the 12 sons, was born “in between” in the journey from Bethel to Bethlehem.  And there was only a little way to come to Ephrath, or Bethlehem.  How far was it?  We do not know exactly.  I looked at the map in the back of my Bible, and they do not look that far apart, but I have never been to Israel.  I “googled” the distance, and it came up with a metric number, and I tried to convert it to miles, and it came up to 250 miles, and I do not know how accurate that is.  But it is not that far, and they had made most of their journey, and there was just a little way to go when Rachel had hard labor, and she died.  As we know, in ancient days giving birth was not an easy matter.  In our modern time, there are many blessings for women giving birth, and there are many ways that death can be avoided in childbirth, with Caesarean section, and so forth.  But back then it could be very dangerous, and many women did die in childbirth, and Rachel died.  Benjamin was born, and they continued on to Ephrath, or Bethlehem.

We have run out of time in this study.  Lord willing, when we get together in our next study, we will try to carefully lay out some things.  We will look more at “Ephrath,” and we will see what the Bible says about that place.  We will try to learn what we can from this passage, by God’s grace.