Strength for the Powerless: Israel Renewed at Bethel
Isaiah 40:27–31 ║ Genesis 35:1–11
Four Voices
Isaiah 40:27-31
The Father Strengthens the Powerless
27
O Jacob, how can you say the Lord does not see your troubles?
O Israel, how can you say God ignores your rights?
28
Have you never heard?
Have you never understood?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of all the earth.
He never grows weak or weary.
No one can measure the depths of his understanding.
29
He gives power to the weak
and strength to the powerless.
30
Even youths will become weak and tired,
and young men will fall in exhaustion.
31
But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength.
They will soar high on wings like eagles.
They will run and not grow weary.
They will walk and not faint.
Old Testament
Bereshit (Genesis) Chapter 35
1 God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel and live there, and make an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing your brother Esau.”
2 Jacob said to his household and to all those who were with him, “Remove the idols you took as spoil from the non-Jews in Shechem and that are now in your possession; ritually purify yourselves; and change your clothes.
3 Then we will arise and go up to Bethel, and there I will make an altar to God, who has always answered me in my time of distress, and who has always accompanied me and protected me on the journey that I took.”
4 They handed over all the idols in their possession to Jacob, as well as the earrings in their ears, and Jacob buried them under the terebinth that is next to Shechem.
5 They set out. The dread of God fell upon the inhabitants of the surrounding cities, and they did not pursue Jacob and his sons.
6 Thus Jacob came to Luz, which is Bethel, in Canaan—he and all the people who were with him.
7 He built an altar there, and he named the place on which the altar stood El-Bethel [“God is revealed in Bethel”], since it was there that God revealed Himself to him when he was fleeing his brother Esau.
8 Rebecca’s wet-nurse, Deborah, died, and she was buried below Bethel—on a plateau. Jacob named this plain Alon Bachut [“Plain of Weeping”].
9 God again appeared to Jacob on his way from Padan Aram, and blessed him.
10 God then said to Jacob, “Your name is Jacob. You will no longer be called solely by the name Jacob, but Israel will also be your name,” and He named him Israel.
11 God then said to him, “I am God Almighty; be fruitful and increase. A nation—that is, a tribe—and a community of nations—that is, two tribes—will come forth from you, and kings will be born from you.
CHIASTIC CENTER
A Jacob fears Esau’s power (32:7–9)
B Jacob prays for deliverance (32:10–13)
C Jacob sends gifts to pacify Esau (32:14–22)
D Jacob wrestles with God and is renamed (32:25–29) ← CENTER
C’ Jacob meets Esau and gives gifts in peace (33:1–11)
B’ Jacob builds an altar and God reaffirms covenant (35:1–15)
A’ Esau’s kings rise before Israel has any (36:31)
Center: A wounded man becomes Israel. Everything else flows from that.
QUESTIONS
Why does God require Israel to bury idols before He renews their strength?
How does identity shift (“Jacob → Israel”) connect to Isaiah’s promise of soaring?
Why do God’s people often forget that God sees their troubles?
What idols does modern Black faith need to bury to recover strength?
Why is Bethel—“God revealed”—necessary after trauma?
WORD STUDY
1. קָוָה (qavah) — “to wait / to bind together in tension”
Text: Isaiah 40:31
English: “Those who wait on the Lord…”
Western translations reduce qavah to passive waiting. But the root means:
to twist fibers into a cord
to stretch under tension
to hold steady until strength transfers
In other words, waiting is not delay—it is tensile alignment.
Israel rises because its inner fibers are pulled into the strength of God.
This is the physics of faith: tension becomes lift.
Teaching Insight:
Advent is not counting time; it is binding ourselves to a coming Presence.
2. הֵסִיר (hesir) — “to remove, strip away, de-authorize”
Text: Genesis 35:2
“Remove (hāsiru) the foreign gods.”
This verb carries judicial energy. It means:
to strip a thing of its authority
to revoke its functional power
to detach allegiance
Jacob is not just cleaning house;
he is dismantling rival claims over his household’s psyche.
Teaching Insight:
Before God renames Israel, Israel must de-authorize the phantoms that shaped them in fear.
Idol removal = identity restoration.
3. הִטַּהֵר (hittaher) — “to purify, to recalibrate”
Text: Genesis 35:2
“Purify yourselves.”
Purification in Torah is not moral scrubbing; it is re-alignment with life.
The root ט־ה־ר means:
clarity
unclouded perception
restored coherence
After the trauma of Shechem, the household is disordered internally.
Purification resets their interior architecture.
Teaching Insight:
Purifying is the soul’s neurological and spiritual “reboot,” the precondition for revelation.
4. יִשְׂרָאֵל (Yisra’el) — “God-striver / God-governed”
Text: Genesis 35:10
“Your name… shall be Israel.”
Two interpretive layers coexist:
שָׂרָה (sarah) — to wrestle, contend, persevere
שַׂר (sar) — prince, one authorized, one ruled by God
Thus the name means:
the one who wrestles toward God
the one whom God authorizes
the one governed by divine sovereignty
Israel = identity born from struggle but empowered by encounter.
Teaching Insight:
Strength in Isaiah 40 is not given to the untested; it is given to the renamed.
Identity becomes the vessel of endurance.
