Genesis 35:8 - Exposition

But Deborah —Bee (Gesenius, Furst) Rebekah's nurse ( vide Genesis 24:59 ) died —at a very advanced age, having left Padan-aram for Canaan along with Rebekah, upwards of 150 years ago. That she is now found in Jacob's household may be accounted for by supposing that Rebekah had sent her, in accordance with the promise of Genesis 27:45 (Delitzsch); or that Jacob had paid a visit to his father at Hebron, and brought her back with him to Shechem, probably because of Rebekah's death (Lange); or that on Rebekah's death she had been transferred to Jacob's household (Keil, Murphy, Alford); or that Isaac, "who had during the twenty years of his son's absence wandered in different parts of the land" (?), had "at this period of his migrations come into the neighborhood of Bethel" (Kalisch). And she was buried beneath Bethel —which was situated in the hill country, whence Jacob is instructed to "go up" to Bethel ( Genesis 27:1 ) under an oak . More correctly, the oak or terebinth, i.e. the well-known tree, which long after served to mark her last resting-place, which some have without reason identified with the palm tree of Deborah the prophetess ( 4:5 ), and the oak of Tabor mentioned in 1 Samuel 10:3 (Delitzsch, Kurtz, &c.;). And the name of it was called —not "he," i.e. Jacob, "called it" (Ainsworth), but "one called its name," i.e. its name was called (Kalisch)— Allon-bachuth ( i.e. the oak of weeping).