From Sorrow to Strength
Genesis 35:9-21 | July 12th, 2026
Dr. Libin Abraham, Lead Pastor - Bent Tree Bible Fellowship
- Genesis 35:9-15 God appeared to Jacob again after he returned from Paddan-aram, and he blessed him. 10 God said to him, “Your name is Jacob; you will no longer be named Jacob, but your name will be Israel.”So he named him Israel.11 God also said to him, “I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply. A nation, indeed an assembly of nations, will come from you, and kings will descend from you. 12 I will give to you the land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac. And I will give the land to your future descendants.”13 Then God withdrew from him at the place where he had spoken to him. 14 Jacob set up a marker at the place where he had spoken to him—a stone marker. He poured a drink offering on it and poured oil on it. 15 Jacob named the place where God had spoken with him Bethel.(CSB)
God’s presence with us does not exempt us from life’s sorrows.
- Genesis 35:16-20 They set out from Bethel. When they were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel began to give birth, and her labor was difficult. 17 During her difficult labor, the midwife said to her, “Don’t be afraid, for you have another son.” 18 With her last breath—for she was dying—she named him Ben-oni, but his father called him Benjamin. 19 So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem). 20 Jacob set up a marker on her grave; it is the marker at Rachel’s grave still today. (CSB)
“Grief is love with nowhere to go.”
Jamie Anderson
“The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before.”
C.S. Lewis
Ben-Oni: Son of Sorrow (affliction or suffering)
Benjamin: Son of my Right Hand (strength, favor, authority and blessing)
Jacob chooses to name his son not through the lens of his pain, but through the lens of God’s promise.
Sorrow may shape our story, but it does not have to define our identity.
- Genesis 49:27 Benjamin is a wolf; he tears his prey. In the morning he devours the prey, and in the evening he divides the plunder. (CSB)
- Philippians 3:5…circumcised the eighth day; of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews…(CSB)
- Genesis 35:19 So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem).(CSB)
- Isaiah 53:3 He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. (NIV)
The Christian story is not “No Sorrow.” The Christian story is “Sorrow Transformed.”
- Ephesians 1:20-23 He exercised this power in Christ by raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavens—21 far above every ruler and authority, power and dominion, and every title given, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22 And he subjected everything under his feet and appointed him as head over everything for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.(CSB)
- Genesis 35:21 Israel moved on again and pitched his tent beyond Migdal Eder.(CSB)