A Messy Roster for a Holy Nation: Genesis 35:22-26
Introduction: God's Unsanitized Résumé
We live in an age that loves to airbrush history. We demand that our heroes be flawless, our founding documents be untainted by the sins of their time, and our family trees be pruned of all embarrassing branches. We want a clean story. But the Bible is not a clean story. It is a true story, and that means it is a messy story, because it is a story about us.
Nowhere is this messiness more apparent than in the patriarchal narratives. If you were trying to launch a new religion and wanted to attract followers, you would not write a book like Genesis. You would present your founding fathers as paragons of virtue, men of unshakeable faith and impeccable character. You would not lead with a deceiver like Jacob, a jealous schemer like Sarah, or a whole catalog of sons born from bitter marital strife, rivalry, and outright sin. And you certainly would not interrupt the narrative of God's covenant faithfulness to record a sordid little affair of incest, only to follow it up with a formal roster of the resulting family.
But God is not running a public relations campaign. He is revealing His sovereign grace, and His grace shines brightest against the black velvet of human sin. This passage is a stark and unflinching look at the raw materials God chose to use to build His holy nation. It is a scandalous list. It is a dysfunctional family portrait. And it is glorious, because it demonstrates that the covenant does not depend on the quality of the men who are in it, but on the character of the God who established it.
This passage gives us two things: a shocking sin and a formal summary. A great transgression is committed by the firstborn, Reuben, which ought to disqualify him utterly. And then, immediately following, we get the official list of the twelve sons of Jacob, with Reuben still named at the top. This juxtaposition is not accidental. It is a profound theological statement about the nature of sin, the perseverance of the covenant, and the unshakeable purpose of God.
The Text
Now it happened while Israel was dwelling in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine, and Israel heard of it.
And there were twelve sons of Jacob,
the sons of Leah: Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn, then Simeon and Levi and Judah and Issachar and Zebulun;
the sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin;
and the sons of Bilhah, Rachel’s servant-woman: Dan and Naphtali;
and the sons of Zilpah, Leah’s servant-woman: Gad and Asher.
These are the sons of Jacob who were born to him in Paddan-aram.
(Genesis 35:22-26 LSB)
Reuben's Folly (v. 22a)
The first part of verse 22 is a gut punch. It is blunt, crude, and shameful.
"Now it happened while Israel was dwelling in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine, and Israel heard of it." (Genesis 35:22a)
Reuben, the firstborn, the one who should have been the leader, the example, the heir of the birthright, commits a heinous sin. He sleeps with his father's concubine, Bilhah. This was not just a sin of lust; it was a sin of rebellion and a grasp for power. In the ancient world, taking a man's concubine or wife was a way of asserting dominance and claiming his inheritance (see 2 Samuel 16:21-22). This was a direct assault on his father's authority and honor. Reuben was trying to usurp his father's position in the most defiling way imaginable.
Notice the names used. It is while "Israel" was dwelling in the land that this happened. Jacob received his new name, Israel, the one who strives with God, after his wrestling match at Peniel. He is the covenant head. But when Reuben commits this act, the text says "Israel heard of it." The covenant head is wounded by the sin of his firstborn. The name "Jacob," the deceiver, the heel-grabber, is used for the list of sons, reminding us of the fleshly origin of this family. But the sin is an offense against "Israel," the covenant representative.
The text is stark in its brevity: "and Israel heard of it." There is no record of an immediate confrontation. The silence is deafening. It is the quiet grief of a father betrayed, a patriarch dishonored. The consequences for Reuben will come, but much later. On his deathbed, Jacob will recall this moment and strip Reuben of his birthright: "Unstable as water, you shall not have preeminence, because you went up to your father's bed; then you defiled it, he went up to my couch!" (Genesis 49:4). Sin has consequences. Reuben's five minutes of illicit pleasure cost him the leadership of God's people for all time.
This is a raw display of the sin that dwells within the covenant family. The chosen people are not chosen because they are better than anyone else. They are chosen to be the arena in which God displays His grace and His justice. Reuben's sin is a flagrant violation of the Seventh Commandment, and it is also a violation of the Fifth, to honor his father. It is a picture of the fallen human heart, which seeks to gratify itself and seize power, even if it means destroying the most sacred of bonds.
The Unbreakable Roster (v. 22b-26)
What you would expect after such a defiling act is an immediate disclaimer. You might expect the text to say, "And so Reuben was cast out, and the sons of Jacob were eleven." But that is not what we get. Instead, the Holy Spirit immediately pivots to a formal roll call of the twelve sons.
"And there were twelve sons of Jacob, the sons of Leah: Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn..." (Genesis 35:22b-23a)
The list begins with the perpetrator himself. Reuben, the defiler, is still listed. Not only is he listed, he is listed first, with his title: "Reuben, Jacob's firstborn." This is shocking. The sin is recorded, but his place in the family is not erased. He loses the privileges of the firstborn, the preeminence, but he does not lose his sonship. He is disciplined within the covenant, not exiled from it.
This is a foundational lesson about God's covenant dealings. God's covenant is not a fragile thing that shatters the moment one of its members sins grievously. If it were, it would have been in pieces from the beginning. The covenant is held together by God's promise, not by our performance. God's election stands. Reuben is still a son of Jacob, and the tribe of Reuben will still be one of the twelve tribes of Israel. They will have their place, their inheritance, even if it is a diminished one.
The list continues, reminding us of the messy origins of this entire family. We have the six sons of Leah, the unloved wife. We have the two sons of Rachel, the beloved wife. And we have the four sons of the servant-women, Bilhah and Zilpah, born out of a bitter contest of competitive baby-making. This is not the Brady Bunch. This is a family marked by jealousy, favoritism, and sin from top to bottom. And yet, this is the family God chose.
"These are the sons of Jacob who were born to him in Paddan-aram." (Genesis 35:26b)
This concluding phrase anchors the list in God's faithfulness. Paddan-aram is where God met Jacob when he was a fugitive. It is where God promised to be with him and to multiply his descendants. This list, with all its dysfunction, is the direct fulfillment of that promise. God did what He said He would do, using the crooked sticks of human lives to draw the straight lines of His sovereign plan.
The Twelve Pillars of Grace
Why this number twelve? The number twelve in Scripture consistently signifies governmental perfection and completeness. God is building a nation, a people, an assembly. These twelve men are the foundational pillars of the nation of Israel. Later, when Israel is redeemed from Egypt, there will be twelve pillars at the foot of Sinai (Exodus 24:4). In the promised land, there will be twelve stones taken from the Jordan (Joshua 4:3). And this structure carries right into the New Testament.
Jesus, the true Israel, comes and selects twelve apostles. This was not an arbitrary number. He was reconstituting the people of God around Himself. The new Israel would be built on the foundation of these twelve men, with Christ Himself as the cornerstone. And just like the first set of twelve, this new group was a motley crew. It included fishermen, a tax collector, a zealot, and a traitor. One of them, Judas, would commit a sin far worse than Reuben's. And yet, the structure of twelve remains.
And where does it all culminate? In the final vision of the New Jerusalem, the holy city of God. What are its foundations? "The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb" (Revelation 21:14). And what about its gates? "It had a great and high wall, with twelve gates... and the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were written on them" (Revelation 21:12).
Do you see it? The names of these dysfunctional sons from Genesis 35 are written on the gates of Heaven. Reuben's name is there. The sons of the unloved wife are there. The sons of the handmaidens are there. Their names are eternally inscribed on the entrance to glory, not because they were worthy, but because God is gracious. Their story is our story. We are all Reubens, all sons of strife and jealousy. We have all, in our own way, defiled our Father's bed and sought to usurp His authority.
Our inclusion in the family of God has nothing to do with our performance and everything to do with His promise. Reuben lost the preeminence, and the scepter was given to Judah, from whom the Messiah would come (Genesis 49:10). The birthright was ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the truly preeminent Son. He is the firstborn over all creation (Colossians 1:15). He is the one who never defiled His Father's honor. He is the one who, instead of seizing power, humbled Himself, even to the point of death on a cross.
Because of His perfect faithfulness, we who are faithless are brought in. We are grafted into this messy, redeemed family. Our names are not written on the gates of heaven because of our clean records, but because our filthy records have been nailed to the cross. God does not airbrush the story. He redeems the story. He takes the sin of Reuben, the strife of the wives, and the whole sorry mess, and He weaves it into a tapestry of redemption that culminates in a city with twelve gates, on which are written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, welcoming sinners home.