verses 21-22
Reuben's Incest. - As they travelled onward, Jacob pitched his tent on the other side of Migdal Eder, where Reuben committed incest with Bilhah, his father's concubine. It is merely alluded to her in the passing remark that Israel heard it, by way of preparation for Gen 49:4. Migdal Eder (flock-tower) was a watch-tower built for the protection of flocks against robbers (cf. 2Ki 18:8; 2Ch 26:10; 2Ch 27:4) on the other side of Bethlehem, but hardly within 1000 paces of the town, where it has been placed by tradition since the time of Jerome. The piska in the middle of Gen 35:22 does not indicate a gap in the text, but the conclusion of a parashah, a division of the text of greater antiquity and greater correctness than the Masoretic division.
verses 22-29
Jacob's Return to His Father's House, and Death of Isaac. - Jacob had left his father's house with no other possession than a staff, and now he returned with 12 sons. Thus had he been blessed by the faithful covenant God. To show this, the account of his arrival in his father's tent at Hebron is preceded by a list of his 12 sons, arranged according to their respective mothers; and this list is closed with the remark, “ These are the sons of Jacob, which were born to him in Padan-Aram” (ילּד for ילּדוּ; Ges. §143, 1), although Benjamin, the twelfth, was not born in Padan-Aram, but on the journey back.
Jacob's arrival in “ Mamre Kirjath-Arbah,” i.e., in the terebinth-grove of Mamre (Gen 13:18) by Kirjath-Arbah or Hebron (vid., Gen 23:2), constituted his entrance into his father's house, to remain there as Isaac's heir. He had probably visited his father during the ten years that had elapsed since his return from Mesopotamia, though no allusion is made to this, since such visits would have no importance, either in themselves or their consequences, in connection with the sacred history. This was not the case, however, with his return to enter upon the family
