Genesis 35:10, commentary and pictures

The renaming in Genesis 35:10 followed the cruel and revengeful attack by Jacob's sons upon the Shechemites, an act Jacob had neither sanctioned nor known beforehand. That deed left him despised by the surrounding peoples and in danger of being destroyed together with his whole household. In his distress Jacob called upon God and was told to go to Bethel and there build an altar to the God who had answered him in distress and had been with him.

Before going, Jacob humbled himself and required his household to humble themselves, to put away the strange gods among them, to be clean, to change their garments and to lay aside their ornaments. At the same time he offered sacrifice to make atonement for their sins so that God might be entreated for them. God accepted Jacob's effort to remove the wrong from his family and protected them by putting His terror upon the cities round about so that they did not pursue them.

The verse belongs to God's renewed appearance to Jacob at Bethel, when He appeared to him again and renewed and reaffirmed the covenant promise previously made to him. In that appearance God blessed Jacob and gave him the name Israel, because his fear was before God. Jacob marked the place where God spoke with him by setting up a pillar of stone. The meaning of the change of his name from Jacob to Israel is not explained.