Then God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel and live there, and make an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.” So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Remove the foreign gods which are among you, and purify yourselves and change your garments; and let’s arise and go up to Bethel, and I will make an altar there to God, who answered me on the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.” Genesis 35:1-3 (NASB)
God asks Jacob to build an altar and mentions nothing about Jacob removing idols from himself or his household. Yet Jacob's response is to do just that.
Maybe there's a hidden lesson here. It sounds similar to this idea: You cannot worship God and Mammon. Mammon is greed and the idolatry of wealth. When Rachel stole her father Laban's household idols, it may be the case that Laban believed that he got wealthy off of Jacob and attributed those gains to his idols.
Jacob appears to make two specific claims about God:
- God is one the who answers us in our distress
- It is God who preserves and blesses us, and not any idol