Genesis 35:2 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Put away the strange gods that are among you This is evidently a mistranslation; the Hebrew אלהי הנכר means, not the strange gods that are among you, but the gods of the stranger that is among you, alluding probably to the captive Shechemite women, who now made a part of his household, or to other Gentiles who had joined themselves to his family, and who might secretly worship idols. Thus, like a good man, and a good master of a family, he takes care not only for himself, but for all his family, to keep them from the exercise of a false religion, and to engage them, as far as he could, in the profession and practice of the true. And be clean Cleanse yourselves by outward and ritual washing, (compare Exodus 19:10-14,) which even then was in use, and was considered as an emblem of cleansing the soul, by repentance, from all those impure lusts and vile affections, whereby a man becomes polluted in the sight of God. This, no doubt, Jacob had chiefly in view; namely, that they should cleanse their hands from blood, and from their late detestable cruelty, and purify their hearts from those evil dispositions which had given birth to such abominable wickedness, that they might be fit to approach God in his worship. And change your garments In token of your changing your minds and manners.