Genesis 28:18. Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it.
1. This stone was set up as a monument of God’s wonderful revelation to him, and of his vow (vs. 20). Thirty years later he repeated this solemn act in the same place (Gen. 35:14). Moses likewise built twelve pillars at Sinai as a sign of God’s covenant (Ex. 24:4). So Joshua set up a monument of stones in commemoration of the passage of the Jordan (Josh. 4:3-9). At Shechem also he set up a atone under an oak as a memorial of the covenant between God and his people(Josh. 24:26). In like manner Samuel erected a stone between Mizpeh and Shen to commemorate his victory over the Philistines(1 Sam. 7:12). As these stone pillars were all erected as testimonies of some great events, it has been suggested that Paul in 1 Tim. 3:15 designs to represent the Church as a pillar of testimony for the truth, God having founded and reared the Church as a monument for that purpose.
There existed in heathen countries a practice similar to the one referred to in the text. Morier gives a good illustration of our text in a little incident he saw while traveling in Persia. He says: “I remarked that our old guide, every here and there, placed a stone on a conspicuous bit of rock, or two stones one upon the other, at the same time uttering some words, which I learned were a prayer for our safe return” (Second Journey through Persia, p. 85). He had frequently seen similar stones without knowing their design.
2. The anointing of the stone by Jacob was doubtless designed as a solemn act of consecration of this stone to its monumental purposes; just as subsequently Moses, by command of God, anointed the tabernacle and its furniture (Num. 7:1). This act of the patriarch is not to be confounded with the idolatrous practice, common among heathens, of pouring oil upon stones and worshiping them. See note on Isaiah 52:6 (#527).