It is natural to contrast these passages; but I understand a decided difference in the words of Jacob and of Moses over the twelve—the one regarded them as children, and the other as tribes of the Lord; the one was anticipating their own conduct and history, the other was putting them severally in that place of honor and blessing which God had settled and secured for them. Thus, in the words of Moses, you get nothing but blessing. No mention of any fault or evil of their own, but God disposing of them all according to His own purpose of grace. It is the tribes under the covenant of promise in the latter day. There may be, and are, divers glories among them, but all are blessed. No mention of any evil they had committed. All that is forgotten. Jehovah findeth none. No iniquity in Jacob—no perverseness in Israel. Their tents are all goodly, under the favor and light of the Lord! It is the blessing, as from mount Gerizim, being under God's covenant, as just before it was the curse from Ebal under their own (Deut. 28). And on the mount, as it were, the God of Jeshurun riding in his magnificence for their help. Happy are such a people. But Jacob anticipates their ways, ways which they have already, generally, ran, and ended; sin, shame, loss, apostasy, marking nearly all, more or less.
"From thence," in the prophetic word on Joseph I understand to mean this, that from the one whom the archers: had shot at comes the stone and shepherd of Israel; i.e., the glories of Jesus result from His sufferings, as typified in the history of Joseph. Not that Christ came from Joseph as a tribe, but follows him as a type. I do not see that the stone here has connection with the pillar in chapter 28. But the stone is a great title of Christ in Scripture—the foundation or chief corner-stone—the disallowed stone—the head of the corner that is to break the image in pieces—the living and the precious stone. And I judge as the stone in these its different aspects, it might be thus presented. First. He came to Israel as the Foundation-stone, but was rejected by them. The builders would not use Him. Secondly. Being rejected or disallowed by Israel and the earth, He has been lifted up as the Head of the corner, communicating the life and the preciousness that He has to all who will by faith own and use Him in His disallowed condition, and thus they become living stones and precious stones like Himself (1 Pet. 2). He communicates His life and value to them. Thirdly and finally, as Head of the corner—He will, after He has thus communicated His life and preciousness to all the stones of His heavenly elect house, fall on the great image, the full concentration of all those worldly powers that once rejected Him, and grind them to powder. The pillars were witnesses of God, memorials of His ways, standing, abiding memorials. Thus, "the God of Bethel" is Jacob's God, the God in whom mercy rejoiced over judgment. Jacob learned Him as such at Bethel and held Him in that character ever after—worshipped Him as such. Joshua erected the stones on the other side of Jordan the very first thing he did, that God's' glory might be first provided for, that the inheritance of Israel might thus be taken first to God's praise; and then to the people's joy and blessing. As Noah when he stepped out from the ark first erected his altar and offered his offerings. And the pillar in the midst of the waters, as on the shores of the promised land, may intimate that Christ will leave the memorial of His power and victory in the place of death on the enemy, as in the regions of life and glory—as the graves were opened, as well as the vail rent, when the blood was shed.