He receives the direction of God—purges out the idols—goes to Bethel to the God, who met him in his distress, now remembered—thus the God of promise, providence and mercy. None now pursue him—he builds his altar, El Beth-El, for El Elohe-Israel was too soon before. Here Deborah, Rebekah's nurse—Israel, as of old—the cradle of the Church, dies. Jacob is looked at as now only come out of Padan-aram; God reveals Himself by the name of his father's God, i.e., as He had to Abraham and Isaac, and blesses him then, and gives him the name of Israel, and this is the true blessing and honor. It is a new Beth-El now. Rebekah was the heavenly Church, as we have seen, brought by the Holy Ghost to Christ; Deborah was its earthly Jewish care-taker in infancy—its nurse—what went with, but was not the spouse.
Jacob was never properly blessed till now, i.e., as standing brought back before God—I speak not of promise by Isaac—here he comes into Abraham's place; this would not be at Jabbok, nor at El Elohe-Israel, nor, really, till now. Here also we find Benjamin brought forth—Christ as the right hand of power—His mother's affliction, who dies and passes away in producing Him, but the Son of His Father's right hand. Also here, the beginning of Jacob's strength, after the flesh, is proved "unstable as water" that cannot excel. Jacob has his lot in his father's sojournings, at Hebron, large as his family, and great as his possessions were.
Such is the history of the secret, but restoring, Providence—the judicial process which took all into its own hand, that it might bless in spite of Esau, still the effort at fleshly establishment, and at last purged Israel moving (from Padan-aram) to Beth-El, and the full renewal of blessing to him, thus restored. Esau entirely away, and the hand of strength now born to him in the land—Rachel passes out of sight, but Jacob takes the place of Isaac in the earth.