Jacob is cast away, but God will call His son Israel, the new man out of Egypt. As Jacob is passed over, no longer in God's reckoning as holding Canaan in fief, and Israel in faith, God's Israel, is alone in view in this promise, so God went up from him in the place where He talked with him, never more to own him in His record, whilst in the land of Canaan, until by faith he goes out to God's separated man in Egypt. All is now lost for Jacob as such; he may set up a pillar, a pillar of stone, preface his act of worship with an offering of thanksgiving, and call the name of the place where God spoke with him, Bethel, but it goes for naught; he has no heart, and God no grace, until in Egypt he shall find his forerunner, God's Heir.
Therefore shall they be as the morning cloud, and as the early dew that passeth away; as the chaff that is driven with the whirlwind out of the floor; and as the smoke out of the chimney. Yet is Jehovah his God; he shall know Him, for there is no Savior but Him.
He had respect to Jacob in a place of stones, a land of drought, and led him into pasture; but with God's provision Jacob filled himself, taking his ease, eating, drinking, and making merry; was not rich towards Him, forgetting Him; therefore was He to them as a lion, a leopard watching by the way, as a bereaved bear, meeting them to rend their heart's caul.
If Israel hath destroyed himself and the Lord's voice crieth, yet in Him is help, and the man of wisdom sees His name, hears the rod, and who hath appointed it. What is the path of faith for those who are the little flock when all things earthly fail? Seek ye the kingdom of God; provide yourselves a treasure in the heavens which faileth not; for God who clothes the grass will keep you; and the Father will give you the kingdom: since He who comes to cast a fire on the earth, and has already kindled it, though haply but a feeble flicker, a Deborah dying, He (a greater than Joseph, though like to Him) is Himself baptized with a baptism of death, a fire of judgment (Jonas being the sign as plainly as a western cloud foretell a shower, or a south wind heat), to deliver from hell those who hear the word of God and keep it. Them will He ransom from the power of the grave, He will redeem them from death. O death! He will be thy plagues. O grave! He will be thy destruction.
And in the new covenant in His blood all shall not only be retrieved, but in Him the last Adam, the second Man, death has been swallowed up in victory; for the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin, the law, but thanks to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
So if it be the assembly which is His body, or those who shall fill up the number of His elect at His coming, or Israel restored, it is through the blood, and in the resurrection life and power of Him who came to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, and in grace and power will first bring perfectly into possession those who had no promise of an earthly portion, and were not responsible to Him in it, and by the same grace will thereafter introduce as heir of heavenly blessing those who willfully have forfeited their earthly birthright; and not only so, but relinquish it when brought to them in God's title.
"They journeyed from Bethel!” Sad sentence! The climax of their course of pride, the final turning off from mercy; hitherto had grace lingered, now they are cast off forever! The limit of long-suffering is reached and overpassed; no help remains; no longer Canaan, but Egypt is their lot. All lost! forever lost! darkness closes o'er the scene. Woe! woe unalterable is fixed eternally! “Journeyed from Bethel!” A fleeing from the face of God, hiding from Him; a damming out the source of blessing from his soul has marked the course of Jacob from the first; setting a stone, his wives, his herds, a heap, his bands, a stream, a parcel of a field, an altar between his soul and God. And now the end has come; a second time the sentence has gone forth, “journeyed from Bethel.” Surely the record of the Spirit states the fact, it may be, with groans that cannot be uttered. “Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which satisfieth not?"
Jacob, as a witness for Jehovah's name, is blotted out. As priest, and raiser of Jehovah's house, is passed away. As worshipper, to render Him His due, is cast aside.
“Journeyed from Bethel,” and Jehovah's soul unsatisfied! “Woe is me, for I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits, as the grape gleanings of the vintage, there is no cluster to eat, my soul desired the first ripe fruit.” When helpless, at the first time, in the wilderness, He had found Israel like grapes, as the first ripe in the fig tree; but now the best of them is as a briar, the most upright is sharper than a thorn-hedge. The day of thy visitation cometh, now shall be their perplexity.
“And they journeyed from Bethel, and there was but a little way to come to Ephrath.” Israel hath forgotten, but God remembers, not only all their wickedness, so that their own doings have beset them about, and the sorrows of a travailing woman have come upon him, but in divine grace, though the place which should have been the beginning of his fruitfulness and strength, becomes a monument of his affliction, yet He who remembered the barren woman to give her a son, also will remember in that day the faith that counted on Jehovah's boundless power and good-will, saying, “The Lord shall add to me another son."
Thus unconscious faith prophesies of grace, and Jehovah's way in rolling away reproach, by giving in a son life, deliverance, and power.
Jehovah remembers His own counsels, and hearkens to the voice of prayer. He sees the ways of men, and acts accordingly. Faith trusts the Lord, but Rachel has to learn that in resurrection only is there life and power—that for nature must a voice “be heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping” — “weeping for her children, and no comfort, because they are not.” Yet, thus saith the Lord, Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears, for in the power of Him who is in resurrection “shall they come again from the land of the enemy;” and there is hope in the after time.
If Benjamin bear rule, it must be in the power of Joseph, rejected, delivered up, exalted, and he must in the meanwhile be a son of sorrow. The birthright in abeyance, even the promise of inheritance, but the blessing shall be bestowed in the person of the man He sent before them; who was sold for a servant; whose feet they hurt with fetters—he was laid in iron until the time that his word came—the word of the Lord tried him.
Israel must also come into Egypt, and Jacob sojourn in the land of Ham.
Jehovah reckons nothing till Joseph come to Egypt; faith then can follow, and God meet Jacob on the ground of mercy. A son of sorrow on the way to Egypt, yet a Joseph there to be exalted, so that all should bow the knee, and the savior of the world, while Rachel wept; but to be called out of Egypt a son of power, though little, yet a ruler.
But at that time they shall not go from Bethlehem to Edar, but from Edar to Bethlehem (Mic. 4:8; 5:2), and the first dominion shall come to the Tower of the flock, the strength of the daughter of Zion, the daughter of Jerusalem.
Meanwhile the daughter of Zion shall be in pain and labor to bring forth, like a woman in travail; for now shalt than go forth out of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the field, and thou shalt go to Babylon, and there shalt thou be delivered, there the Lord shall redeem thee. But thou Bethlehem Ephratah, thou art little! out of thee shall He come forth to me that is to be ruler in Israel.
Therefore the first dominion shall come to Judah's remnant, scattered as a flock without a shepherd, but when gathered, though but few, and shepherded, then shall the horn be iron, and the hoof brass, and they shall beat in pieces many peoples.
When using power falsely, Judah mites the Judge of Israel on the cheek; therefore, till He, the everlasting One, takes up the government, they shall be given up: but when out of their travail He comes forth in manifested power as Head of Israel, the whole nation shall be owned, and all Israel be saved.
Note how self-will and corrupt lusts are identified both in 2 Peter 2 and in Jude. They are a letting out of will. So for good we see the apostle's power over his own will. There also we see despising dignities, and the like; no self-restraint. So, in fact, such a thing as communism lets loose corrupt lusts too.