And God said unto Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there, and make there an altar unto God that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother.” Jacob then was not two bands, but a man with nothing rightly of his own, and him asleep. Brought out from his kindred and his father's house, where God's blessing rested, that he might be set apart by God, fitted for his priest and sent back from Jehovah in new place, and power, and appointment.
To him God comes in all embracing grace, setting him in this, his nothingness, within the glorious flood of the divine purpose and action. This place must he recognize again; no longer nothing in the helplessness of sleep, but nothing in the testing blast of Jehovah's face; not only motionless but moveless.
It was Abraham's faith to come from Mesopotamia and keep in Canaan. It was Jacob's faith to abide at Bethel whilst Jehovah's plans matured, building there an altar as in the van of God's witnesses; if flesh will wander, God covenants to give preserving grace, till from that base in faith, and with God's power, he conquer all the land.
Deplorable indeed is his return! The strange gods which were in their hand, and the earrings which were in their ears, Jacob hides under the oak which was by Shechem, “And they journeyed.” Filled with ill-gotten gains, they go with their flocks and herds to seek the Lord; but they shall not find Him, He having withdrawn Himself from them. They have dealt treacherously against the Lord; for Jacob has forestalled his portion in God's inheritance and lost it, has sacrificed God's rights to propitiate the world, and foolishly earned their hatred, having staked God's covenant in pledge of peace and amity, and it was forfeited.
One spot alone was then left; this deserted, all was lost to Jacob. It was dedicated by him to the Lord if He fulfilled His promise. Hitherto this had been kept, and would be to the end, ever therefore must it be the Lord's.
This is Jehovah's grace, His righteousness. Remember now, O Israel, that you may know it. In this parcel of a field secured eternally by every right of God and man, bound ever and forever unto God, unloseable, God's grace, Jehovah's righteousness gives Jacob an abiding place and portion to possess.
Is this God's strange work? Nay I ever acts He thus; Bethel, Gilgal, Calvary each tell the tale.
At Shalem Jacob mixes himself among the people. God will change their glory into shame; testify the pride of Israel to his face, hanging his dishonor in the light, for He had seen a horrible thing; Israel is defiled and knows it not. This is in grace.
At Shechem flesh is brought by fraud and force to Israel, and God in grace and truth by word and power forces Jacob to depart; blotting out transgression and unpardonable guilt with blood, shed by the cruel hands of lawless men, making thus atonement.
Will Jacob know God's reckoning, and put away all witness of the deed in zeal for Him? Nay! Jacob judges Laban's gods and says, “Be clean and change your garments;” but holds with itching palm unrighteous gains. He may hide the strange gods and their earrings under the oak which was by Shechem: but they go with flocks and herds to seek the Lord.
In grace and righteousness Jehovah will go and return to His place, till they acknowledge their offense, and seek His face. Will Jacob take this two days' journey from the place of death to life, and life in resurrection on the third day
See Israel going out to join with flesh at Baalpeor; and Jehovah said to Moses, “Hang them up before the Lord against the sun.” Then Zimri brings flesh in unto his brethren in the sight of Moses, and in the sight of all the congregation; and Phinehas rose up, and took a javelin, and went into the tent, and thrust both of them through. “He was jealous for his God, and made an atonement for the children of Israel.” Covering up their sin with blood, and turning away His wrath by atonement.
Gilgal corresponds to Bethel: there Jehovah rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off them—blessed grace—this is His righteousness! Will not Israel trust Jehovah? If a Moses judge, he must hang them up; if a Phinehas, they must be smitten through; but if Jehovah judge, and Israel is in faith, a Joshua circumcises them, and they abide there until they are whole.
Again, if Israel is defiled among the people, and his two sons take up judgment, the defilement must be met by the defiler's blood. If defilement is brought to Jacob, and he has zeal for God, his household must not only put away the strange gods, and be clean, and change their garments, but, as a man responsible to God, he must be swept from off the land. “Arise ye, and depart, for this is not your rest, because it is polluted.” “Thou shalt have none that shall cast a cord by lot in the congregation of the Lord."
But grace has one resource still left. Let but Jehovah judge! He will sweep Jacob as such off the scene, but in the new man, Israel, invest him with His title in new standing altogether. “Remember now that ye may know the righteousness of the Lord.” “Arise, go up to Bethel, and make THERE an altar unto God that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother.” May it not be said that God gives up His portion that Jacob may be blessed? If Jacob in simplicity obeys, all that God promised him at first, may even now be taken up in God's right, if he will go back in heart and mind to that time; but Jehovah's name cannot be made known till God's new man comes upon the scene.
Will Jacob then remember and know the goodness and long-suffering of God? Nay, he comes far short of God's thought and his own blessing, for he says, “I will make there an altar unto God who answered me in the day of my distress.” He owns the God who delivered Jacob and his bands at Peniel, and blessed him there; not alone allowing willingly the biding of Jehovah's name, but alike indifferent to his new name in which the secret of his blessing lay.
When was the day of his distress? Not Luz, but Jabbok. God would recall Bethel to his mind; Jacob's thoughts turn back to Peniel. Jehovah poured out grace at Bethel, but at Peniel Jacob sought for, and by power procured a blessing after his own mind. The God of glory he pares down in thought to such an one who was with him in the way which he went—a crooked way, a transgressing way indeed.
Jacob clings to his experience, not God's word. God cleaves to His word, and is not bound by Jacob's conscience. If, in blind unbelief, flesh wrests the word, yet it fails not. To faith and doubtless deep in Jacob's heart, seen but by God, the knowledge lay, that at Penuel, it was no fleeing from, but going forth, to meet his brother Esau; though swayed by feelings, Jacob says, Peniel was the day of my distress, wherein I fled from Esau's face. But when he builds his altar, calling it El-bethel, God stamps it as the place where he appeared unto him when he fled from the face of his brother. Jacob's thought was on the time of his experience, God's on the place of His appointment.
But once again, now fixed forever, Jacob prevails to have his way; and lo! the place which should have been the house of God becomes an oak of weeping.
All, all had failed, and Jacob's vow was unperformed in any item. In spite of Peniel and Bethel, not one jot of Jacob's word had come to pass. Jehovah was not owned as his God; the stone set for a pillar was not made God's house; and a tenth of God's gifts were not given Him.
Unknown it might be, yet Jehovah was his God, though he may call the place “God, the God of Bethel.” He might build the altar and forget the house, but God had His house, and if a tenth of God's gifts is in question, He will not deny His rights, He will take it.
Jehovah can wait, but who can resist His will? If Jacob will not do, another must; perchance a Moses or a greater still.
And now ere Jacob is definitively fixed in the place of his ultimate attainment, Deborah dies—the proof of Jehovah's faithfulness, the lightest touch of that strong hand which should bereave them of their children, and cast them away because they will not hearken, and make them wanderers among the nations.
They have returned, but not to the Most High: they are like a deceitful bow, it starts aside, and wounds the hand that bends it. They cry, “We know Thee,” but have transgressed against His covenant. Jehovah accepteth them not, now will He remember their iniquity and visit their sins, they shall go into Egypt.
Jehovah's name unknown; His house disregarded; His portion uncared for; His covenant transgressed: can aught remain? Yes, Jacob.
Jehovah's blessing in abeyance—His new name unrevealed.
Abraham's blessing intermittent, God's everlasting covenant,” In thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed."
Jacob's blessing spent, “I am with thee and will keep thee, and will bring thee again unto this land; I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of."
Into this land, this very spot, he has returned with what result! To Bethel he has come again, Jehovah he knows not. The stone set up as God's house marks no point for him. To him it is all one with Shalem. So El-bethel is but Allon-bachuth—no gate of heaven, but an oak of weeping.
God's eternal counsels never fail. Driven back by unbelief into Himself while fixing Jacob in his place on earth, as Jacob a supplanter ("Thy name is Jacob"), He hangs His purposes, even as to Jacob's promises—the birthright with a mess of pottage bought—upon the new man Israel: “Thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name, and He called his name Israel.” “Be fruitful and multiply, a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins, and the land which I gave Abraham and Isaac to thee will I give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land.” The blessing forfeited forever from Israel; the promise, the birthright only left; but He, the Heir who takes it up, responsible and able to maintain, is He whom God has separated from His brethren that He may be also the depositary of the blessing.
At the outset Jacob had been found as grapes in the wilderness; as the first ripe in the fig tree at her first time, the object of God's redemption and regard. He went to Shalem, separated himself unto that shame, and their abominations were according as they loved. But all their wickedness, the climax and sum total, is in Bethel; there it finds its full fruition. The last resource of God for Jacob fails, and blessing is no longer possible; therefore then He hated them. Bethel should have been a place of blessing, but he found there Jacob still; therefore will He drive them out of His house, He will love them no more, and at Bethel there begins destruction and the curse.
In Col. 2:2323Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh. (Colossians 2:23) I am very much disposed to read ἀφειδία σώματος (οὐκ ἐν τιμῆ τινι) πρὸς πλ. τῆς σαρκός, neglecting the body (not in a certain honor) as to satiating the flesh. There was, as to satiating the flesh, harshness towards the body, paying it no honor.