Now let us also examine a little more closely the life and history of Jacob.
Jacob was the inheritor of the same promise, and, as a believer, he valued it; but he did not trust in God alone. He did not walk, like Abraham, in daily fellowship with the Lord, and waiting upon the Lord. It is true he received the promise, but his experiences were very different from those of Abraham. Although at the end of his life he could say, “The angel that redeemed me from all evil” (Gen. 48:1616The Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth. (Genesis 48:16)), he nevertheless was constrained to add, “The days of the years of my life have been few and evil, and have not arrived at the days of the years of the life of my fathers, of the time of their pilgrimage” (chap. 47:9). The variety of his experience is a proof of unfaithfulness.
In compliance with his mother's advice, he employed unworthy means to obtain his father's blessing; and was obliged, through fear of his deceived but profane brother, to leave the land of promise (chap. 27., 28). Now his position is altogether changed; his unbelief has driven him out of the land of promise. His pilgrimage is not, like that of Abraham, in the land, but outside of it.
It is true, God watches over him, waits on him, and preserves him; but he does not walk with God. He has no altar till his return, after a course of painful experiences (chap. 33:20). He had no full communion with God till he returned to the land where he had last enjoyed the revelation of God, and where he had been strengthened by His promises. For one-and-twenty years he had to do with men who cheated and oppressed him, while God preserved him in secret; but he could not have an altar outside the land of promise.
We also worship God, and we have communion with God, while we dwell in spirit in heavenly places, there where God Himself has given us our proper place. But if we get outside of it, we can have no fellowship with Him, although He knows how to keep us by His grace and faithfulness.
At the end of twenty-one years God orders Jacob to return. He must flee far from his father-in-law like a guilty fugitive. It is impossible to be pure from the world if we have lost heavenly communion with God; and it is difficult not to carry away something that belongs to the world, if we abandon that communion. But God is faithful. From that moment a course of experiences begins for Jacob (as they are generally called), but which are nevertheless nothing more than the effects of his getting away from God.
Delivered from Laban, Jacob pursues his journey towards Canaan; and God, to comfort and fortify him, sends an army of His angels to meet him (chap. 32:1). Nevertheless, notwithstanding this encouragement from God, unbelief, which deliverance from danger does not destroy, renews Jacob's fear in the presence of his brother Esau. One does not get rid of the difficulties of the path of faith by trying to avoid them; one muse surmount them by the power of God. Jacob had brought these difficulties upon himself, because he had not trusted in God. The host of God was forgotten; and the army of Esau, who no longer cherished in his heart hatred against his brother, frightened the feeble Jacob (chap. 32:7). He could then employ all kinds of means to appease the presumed and dreaded anger of his brother. He causes flock after flock to pass; and this does more to show the state of the heart of Jacob than to change that of Esau. Nevertheless Jacob thinks of God; he reminds Him that He told him he ought to return; he implores Him to, save him from the hands of his brother; he thinks of the state in which he left the country, and acknowledges that God has given him all his possessions (chap. 32:9-11). But his prayer discovers an ungrounded fear. He reminds God of His promises, as if it were possible that He had forgotten them. It is true there is faith in it, but the effect of unbelief produces a wild and confused picture. The timid Jacob has not only sent forward his flocks to appease Esau (chap. 32:13-20), but he sends his whole family across the brook, and remains behind alone (ver. 22, 24). His heart is filled with anxieties. But God, Who guides all, awaits him precisely there. Although He had not permitted Esau. to touch so much as a hair of Jacob's head, He nevertheless had Himself to judge him, and bring him into the light of His presence; for Jacob could in no other way enjoy the land of promise with God. God wrestled with him in the darkness till daybreak (ver. 24). It is not here Jacob wrestling with God of his own accord; but it is God wrestling against him.
He could not bless him simply, like Abraham; he must first correct the unbelief of his heart. Jacob must experience the effects of his conduct; he must even suffer, because God will bless him. Nevertheless, the love of God is acting in all this. He gives strength to Jacob during the conflict in which he must engage to obtain the blessings, to persevere in waiting for them. Jacob will nevertheless have to retain a lasting proof of his weakness and previous unfaithfulness. His hip-joint had been put out while God wrestled with him (ver. 25). And not only that, but God also refuses to reveal His name to him unreservedly. He blessed Jacob. He gives him a name in memorial of his fight of faith, but He does not reveal Himself. How great is the difference here between Jacob and Abraham! God reveals His name to the latter without being asked to do so, that Abraham may know Him folly; for Abraham generally walked with Him in the power of this revelation. He had no conflict with God; and, far from having to fear kinsfolk, he overcame the power of the kings of this world. He is there as a prince among the inhabitants of the land. God frequently converses with him; and, instead of wrestling with him to obtain a blessing for himself, Abraham intercedes for others. He sees the judgment of the world from the height where he was in communion with God. Let us return to the history of Jacob.
Notwithstanding all, his fear never leaves him. Blessed by God by means of his conflict, he still trembles before his brother Esau. He divides his children and wives according to the measuring of his affection, so that those whom he most loved were at the greatest distance from Esau. Only then does he undertake to go to meet his brother. But nevertheless he deceives him again. He evades the, offer of an escort which Esau makes him, and promises to follow him a little more gently to his residence near Seir (chap. 33:4). But Jacob went to Succoth (ver. 17).
Now Israel (Jacob) is in the country; nevertheless, his heart having been long accustomed to the condition of a traveler without God, he knows not how to become a pilgrim with God. He buys a field near Shechem, and settles himself in a place where Abraham was only a stranger, and where, knowing the will of God, he had not possessed a spot of ground whereon to set his foot (ver. 19). It is at Shechem for the first time, and after having returned into the land, that he builds an altar: the name of the altar recalls the blessing of Israel, but not the name of the God of the promises. He calls the altar “God, the God of Israel” (chap. 33:20). Thankfulness, it is true, recognizes the blessing which Jacob has received; but the God Who blessed him is not yet revealed.
'We now fled corruption and violence in his family (chap. 34.). The wrath of his sons, cruel and void of the fear of God, brings him out of his false rest, which was not founded on God; but again the faithfulness of God preserves him. Hitherto Jacob had not thought of the place where God Himself had made him the promise, from the time, of his departure, and where Jacob had promised to worship when he should have returned by the help of God. God Himself sends him there now, and says to him, “Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there, and there set up an altar to the strong God who appeared to thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother” (chap. 35: 1). God, who had guarded, guided, and chastened him, had prepared him to come into communion with Him. But first it was necessary that he should leave his false home, where God was not. He must lodge at Bethel (the house of God), and in that very place build an altar to God Who had first revealed Himself to him. We here see the instantaneous effect of the presence of God with Jacob, a presence which he had not yet learned to know, in spite of all his experiences up to that moment. The thought of that presence immediately recalls to his mind the false gods which were still among his furniture.
These false gods were the effect of his connection with the world; and Rachel, from fear of Laban, had hid them under the camel's furniture. Jacob knew well that they were there; nevertheless he said to his family, “Put away the false gods that are in the midst of you and purify yourselves, and change your garments, and arise, let us go to Bethel, and I will build an altar to God, Who answered me in the day of my distress, and Who has been with me in the way that I came. Then they gave Jacob all the false gods that they had in their hands, and the rings that were in their ears, and he hid them under the oak that was by Shoehorn” (chap. 35:2-4). The thought of the presence of God made him remember the false gods; it awakens in his soul the conviction that the gods, the objects of the adoration of this world, can never be kept together with a faithful God. Nothing else can awaken this conviction. No possible experiences can ever have the effect which the presence of God produces on a soul. Such experiences are useful to humble us, they are a means of stripping us of ourselves. Nevertheless it is only the presence of God as light which can cause us to condemn ourselves, and gives us power to purify ourselves from our deepest and well-known though hidden idols. Abraham had nothing to do either with Jacob's idols or Jacob's experiences.
The fear of God reigned over the enemies of Jacob, so that they did not follow him, notwithstanding the murderous violence of his sons (chap. 35:5). Now God could reveal Himself to Jacob; and although he remained lame, all went on as if he had not before passed through any experience. Jacob had come to Bethel, from whence he had started. There he built an altar to the. God Who had made him the promises, and Who had always been faithful to him. The name of his altar no longer reminds us pf Jacob blessed, but of Him Who blesses, and of is house. It is not called the altar of God, the God of Israel, but the altar of the God at Bethel, that is to say, of the house of God (chap. 35:7). God at this hour speaks with Jacob, without saying anything at all of his experiences. These had been necessary to chasten Jacob, and empty him of himself, because he had been unfaithful. God Himself appeared to him now without being entreated. We read in chap. 35:9, God appeared again to Jacob when he came from Padan-Aram, and blessed, him. He gave him the name of Israel, as if He had not given it him before, and reveals to him His name without Jacob having asked it of Him; He converses with him as formerly with Abraham. He renews the promises, and confirms them to him—at least, those which have reference to Israel; and, after having ended His communication with him, God went up from him, for He had visited him (chap. 35:13).
Jacob was then returned, after a course of experiences, to the, place where he could have communion with God—to a position in which, by the grace of God, Abraham had almost always kept himself. Jacob is a warning to us, but Abraham is an example. The first has, it is true, found the Lord again by His grace; but he has not had the many and blessed experiences of the other, and does not pray for others. The highest point of attainment with him is Abraham's starting point, even the home of his soul. With the exception of a few falls, this was the habitual state of Abraham, the state in which he lived. “Abraham died in a good old age, old and full of days, and he was gathered to his people.” But Jacob said, “The days of the years of my life have been few and evil, and have not amounted to the days of the years of the life of my fathers, even the time of their pilgrimage” (Gen. 25:8; 47:98Then Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man, and full of years; and was gathered to his people. (Genesis 25:8)
9And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage. (Genesis 47:9)). He ended his life in Egypt.
The experiences of Jacob are the experiences of what the hearts of men are. The experiences of Abraham are the experiences of the heart of God.
We have described three kinds of experiences: 1, those which take place ender the law, the position of a believer not known; or when, without being ignorant of it, he is there, having his heart all the time under the law; 2, the experiences which one had of his own heart, from the time that one walks far from that position where God reveals Himself to cherish and keep up this communion; 3, the simple and blessed experiences which one has in walk with God, in the place where God has set us, to enjoy communion with Him in lowliness and thankfulness. These last are experiences of the heart of God, which bring us into the knowledge of His counsels, and of the faithful love which is contained in them. They consist in a close communion with God Himself; the others are, as it has been said, the painful experiences of the heart of man, among which the highest degree—and also precious for us—is, that God remains faithful in the midst of our unfaithfulness, and that He is patient towards our folly, by the which we put ourselves at a distance from His presence.
Our privilege is to walk like Abraham; our refuge when we are unfaithful (for God is faithful, Who does not suffer us to be tempted above what we are able to bear) is that God remains faithful, and draws us out of all danger to the end. May God give us grace to dwell near to Him, to walk with Him, that our experiences may have for their end the growing knowledge of His love and of His nature. J. N. D.