Genesis 28

If it was encompassed with much infirmity, yet its very complexity demands our reverent attention; in it are bound up, as his double name expresses, not one man, but two; by toil and struggle, Jacob, the Supplanter, is gradually transformed into Israel, the Prince of God; the harsher and baser features are softened and purified away. A. P. S.

After this event, Isaac lived other forty-three years. But he no more appears on the stage of covenant history, as Jacob takes up the thread of further development, the promise having now devolved on him. The text only records that he was gathered to his fathers when 180 years old and full of days, and that he was buried in the cave of Machpelah by Esau and Jacob, whom he was privileged to see once more standing as reconciled brothers by his deathbed. When Jacob left, his father dwelt at Beer-sheba. The desire to be nearer to his paternal place of sepulchre may probably have been the ground of his later settlement in Mamre, where he died. Rebekah, who at parting had so confidently promised Jacob to let him know whenever Esau’s anger was appeased, had probably died soon after her favorite had left. At least the promised message was never delivered, nor is her name mentioned on Jacob’s return. K.

It has been common to describe Abraham as the man of faith, Isaac as the model of patient bearing, and Jacob as the man of active working; and in the two latter cases to connect the spiritual fruits, which were the outcome of their faith, with their natural characters also. All this is quite correct; but it is necessary to take a broader view of the whole matter. Let it be borne in mind, that God had both made and established His covenant with Abraham. The history of Isaac and Jacob, on the other hand, rather represents the hindrances to the covenant. These are just the same as we daily meet in our own walk of faith. They arise from opposite causes, according as in our weakness we either lag behind, or in our haste go before God. Isaac lagged behind, Jacob tried to go before God; and their history exhibits the dangers and difficulties arising from each of these causes, just as, on the other hand, God’s dealings with them show how mercifully, how wisely, and yet how holily He knew how to remove these hindrances out of the way, and to uproot these sins from their hearts and lives. A. E.

Neither of the Patriarchs has been set up, or can be set up, as a genuine pattern of Christian morals. But the broad light in which the Fathers of Israel are to be viewed is this, that they were exclusive worshippers of the One True Everlasting God, in a world of idolaters—that they were living depositaries of the great doctrine of the Unity of the Godhead, when the nations around were resorting to every green tree—that they “were faithful found among the faithless.” And so incalculably important was the preservation of this great Article of the Creed of man, at a time when it rested in the keeping of so few, that the language of the Almighty in the Law seems ever to have a respect unto it: fury, anger, indignation, jealousy, hatred, being expressions rarely, if ever, attributed to him, except in reference to idolatry—and, on the other hand, enemies of God, adversaries of God, haters of God, being there—chiefly and above all, idolaters. But in this sense God was emphatically the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob: none of them, not even the last, having ever forfeited their claim to this high and glorious title. Blunt.

10. And Jacob went out from Beer-sheba, and went toward Haran. And he lighted upon a 11 certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took one of the 12 stones of the place, and put it under his head, and lay down in that place to sleep. And he 13 dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and 13 behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the LORD, the God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the 14 land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. 15 And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee withersoever thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to 16 thee of. And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the LORD is in this place; 17 and I knew it not. And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none 18 other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put under his head, and set it up for a pillar, and 19 poured oil upon the top of it. And he called the name of that place Beth-el: but the name 20 of the city was Luz at the first. And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, 21 so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then shall the LORD be my God, and this 22 stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.

The blessing of his sons was the last passage in the active life of Isaac, after which he retires from the scene. Jacob now becomes the leading figure in the sacred history. His spiritual character has not yet come out to view. But even now we can discern the general distinction in the lives of the three patriarchs. Abraham’s is a life of authority and decision; Isaac’s, of submission and acquiescence; and Jacob’s, of trial and struggle. M.

1-22. That this is really an account of the conversion of Jacob we infer not only from the circumstances of the case but from the beautiful saying of the prophet Hosea: “He found him in Bethel and then he spake with us.” In this view of the vision at Bethel, we may see the very great importance of just such an interposition of God at that period of the church’s history. The earthly head of the church, Isaac, is now aged, blind and feeble. The true heir to the succession is a fugitive and a wanderer, and it is needful to put beyond all uncertainty the question of his appointment of God to the leadership, even though like David afterward he must still struggle on and wait long till the purpose of God respecting him is fully accomplished. Here again is illustrated the principle of these supernatural interpositions as never occurring except when the occasion is of a dignity worthy the interposition of God. This is the point by which the supernatural interpositions of the Scriptures are readily distinguished from all the legendary interpositions of supernatural power as recorded in the mythologies of paganism, and scarcely less superstitious mythologies of a corrupt Christianity. S. R.

10,11. With a staff he goes over Jordan alone, doubtful and comfortless, not like the son of Isaac: in the way the earth is his bed, and the stone his pillow; yet even there he sees a vision of angels. Jacob’s heart was never so full of joy as when his head lay hardest. God is most present with us in our greatest dejection, and loves to give comfort to those that are forsaken of their hopes. Bp. II.

12. All that was revealed to Jacob was that there was a ladder—a way to heaven, however steep and narrow. To us it has been shown who the way is. Lifting up our eyes we see the Lord standing looking upon us in love and hear him speaking to us. Davidson.—What Jacob felt in his dream was, that this world is no such obstruction between spirits, no such hindrance to the wishes of our hearts, as we creatures of sense foolishly feel. He dreamed that that was true which Christ taught plainly was truth: that the Son of man standing on earth was yet in heaven; that streams of power, intelligence, sympathy, streams of radiant pity, of ministering love and wisdom, run down upon us, and, lifting our hearts with them, run up again to God. In the most beautiful form poet ever imagined, Jacob saw that he the exile was always at home; that the child-man, through all distance, through all obstructions, is heart to heart with God. What a deep truth is here! Mercer.

Christ has come, and in Him the heavens have bended down to touch, and touching to bless, this low earth, and man and God are at one once more. He is the ladder or sole medium of communication, inasmuch as by Him all Divine blessings, grace, helps and favors come down, angel-like, into our weak and needy hearts. Every strength, every mercy, every spiritual power, consolation in every sorrow, fitness for duty, illumination in darkness, all that any of us can need; it all comes to us down that one shining way, the mediation and the work of the Divine-Human Christ, the Lord.

He is the ladder, the sole medium of communication between heaven and earth, inasmuch as by him my poor desires and prayers and intercessions, my wishes, my conflicts, my confessions rise to God. “No man cometh to the Father but by me.” He is the ladder, the means of all communication between heaven and earth, inasmuch as at the last, if ever we enter there at all, we shall enter through him and through him alone. “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” A. M.

Out of his eternal and infinite goodness and love purposing to become a Creator, and to communicate to his creatures, the Deity ordained in his eternal counsel, that one person of the Godhead should be united to one nature, and to one particular of his creatures: that so, in the person of the Mediator, the true ladder might be fixed, whereby God might descend to his creatures, and his creatures might ascend to God. Broom.

To this ancient patriarch in Bethel is revealed the wondrous fact that the infinite ocean of space between earth and heaven, which no genius of man could bridge over into any sort of a pathway, has really been bridged over. For what Jacob saw in his dream Jesus Christ has done. A stairway—“a king’s highway of holiness”—springing from the great continent of heaven spans the impassable gulf, and is securely fastened to earth. So that on it are passing spiritual messengers innumerable in execution of the plans of God for every intelligent creature. Yea, and up that highway redeemed souls are ever passing, till “thousands of thousands and ten times thousands” of earth’s inhabitants are gathered there. Yes, Jesus, the Mediator, is the Way. S. R.—The Ladder whose top reached to Heaven while its base rested on the earth, is the Son of Man who was also the Son of God, “the only Mediator between God and man, being both God and man.” Was ever figure more appropriate or more instructive? The fundamental lesson which it teaches is this—that the Incarnation of the Son of God is the foundation of all our hopes; that independently of this great fact, that “the Word was made flesh,” it is an idle mockery to speak of any hope for man. For in the communion of the human soul with its Creator is to be found man’s true happiness,—his chief good, apart from which no real satisfaction is to be had. But this communion was broken off entirely by the Fall; sin made a natural separation between the sinner and a holy God. How shall it be restored? How shall we again climb up to the house from which we have become outcasts—the bosom of “our Father which is in heaven”? The access to Him which you could not by any resources in yourself obtain, He has provided for you in Christ. “Behold a ladder set up on the earth.” Christ appeared a man among men upon the earth, and was known after the flesh by the men of His time. In His body, in His spirit, in His circumstances, in His lot, in His trials, in His temptations, He was perfectly human, albeit perfectly sinless. He owned human relationships and human ties, and was subject to all the innocent infirmities of our nature. But those who associated with Him daily, who watched His ways, and treasured up His words, soon became aware of something more than human in Him, which manifested itself as by lightning flashes, while they studied His career. The Ladder might be set up on earth, but its top reached they knew not whither,—“reached,” as they soon discovered, “to Heaven.” After His earthly pilgrimage had closed, Thomas cried to Him, under the force of irrepressible convictions, “My Lord and my God;” and the first martyr, Stephen, saw with his bodily eye the Ladder’s head resting in Heaven, and cried, in brave acknowledgment of the great verity, “Behold, I see the Heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God.” Goulburn.

In an age of the future so far away that his thought can grasp no clear conception of it,—when the sinful and sorrowing race of men shall have learnt, by long trying and by many tears, how little it can do of itself, when the bad choice of the first pair has borne bad fruit enough, and when the time appointed of the Father is fully come,—then a descendant of this Jacob shall be born, of such a new and universal power of life to save men, that in Him all the nations of the earth shall be everlastingly blessed. This was the magnificent truth sent down through that Eastern midnight sky into the shepherd’s mind. This Son of Man has come. At the very beginning of His course, standing on the threshold of His kingdom, when He as yet discovers His real divinity to only a few open-minded and clean-hearted men like Nathanael,—an Israelite in whom there is no guile,—He is careful to say, “Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” That deeper sense, which the deeper readers like Origen and Augustine, and Luther and Theluck, have never failed to recognize, is this. Our Lord’s coming into the world flings forever apart the folded gates of the invisible. It throws the two worlds open into each other.

It is the very reality which the ladder Jacob saw long before in Syria, with the condescending and climbing angels on it, typifies and prefigures. From the moment of Christ’s baptism, the outset of His sacrificial and saving ministry, all the bars and partition-walls, and to the eye of faith even the veils of the holy place, are taken out of the way. A train of spiritual glories is from that hour set in motion, which will go on breaking and brightening over the earth, in gifts of the Spirit, in the awaking of love and trust in human hearts, in righteous conduct, and in the gathering of nations about His cross, which will have their consummation and crown only when He comes again with His saints. This is your Christian privilege, you who believe and follow the Lord. Because He lives, ye live also. No matter if, like the patriarch, you have to take the stones of that place where you are,—hard and cold,—and lay them for your pillow,—behold, the pathway of light opens up none the less. The angels travel it both ways: they come down bringing God’s help, as well as go up with the burden of your prayers. F. D. H.

13. The LORD stood above it, and said.** He had just committed a great offence; his flight from home, his personal loneliness, his fears about the future, all the consequences of this transgression, the burden of care that his condition brought with it, were all incalculably enhanced by that heavier burden that an awakened conscience presses down upon his heart. Never before had the Lord appeared to him, never before had that voice divine sounded in his ear. Jehovah now meets him by the way, as he comes fresh from his transgression, and meets him how? Is it as he met the prophet in his flight, saying, “What does thou here, Elijah?” Is it as he met Moses, after his offence, indicating his sore displeasure? No, not a word of challenge, not a hint as to the past, not an expression of displeasure. It is thus that the God of his fathers deals with his adopted child, become now humbled and penitent, depressed, doubtful even of Divine forgiveness, still more of Divine protection and favor. W. H.

Heaven and earth have been separated by sin. But this ladder has re-established the intercourse. It is therefore a beautiful emblem of that which mediates and reconciles. It here serves to bring Jacob into communication with God, and teaches him the emphatic lesson that he is accepted through a mediator. Jehovah stood above it, and Jacob, the object of his mercy, beneath. He reveals himself to the sleeper as

Jehovah, the God of Abraham thy father, and of Isaac. It is remarkable that Abraham is styled his father, that is, his actual grandfather, and covenant father. He renews the promise of the land, of the seed, and of the blessing in that seed for the whole race of man. Westward, eastward, northward, and southward are they to break forth. This expression points to the world-wide universality of the kingdom of the seed of Abraham, when it shall become the fifth monarchy, that shall subdue all that went before, and endure forever. This transcends the destiny of the natural seed of Abraham. M.—A new sense of communication between earth and heaven came upon him, assuming a strange reality when he saw the Lord standing above, and heard him say, “I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father and the God of Isaac.” Before this Jacob had heard of that wonderful covenant of God so often ratified with his venerable grandfather and his father. The transfer of blessing from Isaac to himself as the lineal heir of both birthright and blessing was a thing of quite recent experience. How fully he had comprehended its glorious significance before does not appear; but now that he is cast out alone upon the wide, unknown world—now that he so much needs the Great God for his friend—it comes over him with solemn, precious interest. The words spoken were full of comfort. They reminded him of the great family promise to Abraham, renewed to his father Isaac: “A God to thee and to thy seed after thee,” and he felt that the promise put its finger upon his own aching, solitary heart. He had a fresh assurance that his life would not come to nought and be a failure. H. C.

12-15. The dream of Jacob is the medium of divine revelation and promise. But the inward state of Jacob at the time formed its natural basis. This dream appears much more significant when we recall to mind the feelings with which he would lay him down to rest. Thoughts accusing and excusing one another would overwhelm him and refuse to be controlled, amid the unwonted solitude and in the loneliness of his position, as night gathered around him, and all circumstances conspired to make him look into the depth of his soul. The present weighs on him as a curse which he had drawn on himself; nor is the dark future before him as yet lit up by a single ray of divine promise. He has, indeed, obtained the blessing of his father, but the divine sanction has not been given to it. Consciousness of guilt, remorse of conscience, doubts, cares, and anxieties of various kinds, only tended to deepen his sense of loneliness. If he is not to despair, he requires to be comforted and strengthened from on high. And this is now done. The dream and its vision are the reply of God to the cares and anxieties with which he has lain down to rest. The vision embodies in a symbol that which the divine promises (verses 13 to 15), of which it is the basis, declare in words. It forms a bridge between heaven and earth. Below, is the poor, helpless, and forsaken man—a representative of human nature with its inability and helplessness. But the angels of God ever descend to bring him help, and again ever ascend to fetch new deliverance. Above, Jehovah Himself stands upon it. By the promise, “I will bless thee, and in thee (and in thy seed) shall all the families of the earth be blessed,” he connects the goal with the commencement of that development, so that this forsaken and helpless man is to become the source of blessing and the medium of salvation to the whole world. It is thus that the ladder connects heaven with earth, and Jacob at the foot of it with Jehovah above it. The ladder which connects heaven with earth represents the promise, which equally joins heaven and earth, which brings down and imparts the powers of heaven to man, as the medium of the promise, yea, and in virtue of which, Jehovah Himself comes down in order that by His covenant and co-operation with him who is the medium of the promise, the goal might be attained and all the families of the earth blessed in him. All this, so far as Jacob was concerned, lay only in germ and undeveloped in the promise. But looking back on its fulfilment we know that this goal was to be attained by the descent of the fulness of the personal God into helpless and disabled human nature, through the incarnation of God in Christ. K.

The Lord expounds, as it were, this vision to him, and makes a particular application to him of the truth it shadows forth. He speaks as though that ladder were placed between heaven and earth for his sake only; as though it were for him only that he kept watch above it. “Behold,” he says, “I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest. I will not leave thee.” And thus the Lord reveals to us what we call his particular providence over his servants. Wherever we are, he declares that he sees us; he tells us he is with us; he assures us he cares for us; he pledges himself to keep us. Bradley.—Why should we not, as the spiritual seed of Jacob, catch a gleam of refreshing light from this assurance as we pass along? If God will be with us, if he will keep us in all places and circumstances, if he will never leave us nor forsake us, and if he will bring us at last to our promised and hoped-for land of rest, then may we go on our way with confidence and joy. Whoever we may leave, or whatever we may lose, still we part not from our best friend, nor are we deprived of our most valuable portion. We cannot be lonely, if God be with us. We cannot want, if he provide for us. We cannot err, if he guide us. We cannot perish, if he preserve us. And all this he will do for those that put their trust in him. Bush.—And what Jacob heard, that he also saw in symbolic vision. The promise was the real God-built stair, which reached from the lonely place on which the poor wanderer lay quite up to heaven, right into the very presence of Jehovah; and on which, all silent and unknown by the world, lay the shining track of angel-ministry. And so still to each one who is truly of Israel is the promise of that mysterious “ladder” which connects earth with heaven. Below lies poor, helpless, forsaken man; above, stands Jehovah Himself, and upon the ladder of promise which joins earth to heaven, the angels of God, in their silent, never-ceasing ministry, descend bringing help, and ascend, as to fetch new deliverance. Nay, this “ladder” is Christ, for by this “ladder” God Himself has come down to us in the person of His dear Son, Who is the promise become reality, as it is written: “Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” A. E.

16. And Jacob awaked, and said, Surely Jehovah is in this place, and I knew it not.** He had been reared in the faith that God was to be worshipped in definite localities. At the place where he did not expect anything he saw heaven; he saw some form or revelation of God. See how the greater truth dawns upon his opening mind, “Surely the Lord is in this place,” and that is the very end of our spiritual education; to find God everywhere; never to see the days whitening the eastern sky without seeing the coming of the King’s brightness; to feel that every place is praying ground; to renounce the idea of partial and official consecration, and stand in a universe every particle of which is blessed and consecrated by the presence of the infinite Creator. We have not yet attained this summit of education. We still draw a line between the Sabbath day and the day that went before it; we have still a church and a market-place; still we distribute the sum total of things into

Church and State. When God has wrought in us all the mystery of his grace, and reared us to the last fruition of wisdom possible below the skies, we shall know that there is no marketplace, no State, no business, but one great Church; every speech holy and pure as prayer, every transaction a revelation of justice. J. P.

17. And Jacob was afraid.** The Holy Spirit tells us only of Jacob’s fear. And why? To impress this truth on our minds, that the man who sees God, never trifles with him; that the soul he visits and gladdens with his mercy, he always fills with an awe of his majesty. Turn in this book to any manifestation of him you can find here—with hardly an exception, the man to whom it is made, trembles before him. But it is a fear that has no torment in it. Nothing painful gives birth to it. It springs from the nearness to us of the God who loves us; from the view we have of the power that blesses us; from the sight vouchsafed us of the holiness that bears with us; from the vastness we see, the length and breadth and depth and height, in the grace that saves us. Our fear comes not from the terrors of the Lord, but from the excellency of the Lord shining forth in the goodness of the Lord. It springs from the magnificence of that goodness. There is forgiveness with him, he tells us, that he may be feared; and we feel it must be so. Bradley.

This is none other than the gate of Heaven. Then he was enabled to look on into a far distant future; to feel that he should be interested in that which happened long after he left the earth; that he should live because his God was not the God of the dead, but of the living; that the blessings to his distant seed would be blessings to him. Here was the real difference between him and Esau. He had no feeling of a present, of a living God; therefore he was content with a mere present possession, with plenty of corn and wine and fatness of the earth. In time, no doubt, he and his posterity would feel their need of Beings to worship, of beings to protect them. They would form their gods out of the visible things in which they lived. Earth would become the archetype of Heaven, and therefore all their belief in Heaven would be something to make them more afraid of the earth, less able to till it and subdue it, less able to redeem it from the weeds and the beasts that possessed it. This is the last and highest result of the tribe of hunters, of those who seemed as if they held the earth in fee and had an undisputed right to the property of it. The wanderer in the desert, the plain man,—whose ignorance and cowardice and meanness were purged away by God’s discipline, who lived in a land which was not his own, and died an exile,—left a family out of which there grew a nation, which was itself to give birth to a universal church; which was to possess and conquer and civilize a world. Maurice.

It is the Son of Man who really bridges the interval between heaven and earth, God and man. In His person these two are united. You cannot tell whether Christ is more divine or human, more God or man—solidly based on earth, as this massive staircase, by His real humanity, by His thirty three years’ engagement in all human functions and all experiences of this life. He is yet familiar with eternity, His name is “He that came down from heaven,” and if your eye follow step by step to the heights of His person, it rests at last on what you recognize as Divine. His love it is that is wide enough to embrace God on the one hand, and the lowest sinner on the other. Truly He is the way, the stair, leading from the lowest depth of earth to the highest height of heaven. In Him you find a love that embraces you as you are, in whatever condition, however cast down and defeated, however embittered and polluted—a love that stoops tenderly to you and hopefully, and gives you once more a hold upon holiness and life, and in that very love unfolds to you the highest glory of heaven and of God.

When this comes home to a man in the hour of his need, it becomes the most arousing revelation. He springs from the troubled slumber we call life, and all earth wears a new glory and awe to him. He exclaims with Jacob, “How dreadful is this place. Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not.” The world that had been so bleak and empty to him, is filled with a majestic vital presence. Jacob is no longer a mere fugitive from the results of his own sin, a shepherd in search of employment, a man setting out in the world to try his fortune; he is the partner with God in the fulfilment of a Divine purpose. And such is the change that passes on every man who believes in the Incarnation, who feels himself to be connected with God by Jesus Christ; he recognizes the Divine intention to uplift his life, and to fill it with new hopes and purposes. He feels that humanity is consecrated by the entrance of the Son of God into it: he feels that all human life is holy ground since the Lord Himself has passed through it. Having once had this vision of God and man united in Christ, life cannot any more be to him the poor, dreary, commonplace, wretched round of secular duties and short-lived joys and terribly punished sins, it was before : but it truly becomes the very gate of heaven ; from each part of it he knows there is a staircase rising to the presence of God, and that out of the region of pure holiness and justice there flow to him heavenly aids, tender guidance, and encouragement. Dods.

18. Jacob dedicates the stone on which his head had rested, and converts it into a pillar or monument by pouring oil on the top of it. The outward import of this action is to distinguish the stone, with a view to the time when in virtue of the vow it was to become a house of God (v. 22). But in accordance with the views prevalent throughout the whole Old Testament, this action must also, and pre-eminently, have had an inward and symbolical meaning. The symbolical use of oil as an emblem of the Spirit of God, who enlightens, revives, and heals, is derived from the use of oil in common life among Orientals. In the East it is employed for giving flexibility, freshness, and health, for alleviating pain and healing diseases, for giving a flavor to food, and also for light. Hence to pour oil over anything symbolized its dedication to God and to Divine purposes. K.

20-22. The amended translation of Jacob’s vow reads thus : " If Elohim will be with me, and will protect me on this journey that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, and if I come again in peace to my father’s house, and Jehovah will be my Elohim, then this stone which I have set up as a pillar shall be Beth-Elohim ; and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely pay thee tithes." We have all said so, and some of us have never fulfilled the vow. We rose up from the bed of sickness, and said, " Hence on, every pulse is God’s, every breath a prayer." We have been delivered from danger, from poverty, from despair, and we have written our vow, and have forgotten every word of the covenant. J. P.

To what extent Christians of the present day may expect the guidance of God in the affairs of life is a practical question of the highest interest to every earnest-minded man ; and the answer to it involves the sublimest fact in religion. Of old, Jacob tested God on the plains of Bethel, in this very respect, asking " God to be with him, and keep him in the way he went, give him bread to eat and raiment to put on, so that he might come again to his father’s house in peace," and God heard the prayer in all these particulars, and thus took to himself the name of " the God of Bethel " In like manner, that ancient name, " God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob," is the memorial of his special watch and care over his children. The life of the Patriarchal religion was this, that God does by his providence shield and guide his people, that he condescends to point out the way they should take. Burlington.

The conditions of Jacob’s vow, which are simply responsive to God’s promise (v. 15), seem to denote the secret wish and desire of his soul, and not any express stipulation with God. Man certainly cannot insist on terms with his Maker ; but he may desire and humbly hope for a supply of his wants. More than this the Patriarch did not expect ; and less than this God never intended to give.

22. Tenth.** The number ten, as being the last of the cardinal numbers, expresses the idea of perfection, of a whole. Among almost all ancient people the tenth of their goods was set apart, and very frequently as a holy offering. This was an acknowledgment that the whole was God’s property ; and by this acknowledgment the possession and enjoyment of the rest are sanctified. Geel.—Thus Jacob opens his heart, his home, and his treasure to God. The spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind, has begun to reign in Jacob. As the Father is prominently manifested in regenerate Abraham, and the Son in Isaac, so also the Spirit in Jacob. M.

There is clear evidence that Jacob was now a child of God. He takes God to be his God in covenant, with whom he will live. He goes out in reliance upon the divine promise, and yields himself to the divine control. Gosman.—The sense of the nearness of God filled him with awe, incited him to adoration, pledged him to gratitude. Marking the spot with a memorial-stone, and consecrating it with a vow, he went on his way rejoicing. That place is ever nearest heaven where God’s presence is felt ; and God’s presence is felt wherever the soul looks up to him in humble, grateful, admiring love. J. P. T.