45 BETHEL AGAIN

In this passage God reminds Jacob of his vow at Beth-el, and sends him back there to act on it. (It would have been better had Jacob kept that vow and gone directly past Shechem to Bethel in the first place. He might have avoided the problems he had at Shechem if he had.) God said in verse 1 “Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.” More than twenty years earlier Jacob had said, “. . . the Lord will be my God, and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth” (Genesis 28:22). God had performed His part of the bargain, and had given Jacob more than bread to eat and raiment to put on. Jacob had gradually obtained an impressive estate, but it seems, he had forgotten his vow, or at least had put it off too long. He had been in Canaan seven or eight years now, had purchased ground there, and had built an altar in remembrance of God’s last appearance to him. Genesis 33:19 & 20 say, “For a hundred pieces of silver, he bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, the plot of ground where he pitched his tent. There he set up an altar and called it El Elohe Israel.” But still Beth-el is forgotten. Time can weaken earlier impressions we have received or sometimes we postpone our intentions. Did God allow the Dinah tragedy to remind Jacob of  his vow to return to Bethel? We don’t know. The trial did not have this effect, however, and at any rate God Himself comes and reminds him of it. As many as God loves He will remind of neglected duties, one way or another, by conscience, dreams or direct actions. What do we learn here? When we have made a vow to God, it is best not to delay doing it. Ecclesiastes 5:4 says, “When you make a vow to God, do not delay to fulfill it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfill your vow.” Still it is better to do it late than to never do it.

God told him to go to Beth-el and settle there, that is, not only go himself, but take his family with him, that they might join with him in his memories of what God had done there when Jacob saw the angels ascending and descending on a ladder extended from heaven to earth. The lessons to be learned from that ladder are worth reviewing with his family. We should desire to settle in “The House of God.” In Beth-el, the house of God, we should desire to dwell as is emphasized in one of David’s most famous verses, Psalm 27:4: “One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.” That should be our home, not a place we only visit. God does not remind Jacob of the vow directly, but of the situation which produced the vow. God reminds him not expressly of his vow, but of the situation. “. . . you were fleeing from your brother Esau” (1). The memory of former afflictions should help us remember the difficulties we struggled with when we made the vow. David helps us understand this in Psalm 66:13 & 14, “I will come to your temple with burnt offerings and fulfill my vows to you— vows my lips promised and my mouth spoke when I was in trouble.” Jacob had been in trouble and it was good for him to remember that and the lessons he learned then. What about you?

Jacob considered this a serious matter and directs his family to prepare for the journey and the spiritual things that must also be performed. Here are the directions Jacob gave his family as written in verses two and three: “Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes. Then come, let us go up to Bethel, where I will build an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone.” Before serious events, there must be serious preparations. Masters of families should use their authority for leadership in godliness. Not only we, but our houses also, should serve the Lord. Joshua would later challenge Israel with this: “But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord,” as recorded in Joshua 24:15.

Notice the commands Jacob gives his household. “Get rid of the foreign gods.” Foreign gods in Jacob’s family! Foreign things for certain! Could such a family, that was taught the good knowledge of the Lord, admit them? Could such a master, to whom God had appeared twice allow them in his family? Probably the gods were idols, but this command points us to a contemporary problem, an idol is anything that we love more than we love God. No matter how good the Christian leader or the Christian head of the family is we still cannot allow idols in our households. If we are good ourselves, fine, but let us also seek to have good people around us. In families of Christian leaders we must have an alter and no idols. In Jacob’s family, earlier Rachel had had her teraphim. Did she still have it? It is to be feared, she may have secretly made some superstitious use of them. The captives from Shechem who became a part of Jacob’s household may have had gods with them, and perhaps Jacob’s sons took some with the plunder if the gods were made of silver or gold which is likely.  However they got them, now they must put them away. Jacob’s family was also required to be clean, wear clean clothes and look and be at their best. This was appropriate. These, however, were but ceremonies, signifying the purification and change of the heart. What are clean clothes, and new clothes, without a clean and new heart? 

His family evidently surrendered all they had that was idolatrous or superstitious. Perhaps, if Jacob had called for them sooner, they would sooner have parted with them, being convicted by their own consciences of their worthlessness. Sometimes attempts for reformation succeed better than one could have expected, and people are not so obstinate against them as we feared. Jacob’s servants, and even the additions to his household, gave him all the strange gods, and the ear-rings they wore, either as charms or to the honor of their gods; they parted with all. Reformation is not sincere if it does not encompass the whole unit. Jacob took care to bury their images, we may suppose in some place unknown to them, that they might not afterwards find and return to them. They buried the idols etc. but, it would have been much better to have destroyed them in fire as Moses later commanded than to merely bury them. Deuteronomy 7:5 says “This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire.”

Jacob moved from Shechem further south to Bethel without opposition. This too was from God. “Then they set out, and the terror of God fell on the towns all around them so that no one pursued them” (5). Though the Canaanites probably became adversaries to the family of Jacob who had destroyed the Canaanites of Shechem, yet they were so restrained by a divine power that they could not take this opportunity, when Israel was on their march, to avenge their neighbors’ quarrel. The way of duty is more likely to be also the way of safety. Let’s not keep idols in our luggage. While there was sin in Jacob’s house, he was afraid of his neighbors; but now that the foreign gods were put away, and they were all going together to Bethel, his neighbors were afraid of him. When we are about God’s work, we are under God’s protection. God is with us, while we are with Him; and, if He be for us, who can be against us? This was not the only time that God did this for the Israelites. As Israel entered Canaan from Egypt many years later, God said, “I will drive out nations before you and enlarge your territory, and no one will covet your land when you go up three times each year to appear before the Lord your God” (Exodus 34:24).  God governs the world sometimes by secret terrors on men’s minds.

Jacob and his group safely arrived at Beth-el and the first thing Jacob does is build an altar “There he built an altar, and he called the place El Bethel, because it was there that God revealed himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother” (7).  If he built an altar, he no doubt offered sacrifice on it, possibly offering the tenth of his cattle according to his earlier vow to give to God a tenth of all he would have. With these sacrifices let us assume that he gave praise for former mercies, particularly what the sight of the place reminded him of and also added prayers that God’s favor to him and his family would continue. And he called the place (possible referring to the altar) El-beth-el, the God of Bethel. God had honored him by calling him by a new name, Israel, and Jacob now honors God as he worships Him by the name of El-beth-el, the God of Beth-el, because there God appeared to him. The blessings we receive in answers to prayer come not so much from Bethel, the house of God, as from El-beth-el, the God of the house. The places are but empty things if we do not meet with God in them. We may worship in a place, but we do not worship the place or just worship in a place, we worship the God of the place.

Also at Bethel, Jacob buried Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse. Genesis 24:59 tells us about the previous generation. “So they (Rebekah’s household, Bethuel and Laban etc.) sent their sister Rebekah (Jacob’s mother) on her way, along with her nurse (Deborah) and Abraham’s servant and his men.” And now many years later Jacob buries Deborah at Bethel. “Now Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died and was buried under the oak outside Bethel. So it was named Allon Bakuth.” It is honorable that Jacob honored this faithful servant of the family.

Another more important event, however, occurred in Bethel. There God appeared to him. The narrative does not mention the time that had elapsed since Jacob had returned from Paddan-Aram, it simply says, “After Jacob returned from Paddan Aram, God appeared to him again and blessed him” (9). God accepted Jacob’s altar by responding to the name by which Jacob had called him, The God of Beth-el. God will appear to those in a way of grace that attend Him in the way of duty. God confirms the change of his name, “God said to him, ‘Your name is Jacob, but you will no longer be called Jacob; your name will be Israel.’ So he named him Israel” (10). It was done before by the angel that wrestled with him “Then the man said, ‘Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome’” (Genesis 32:28). And here it was ratified by the divine Majesty, however that was or in whatever form God Himself appeared to him. God’s earlier appearance at Bethel was to encourage him against the fear of Esau, here it was to encourage him against the fear of the Canaanites. Who, Esau or the Canaanites, can be too hard for Israel, a prince with God? Neither should we who have been dignified by the name “Christian” despondently go about with our heads down.

God renewed and ratified the covenant with Jacob. “And God said to him, ‘I am God Almighty; be fruitful and increase in number.’” Then God promises two things:  Firstly, “A nation and a community of nations will come from you, and kings will be among your descendants (11). And secondly, You will have this land. “The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I also give to you, and I will give this land to your descendants after you.” (12). He will not have children without an estate, which happens to the poor, nor an estate without children, which is sometimes the grief of the rich; but both, an estate and children. And what about us? We too have an eternal promised land and converts and followers we can take with us. 

He then went up from him, “Then God went up from him at the place where he had talked with him” (13). The sweetest communions the saints have with God in this world are short, and soon have an end. Our vision of God in heaven, however, will be everlasting; there we shall ever be with the Lord; it is not like that here. Better to have a visit from God and experience the end of that visit than to not have had the visit. We may well feel sorry for anyone who has never had the experience of a visit from the Lord.