And God appeared to Jacob again after he had come from Padan-Aram, and blessed him.
Jacob has come back to Bethel, where God first met him years before, and God appears there a second time. Why did God wait for this spot? And why does the blessing come with no conditions?
The word "again" covers a great deal of ground. Years of delay lie between the first Bethel and this one:
Jacob's steps to Bethel had been slow indeed. His stay in Paddan-aram was long. Then came delay in Succoth and in Shechem. At last sin and sorrow, shame and fear drove him out — yet God was always faithful and true.
Scripture passes over all of it. The verse treats Jacob as if he had only just arrived from Paddan-aram:
Everything shows that now he has really reached the goal. All his journeys in the land are passed over in the quiet words which treat him as just come back to it.
Earlier, Jacob had wrestled with God for a blessing. Here nothing of the kind happens:
He appeared to Jacob, and there was no wrestling. He appeared to him and blessed him. It all comes from God. God speaks freely and fully. He does not ask, "What is your name?" He had called his name Israel before. That was part of the discipline and exercise, though it gave him strength. Now He takes it into His own hands and gives it of Himself. It is not Jacob wrestling for the blessing; he does not even have to ask God His name.
What God does not say is as striking as what He says. He brings up nothing from Jacob's past:
God at this hour speaks with Jacob, without saying anything at all about his experiences. He had been unfaithful, so these experiences were needed to chasten him and empty him of himself. God Himself appeared to him now, unasked... He gave him the name of Israel, as if He had not given it to him before. And He reveals His name to him, though Jacob never asked for it.
Jacob had already received the name Israel at Peniel, where he wrestled with God, yet God gives it to him again here:
As if to show how practically ineffective Peniel had been, He gives him afresh the name which He had given him there. "And God said to him, Your name is Jacob" — still Jacob! — "no longer shall your name be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name." So we learn this: if weakness is the secret of strength — and it is — that strength is only for walking in God's ways. Israel must come to Bethel to be Israel.
The new name is God's own act, and with it He takes away a reproach:
The same grace that refused to call him Jacob any more declares his name from now on to be Israel; and He who loves to roll away every reproach from off His people writes this new name upon him, sealing it as His own act, for "He called his name Israel."
The name the verse uses for God fits the kind of blessing He gives:
It was no longer Jacob begging God for His blessing: God of His own accord appeared and blessed him... The blessing is gracious, but it is in a lower key and more general in character, as suited the name God (Elohim) rather than the name LORD (Jehovah). Still, God truly revealed Himself to Jacob, unasked, as He had to Abraham and Isaac, by the title that belonged to those fathers: El-Shaddai, God Almighty. None of them needed that assurance of protecting power as much as that "worm" Jacob.
One promise from the first Bethel is missing here, because God had already kept it:
In some respects this is almost a repetition of what God said the first time at Bethel, except that He did not say, "I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land." God had accomplished His purpose in Jacob. All He did then was to tell him two things. First, He drew attention to His own Person: He was God Almighty. Second, He drew attention to His promise, which could not fail. He remained as He was, and His promises could not change.
Bethel means "house of God." Jacob's recovery is complete there, not at Shechem:
At Shechem, Jacob called his altar "El-elohe-Israel," that is, "God, the God of Israel." But at Bethel, the true standpoint, he called his altar "El-beth-el," that is, God — the house of God. This was true restoration. Jacob was brought back, after all his wanderings, to the very point from which he had started. Nothing less than this could ever satisfy God regarding His servant.
- Again. God's second appearance comes at the same spot as the first, and Scripture skips the years between as though Jacob had only just come back.
- Unasked. No wrestling, no begging — God appears of His own accord and blesses, and Jacob does not even have to ask His name.
- Unmentioned. God says nothing about Jacob's failures; the chastening had done its work of emptying him of himself.
- Renamed. God gives the Peniel name again and seals it as His own act — Israel must come to Bethel to be Israel.
- Unchanging. The blessing rests on two things that cannot move: God Almighty Himself, and a promise that cannot fail.
And God said to him, Thy name is Jacob thy name shall not henceforth be called Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name. And he called his name Israel.
At Bethel God appears to Jacob a second time and names him Israel. But Jacob already had that name from Peniel, years earlier — so why give it again here, as if for the first time?
The two names carry two histories. One came to Jacob at birth; God gives the other. Notice how God speaks here:
His name is not to be called Jacob any more, the supplanter, but Israel, the wrestler or prince of God. The manner is striking. For God speaks of it as if it were given then, and not merely confirmed. That suited a man who had come back to the land, and was not a fugitive from his father's house.
Some read Genesis 32 and Genesis 35 as two versions of one story. The two scenes differ in character:
God confirms the name of Israel to Jacob; but there is no double account of its origin. On the first occasion God had a controversy with Jacob. Yet He blesses him, strengthens him to prevail in the conflict, and gives him the name of Israel — "a prince who prevailed with God." Still He chastises him, and does not reveal Himself to him (Genesis 32:28). After this Jacob goes up to the place of his real meeting with God in blessing. He puts away idols out of his house, knowing he is going to meet Him. Then God begins by freely revealing His name, and confirms to Jacob the title He had given him before.
Between Peniel and Bethel, people still called him Jacob. Where God met him mattered:
Here at Bethel God appears to Jacob again to bless him. He confirms that His servant's name was Jacob — which was not to be forgotten — and yet he was to be called Israel. This name was to have its full significance in God's place for him. It speaks of the dignity to which God had raised him by grace, "a prince with God." God had changed his name before (Genesis 32:28), yet people still spoke of him only as Jacob until he came to Bethel. In fact, even after this he is sometimes called Israel, but more often Jacob.
At Peniel God asked Jacob his name, and Jacob held on for the blessing. Here God asks for nothing, and Jacob drags nothing out of Him:
He appeared to Jacob, and there was no wrestling. He appeared to him and blessed him. It is all coming from God — God speaking freely and fully, not asking, "What is your name?" He had called his name Israel before. That was part of the discipline and exercise, though it gave him strength. He is now taking it into His own hands and giving it of Himself. It is not Jacob wrestling for the blessing; he does not even have to ask God His name.
The verse does not stop at the announcement. The last clause carries the weight:
The same grace that refused to call him Jacob any more declares that from now on his name is Israel. He loves to roll away every reproach from off His people. So He writes this new name upon him, sealing it as His own act, for "He called his name Israel."
Speaking the name as if for the first time also passes over the years since Peniel. That is not a comfortable thought:
"He called his name Israel" — blotting out in one sense all the history from the day when that name was first given to him. It is a sorrowful reflection for the heart when time past is, so to speak, time lost.
Jacob reached Bethel only after telling his household to put away their foreign gods. One writer turns this on the reader:
There has been inconsistency. Perhaps you have been away from God, and you have had chastening to remind you of it. God must have you with Himself to bring out what is there. He will bring your own name up. You won't get Israel without being Jacob with God.
- Name one. Jacob means the supplanter — the name he carried from birth, and the name God makes him own before anything changes.
- Name two. Israel means prince of God — a dignity Jacob never earned, and here he does not even wrestle for it.
- Named twice. Peniel gave the name under chastening. Bethel gives it in open blessing. This is confirmation, not a rival account.
- Named by God. The verse ends with God Himself doing the calling, sealing the new name as His own act.
- Named where you stand. The name took hold only when Jacob reached God's place and left the idols behind. No one gets Israel without first being Jacob with God.