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.
And God said to him, I am the Almighty God be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee; and kings shall come out of thy loins.
At Bethel, Jacob buries the household idols. God then appears to him again and tells him His name. What follows is a promise of children, nations and kings — tied not to the schemer Jacob, but to the man God has just renamed Israel.
The command to go up to Bethel exposed what Jacob had been carrying for years. One writer follows the order of events.
God says, "Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there." The moment God says so, out comes what Jacob knew all along he had never finished with. There was a pile of idols in the house, and now he thinks about it. He knew about them all along; but there is no real putting away of idols until we come into the presence of God. Notice: once the idols were buried, the first thing God did was to tell him His name. He had not done so before, but now it is the first thing. God appeared to him and said, "I am God Almighty" — the name He had given Himself to Abraham.
God had held that name back until now. One writer explains the delay as God's own reserve:
God was faithful to Jacob, but Jacob was not yet faithful to God. God still kept up reserve, and could not yet reveal His name as He did to Abraham and Isaac, and would in due time to Jacob (Gen. 35:11). There was not the self-judgment that made the way for it.
The title is El Shaddai. Writers read its two parts in more than one way.
Writers say the word El means strength, or omnipotence. Some think Shaddai means the same. Others prefer to render it all-sufficient, or self-sufficiency. Either way, the two words together carry divine attributes. Only God has omnipotence and all-sufficiency.
Of the three fathers given this title, Jacob needed it most.
Still God reveals Himself to Jacob, truly and unasked, as He did to Abraham and Isaac, by the title that belonged to the fathers: El-Shaddai, God Almighty. No one of the fathers needed that assurance of protecting might as much as that "worm" Jacob.
The renaming in verse 10 is spoken as if it had never happened before. One writer hears God dropping the old name entirely:
Jacob has got rid of all his strange gods, and he is meeting God where God can reveal Himself, and give him the new name of "Israel." He does it now as if He had never done it before. 'I know nothing,' He says, 'of the supplanter, you are now strong with God.'
That change of name carries weight for everything promised in verse 11. The blessing is not hung on the man who bought a birthright with a bowl of stew.
Unbelief drove God back on Himself. He fixes Jacob in his place on earth as Jacob the supplanter — "Your name is Jacob." And He hangs His purposes on the new man, Israel: even Jacob's own promises, the birthright bought with a bowl of stew.
The same might that brought Jacob home stands behind what God now promises.
He had shown His sovereign might in keeping His promise to greatly bless Jacob and bring him back to the land. Now He will show that power again. He will multiply Jacob's descendants, make him into a nation and a company of nations, and decide that kings would come from him. His promise in Genesis 28:13-15 had been absolute, with no conditions attached. This promise is also unconditional, but adds the words about "a nation and a company of nations" and kings.
Who is the "company of nations"? One writer answers from Israel's own history.
Some say this refers to the great nations of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and so on. But note that Jacob was the father of the twelve tribes. Why should this promise be limited to ten of them? Kings certainly came from Jacob's body, as we see in the long line from David to Zedekiah. The children of Israel did become a nation, and the twelve tribes were like twelve nations making up the nation.
Each name God reveals sets the terms for those who receive it.
"Jehovah" is the name of relationship taken with Israel, as "Shaddai" with the patriarchs. God revealed Himself to the fathers as "El Shaddai," and they were to walk in the faith of that name. He revealed Himself as Jehovah to Moses and Israel, and they were to walk in the faith of that. He has revealed Himself to us as Father, and so we are to walk.
- Bury — The idols only came out when Jacob came into God's presence. Nothing else brings hidden things to light.
- Name — The moment Jacob buried them, God gave the name He had held back: El Shaddai, the omnipotent and all-sufficient One.
- Rename — God does not build on Jacob the supplanter. He hangs His purposes on the new man, Israel.
- Promise — A nation, a company of nations and kings hang on that new name, with no conditions. Israel's own history met it: twelve tribes, and kings from David to Zedekiah.
- Walk — Each name God gives is meant to be lived on. The fathers walked by Shaddai, Israel by Jehovah, and we by Father.
And the land that I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land.
God meets Jacob again at Bethel, the place where He first made Himself known to him years before. This time God comes unasked, and gives him the land He had already promised to Abraham and Isaac — two men who died owning none of it.
Jacob did not ask for this meeting. God takes the initiative, and speaks to him as He once spoke to Abraham:
God Himself appeared to him now, though Jacob had not asked Him to. We read in Genesis 35:9, "God appeared to Jacob again, when he came from Paddan-aram, and blessed him." He gave him the name of Israel, as if He had not given it to him before. And He reveals His own name to him, though Jacob never asked for it. He talks with him as He once did with Abraham. He renews the promises, and confirms them to him — at least those which relate to Israel. And when He had finished speaking with him, God went up from him, for He had visited him.
God had already set the terms at this same place, years before:
At Bethel, in Genesis 28, God declared what He would be for Jacob and to Jacob. He raised no question about Jacob's response or behaviour. Now God is always true to Himself and to His word. Before God gave the law through Moses, He was dealing with these patriarchs on the basis of His promises in grace, and those promises stand.
In the same breath God calls Himself "God Almighty". That name carried a guarantee long before Jacob heard it:
As the Almighty, God promised to be a God to Abraham and to his descendants after him (Gen. 17:7)... The Name of the Almighty assured Abraham that God would do all He had promised. Isaac blessed Jacob in the Name of the Almighty (Gen. 28:3). And when God changed Jacob's name to Israel, He said, "I am God Almighty… The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you" (Gen. 35:9–12). Jacob uses the Name of the Almighty in Genesis 43:14, 48:3 and 49:25. He knew the almighty power of the One who had blessed him despite all his failures.
The verse gives the land twice over — to Jacob, and to his descendants. Commentators place this in a line of promises that carry no strings:
In Genesis 15 the promise rests on a covenant God made with Abraham, again without condition. It is an absolute gift of the country... In Genesis 17:7-8, the promise of the earth is renewed. These are confirmed to Isaac (Gen. 26:3-4), and to Jacob (Gen. 35:10, 12). These are "the promises made to the fathers," and to Israel, "beloved for the sake of the fathers." God made them to Abraham without any condition, whether spiritual or earthly.
God speaks as if the land were already handed over, yet Abraham and Isaac died owning none of it. That gap carries a startling conclusion:
God never gave Abraham, Isaac or Jacob actual possession of the land of Israel while they were alive in their natural bodies. Yet He did promise them the land — not just to their children, but to themselves. So they must rise again to have that land promised to them. God gave them the land in promise, but they never owned it. They must therefore own it another day. And they cannot own it while they are dead, so they must live again to actually have the promised land.
Jacob receives the same promise of nations and kings that Abraham had. But this promise has a border:
He has, like Abraham in Gen. 17, the promise of nations and kings from his line; but nothing here goes beyond the bounds and glory of Israel and the land.
Jacob answers with a stone pillar — his third. The first two show what has changed:
His first had been one of confidence in the flesh (Gen. 28:18-22); his second was the pillar of broken confidence (Gen. 31:45), showing how untrustworthy the flesh is. This third is the pillar of confidence in God. This time he makes no vow. Instead he pours a drink offering and oil on the pillar, showing his genuine appreciation of God's faithfulness and grace.
- Grace first. God appears unasked and says nothing about Jacob's failures; the promises rest on God's word, not on Jacob's behaviour.
- Almighty backs it. God gives the land as "God Almighty" — the name that assured Abraham He would do all He promised.
- Given, not offered. God attaches no conditions, and the same unconditional promise runs from Abraham through Isaac to Jacob.
- Resurrection implied. Abraham and Isaac died without owning a foot of it, so they must live again to receive what God promised.
- Bounded but sure. God's promise here reaches no further than Israel and the land, and within those borders it stands.
And God went up from him in the place where he had talked with him.
At Bethel God had just appeared to Jacob, named Himself God Almighty, confirmed the name Israel and renewed the promises. Then, in the same place, He went up — and that quiet departure says much about the meeting Jacob had just had.
One writer traces the order of events at Bethel: buried idols, then a revealed name, then the parting.
There is no real putting away of idols until we get into the presence of God. Notice: when the idols are buried, the first thing God did was to tell him His name. He did not before, but now that is the first thing: "God appeared to him and said to him, I am God Almighty," the name He had given Himself to Abraham. And then, though the conversation was short, and there was no intercession for others, God went up from him just as He did from Abraham. You do not get as much bright blessing here, but God does reveal Himself now and talks with Jacob and does not wrestle with him.
The wording here is not new. God used similar terms of Abraham in Genesis 17:22, and one commentator calls it a favour to both men.
"Then God went up from him in the place where he had spoken with him." We may compare this favour to Jacob with the similar terms used of Abraham in Genesis 17:22. What grace to both! And what an unspeakable difference from the mythological dreams of gods mixing with Gentile mankind, even if these had been true!
That earlier scene also settles the timing of the departure. God was not interrupted and did not leave early:
God went up from him. He was talking with Abraham, and went only when He had finished. Abraham could present the desires of his heart to Elohim (God), and had a full answer, but God had His own purpose.
Why does God go up at all, instead of staying at Bethel? Because at this stage of the story He comes to His people but keeps no address on earth.
Creation denies the Lord God a rest or a dwelling, because of the sin that defiled it. He must rise and depart. It could not be His rest, for it was polluted. So we see Him at once as a stranger in the world His hands have made. This was not His place of staying. He visits His chosen ones who are in it. But in the days of the patriarchs — with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — He does not make it a home. He communicates with them in marked, personal closeness, but He seeks no place on the earth. Still, He has a dwelling place here — in His purpose, and in what is still to come.
Jacob reached Bethel after years of struggle. One writer puts all such experience in its place.
Experiences are useful to bring us to God, but they all disappear when God reveals Himself.
Not every writer reads the departure as kindness. One writer takes the going up as a real withdrawal: God is finished with Jacob under that name, and what Jacob does next at the spot counts for little.
Jacob is passed over, and God's Israel alone is in view in this promise. So God went up from him in the place where He talked with him. He would never again acknowledge him in His record while he was in the land of Canaan, until by faith he goes out to God's separated man in Egypt. All is now lost for Jacob as such. He may set up a pillar of stone. He may begin his act of worship with an offering of thanksgiving. He may call the place where God spoke with him Bethel. But it comes to nothing.
So the same short sentence carries two readings: a gracious visit completed, or a solemn withdrawal. Commentators differ on the weight of the departure, not on the fact. God spoke with Jacob in that place, and then went up.
- Cleared — the idols went into the ground before God spoke His name. No one really puts idols away until he comes into God's presence.
- Spoken — Bethel was conversation, not conflict. God revealed Himself and talked with Jacob instead of wrestling with him.
- Finished — He went up only when He had finished; the departure marks a completed word, not an interrupted one.
- Visiting — God came near but kept no home on a defiled earth; He visited His chosen ones without seeking a place on it.
- Outlasting — the experiences that brought Jacob here fade when God reveals Himself. The revelation is what remains, not the struggle.
And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he had talked with him, a pillar of stone, and poured on it a drink-offering, and poured oil on it.
Jacob is back at Bethel, and God has just appeared to him again and named him Israel. What Jacob does next — a stone pillar, wine poured out, oil poured out — is the first drink offering recorded in Scripture.
Jacob sets the pillar where God had spoken with him. One writer sees the spot itself as marked by grace.
Is it any wonder that Jacob set up a pillar of stone to mark that spot of divine grace? He poured a drink offering and oil upon it. He called its name Bethel with a fullness of honour unknown before.
Jacob had named this place Bethel years earlier. Now he names it again.
And now God reveals Himself almighty, as He did with Abraham, and confirms to Jacob the promise He had made to Abraham. Jacob sets up his pillar of stone, and pours his drink offering and oil upon it. He too names the place afresh — Bethel, as if he had never named it before. And he had never named it with understanding.
The first time God spoke to him here, Jacob bargained and made a vow. This time is different.
Jacob has his "Bethel." God had spoken to him from the top of the ladder, but now He comes down… This is not the half-fearing, half-worshipping cry, "How awesome is this place." He had been a "supplanter." His name, as a man, was "Jacob." But God will not give him that name. "Israel" is God's name for him… He has revealed Himself as "God Almighty," and Jacob can name the place "the house of God."
One writer weighs why this offering comes where it does.
I have long thought the "drink offering" was not so much the sacrifice — it was not a sacrifice at all. It was the divine delight gained as the result of a work done both for the pleasure of God and the blessing of His creature. That is why it always comes in last… Jacob poured out the first "drink offering" ever recorded in Scripture, Gen. 35:14. Here, I gather, it was the result of God's dealings with Jacob. At last he is in full communion with God, and from then on he moves in a way that pleases God… The sacrifice was offered up and so consumed. The "drink offering" was poured out and so remains.
A Bible dictionary sets out what the poured-out wine pictures:
This offering was not usually made on its own, but see Genesis 35:14… The drink offering may picture joy in the Spirit, in the sense of the value of Christ's work done for God's glory.
The pillar is Jacob's answer. He is answering God's settled purpose to bless him still.
God makes known the settled disposition of His heart still to bless Jacob. What comes of it is that Jacob puts up a pillar and pours a drink offering upon it, and oil upon it. He learns that God would still bless him, and he responds now to God. God has this in mind for us too. He would not only bless us in our circumstances. He would give us such a sense of Who He is, and that He is for us, that we adore Him as the God Who has shepherded us all our life.
Jacob once bargained with God here. One writer turns that into a warning.
No one will escape this moral distance by doing as Jacob did, and joining him as a bargainer with God, or a vow-maker. We must be receivers, and not givers. We must stay under the new name of Israel (after the wrestling is finished), for we are dead. Then "the fruit of the Spirit" takes the character David gave to his offerings and the offerings of the princes: "Of your own have we given you." Whatever comes from God goes back to Him in the sweet savour of Christ, who produces it in us.
Commentators differ here. One takes the act as coming too late in Jacob's story to count for much:
He may set up a pillar, a pillar of stone. He may open his act of worship with an offering of thanksgiving. He may call the place where God spoke with him Bethel. But it comes to nothing. He has no heart, and God no grace, until in Egypt he finds his forerunner, God's Heir.
- God speaks first. Jacob plants the pillar where God had talked with him — a stone marking a spot of grace, honoured as never before.
- Grace renames. God refuses the old name and gives His own, "Israel," before Jacob pours anything out. The response follows the blessing; it never buys it.
- Poured, not bargained. The first Bethel produced a vow and a tenth; this one produces wine and oil — receiving before giving, "Of your own have we given you."
- Joy that remains. The sacrifice is consumed and gone. The drink offering is poured out and stays — joy in the Spirit over a work done for God's pleasure.
- A man in communion. Commentators differ over how far Jacob had come. Still, the offering marks a man no longer wrestling, brought to adore the God who shepherded him all his life.
And Jacob called the name of the place where God had talked with him, Beth-el.
Jacob had named this spot years before. Now God has met him a second time, and he gives it the same name again. So what had changed, if not the word?
The name records what happened there: God spoke with him. One writer points to the difference in this second meeting — God came down to him — and to the name God revealed as He did so:
Jacob has his "Bethel." God had spoken to him from the top of the ladder, but now He comes down... He had been a "supplanter," a man who took another's place by scheming; his name, as a man, was "Jacob," but God will not give him that name. "Israel" is God's name for him... He has revealed Himself as "God Almighty," and Jacob is able to name the place "the house of God."
Some readers treat the two namings as proof that two separate stories were joined together here. One writer answers that the account itself calls the place Bethel before Jacob even arrives:
God appeared to Jacob when he left the land of Canaan, and he called the place "Bethel." On his return, God tells him to go up there, already calling it Bethel. Then God appears to Jacob there a second time, and Jacob confirms the name "Bethel." He had two reasons for it. But the second part of the story calls the place Bethel before he even gets there. The case is very simple and very clear, and there is no reason to speak of these as two separate, independent accounts.
Another writer says the second naming reads like a first, because Jacob spoke the first one without understanding it:
And now God reveals Himself as Almighty, as He did with Abraham, and confirms to Jacob the promise He had made to Abraham. Jacob sets up his pillar of stone and pours his drink offering and oil on it. He too names the place again — Bethel, as if he had never named it before. And he had not named it with understanding before.
Jacob had set up stones before, and one writer counts three of them. He reads each pillar by what Jacob was trusting at the time:
Then Jacob sets up his third pillar, which is his second at Bethel. His first was one of confidence in himself; his second was the pillar of broken confidence, showing that human nature cannot be trusted. This third is the pillar of confidence in God. This time he makes no vow, but pours a drink offering and oil on the pillar, which shows his genuine appreciation of the faithfulness and grace of God. He had named the place before, but naming it a second time surely shows that the meaning of this name has become vital and real to him.
Another writer contrasts what struck Jacob on each of his two visits:
On his first visit to Bethel, the holy character of the place struck him — God was in it. On his second visit, the grace and faithfulness of God filled his mind. So when he set the pillar up again, his first act expressed what he felt — feelings stirred by what God had just said to him.
Bethel means "house of God," yet no building stood there. One writer traces the title to God recording His name in mercy on that spot — and later on a bare threshing floor:
Wherever He records His name there is His house. Ornan's threshing floor was given the same honour long afterwards that Luz is given here, and on the same ground... For it was the place, like this Bethel of Jacob's, where mercy had triumphed over judgment, where God was revealing Himself in the abundance of His grace, and there faith sees the house of God.
One writer warns that calling a place God's house and submitting to its order are two different things:
He raised a pillar up and called it God's house, but he still kept going the wrong way. I expect many people have some respect for God's house and yet have no intention of submitting to the order of God's house... On the spot where Jacob raised the pillar there was a wilderness, but it was where God was. That is the important thing about God's house: it is where God Himself is.
- Named — Jacob calls the place Bethel, "house of God," because God spoke with him there. The meeting gives the name, not the monument.
- Named again — the repeat is no contradiction. The account calls the site Bethel before Jacob arrives; he only confirms it.
- Named knowingly — the second naming reads like a first, because Jacob spoke the first one without understanding it.
- Named without conditions — the earlier pillar came with a vow. This one carries a drink offering: confidence in God, not in himself.
- Named as a claim — respect for God's house is easy; submitting to its order is the harder lesson. What makes a spot matter is that God Himself is there.