Bible Commentaries

4. The departure to Bethel. Genesis 35:1-8.—And God said to Jacob.—The warning to depart comes from Elohim, and hence Knobel and Delitzsch regard the section in Genesis 35 as Elohistic, though Knobel thinks the Jehovist has made additions. Without regard to this, we can easily see, that God, who is to hold the Canaanites under his fear, so that they shall not take revenge on the house of Jacob, must be called Elohim. Although Jacob had suffered nearly ten years to elapse since his return from Mesopotamia, without fulfilling the vow he had made ( Genesis 28:20) at Bethel, when he fled from Esau (Keil), we are not, therefore, to infer that he had been regardless of his duty during these ten years. For a perfect security against Esau was a part of that which was to complete his happy return; but there arose a necessity between Peniel and Succoth, that he must not only have security for himself and his family, against the persecutions of Esau; but against his officious importunity, before he could go beyond Shechem with his whole train. Hence his sojourn at Succoth and Shechem. But when he is now reminded of a duty, too slowly fulfilled, the motive is found not merely in the vow which he has to fulfil, but in the circumstances occasioned by his sons, which make his longer stay at Shechem unsafe, to which we must, doubtless, add, that in the mean-while the relations and distinctions between his house and that of Esau, were more securely and permanently established. Have not the sons, who formerly were easily infatuated to render homage to their stately uncle, now manifested in an extreme way their Israelitish consciousness? The recollection ( Genesis 31:30) proves that Jacob cherished the consciousness of his duty. He seems, indeed, to have gone too far in his precautionary tardiness. In seeking to entirely avoid Esau, he is entangled with the Shechemites. The call and warning also—Make an altar at Bethel—informs him that the time for his complete return home has now come.—Up to Bethel.—Bethel lay in the mountain region.—Put away the strange gods.—The shock that Jacob had experienced by the rape of Dinah, the crime of his sons, the imperilled existence of his family, and the divine warning immediately following, strengthens his sense of the holiness of God, and of the sinfulness in himself and his household, and he enjoins, therefore, an act of repentance, before he can enter upon the act of thanksgiving. He has, moreover, to confess, in reference to his house, the sins of a refined idolatry, the sins of his sons at Shechem, and his own sins of omission. His love for Rachel had, doubtless, led him weakly to tolerate her teraphim until now. But now he has grown strong and decided even in respect to Rachel. The fanatical Israelitish zeal of his sons had also a better element, which may have quickened his monotheistic feeling. Since the majority of Jacob’s servants came from the circle and influence of the Nahorites, whose image-worship was viewed by the stricter Israelitish thought as idolatry ( Exodus 20; Joshua 24:2), there were probably to be found in Jacob’s house other things, besides the teraphim of Rachel, which were regarded as the objects of religious veneration. But the purification was necessary, not merely because they were now to remove to Bethel, the place of the outward revelation of Jehovah (Knobel), but because the spirit of Jehovah utters stronger demands in the conscience of Jacob, and because the approaching thanksgiving must be sanctified by a foregoing repentance. [There is good ground for the conjecture that there was a special reason for the charge now, since in the spoil of the city there would be images of gold and silver.—A.G.]—And be clean.—The acts take place in the following order: 1. The putting away of the strange gods; 2. A symbolical purification, completed, with out any doubt, through religious washings ( Exodus 29:4; and similar passages); and3. The change of garments. In some cases ( Exodus 19:20) a mere washing of the garments was held to be sufficient, here the injunction is more strict, since the pollution has been of longer duration. In Knobel’s view they were to put on their best garments, but they would scarcely go on their mountain journey in such array. The changed garments express the state of complete purification, even externally.—Unto God who answered me.—He will thus fulfil his vow, and hold a thanksgiving feast with them.—And all their ear-rings.—They followed the injunction of Jacob so strictly, that they not only gave up the religious images, but also their amulets (chains), for the ear-rings were especially so used (see Winer: Real Wörterbuch, Amulets).—And Jacob hid them.—As stripped and dead human images they are buried as the dead ( Isaiah 2:20).—Under the oak (Terebinth).—Knobel: “In the Terebinth grove at Shechem, i.e, under one of its trees (comp. Genesis 12:6; Judges 6:11). According to Genesis 12:7, and other passages, it was a grove. We must, therefore, read here חָאַלָּח, as in Joshua 24:26, by the same author, to whom belongs also Exodus 32:2, or assume that there were both kinds of trees in the grove.”—And the terror of God was upon.—The genuine repentance in the house of Jacob was followed by the blessing of divine protection against the bloody revenge with which he was threatened from those who dwelled near Shechem. God himself, as the protecting God of Jacob, laid this terror upon them, which may have been introduced on the one hand, through the outrage of Shechem (Knobel); and on the other, through the fearful power of Jacob’s sons, their holy zeal, and that of their God.—Luz, which is in the land of Canaan.—The words appear to be added, in order to fix the fact, that Jacob had now accomplished his prosperous return. [The name Luz, almond tree, still recurs, as the almond tree is still flourishing. Murphy.—A. G.]—And all the people.—The number of Jacob’s servants, both in women and children, may have been considerably increased through the sudden overthrow of Shechem. Although Jacob would have restored all, as some have conjectured, the heads of the families to whom this restitution could be made were wanting.—That is Bethel.—There is no contradiction, as Knobel thinks, between this passage and Genesis 28:19, which is to be explained upon the assumption of an Elohistic account, but as ( Genesis 35:15) a confirmation of the new name which Jacob gave the city. Luz is so called by the Canaanites now, as it was before, although a solitary wanderer had named the place, where he spent the night, more than twenty years before, Bethel.—El-Bethel. He names the altar itself, as he had also the altar at Shechem ( Genesis 33:20) and still further the place surrounding the altar, and thus declared its consecration as a sanctuary. El, too, is here in the genitive, and to be read of God; the place is not called God of Bethel, but of the God of Bethel. He thus evidently connects this consecration with the earlier revelation of God received at Bethel.¹—Then Deborah died.—The nurse of Rebekah had gone with her to Hebron, but how came she here? Delitzsch conjectures that Rebekah had sent her, according to the promise ( Genesis 27:45), or to her daughter-in-law and grandchildren, for their care; but we have ventured the suggestion that Jacob took her with him upon his return from a visit to Hebron. She found her peculiar home in Jacob’s house, and with his children after the death of Rebekah. For other views see Knobel, who naturally prefers to find a difficulty even here. It is a well-known method of exaggerating all the blanks in the Bible into diversities and contradictions.—Allonbachuth.—Oak of weeping. Delitzsch conjectures that perhaps Judges 4:5; 1 Samuel 16:3, refer to the same tree as a monument, a conjecture which, however, the locality itself refutes.—And God appeared unto Jacob.—The distinction between God spake and God appeared is analogous to the distinction in the mode of revelation ( Genesis 12 Genesis 35:1; Genesis 35:7). “He now appears to him,” Keil says, “by day in visible form: for the darkness of that former time of anguish has now given way to the clear light of salvation. The representation is incorrect, and is based upon the assumption, that the night revelations are confined to times of trouble.—Again.—Now, at his return when the vow has been paid, as before in his migration, when the vow was occasioned and made. But now Jehovah appears to him as his God, according to his vow, then shall the Lord be my God. [When he came out of Padanaram.—This explains the clause ( Genesis 35:6), which is in the land of Canaan. Bethel was the last point in the laud of Canaan that was noticed in his flight from Esau. His arrival at this point indicates that he has now returned to the land of Canaan. Murphy, p427.—A. G.]—And blessed him.—So also Abraham was blessed repeatedly.—Thy name is Jacob?—We read the phrase according to its connection with Genesis 32:27, as a question. Then Jacob answered to the question “what is thy name? Jacob. Here God resumes the thread again, thou art Jacob? But if any one is not willing to read the words as a question, it still marks a progress. The name Israel was given to him at Peniel, here it is sealed to him. Hence it is here connected with the Messianic promise. [Murphy suggests also that the repetition of the name here implies a decline in his spiritual life between Peniel and Bethel.—A. G.]—I am God Almighty.—This self-applied title of God has the same significance here as it had in the revelation of God for Abraham ( Genesis 17:1); there he revealed himself as the miracle-working God, because he had promised Abraham a son; here, however, because he promises to make from Jacob’s family a community [assembly.—A. G.] of nations. [The kahal is significant as it refers to the ultimate complete fulfilment of the promise in the true spiritual Israel.—A. G.]² Knobel sees here only an Elohistic statement of the fact which has already appeared of the new naming of Jacob, which, too, he regards as a mere poetic fiction. According to this supposition, Israel here cannot be warrior of God, but, perhaps, prince with God. Even Delitzsch wavers between the assumption of an Elohistic redaction or revision, and the apprehension and recognition of new elements, which, of course, favor the idea of a new fact. To these new elements belong the libation, the drink-offering (probably of wine), poured upon the stone anointed with oil, Jacob’s own reference to this revelation of God at Bethel ( Genesis 48:3), and the circumstance that Hosea 12:5, can only refer to this revelation. Under a closer observation of the development of Jacob’s faith, there cannot be any question as to the confounding the theophany at Peniel with a second theophany at Bethel. It must be observed, too, that henceforth the patriarch is sometimes called Jacob, and sometimes Israel. [This is the first mention of the drink-offering in the Bible.—A. G.]

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. We view Jacob’s settlement at Succoth: a. In the light of a building of booths and houses for refreshment, after a twenty years’ servitude, and the toils and soul-conflicts connected with his journeyings (comp. the station Elim, Exodus 15:27, where Israel first rested); b. As a station where he might regain his health, so that he could come to Shechem well and in peace; c. As a station where he could tarry for a time on account of Esau’s importunity (comp. Exegetical notes).

2. Jacob’s places of abode in Canaan, in their principal stations, are the same with those of his grandfather Abraham. He settles down in the vicinity of Shechem, as formerly Abraham had done in the oak groves of Moreh ( Genesis 12:6). Then he removed to Bethel, just as Abraham had gone into the same vicinity ( Genesis 12:8), and after his wandering to Egypt returned here again to Bethel. At last he comes to Hebron, which had been consecrated by Abraham, as the seat of the patriachal residence.

3. For the history of Shechem in the history of the kingdom of God (see Bible Dict.) It is: a. A capital of the Hivites, and as such the scene of the brutal heathenish iniquity, in relation to the religious and moral dignity of Israel; b. The birth-place of Jewish fanaticism in the sons of Jacob; c. A chief city of Ephraim, and an Israelitish priestly city; d. The capital of the kingdom of Israel for some time; e. The principal seat of the Samaritan nationality and cultus. The acquisition of a parcel of land at Shechem by Jacob, forms a counterpart to the purchase of Abraham at Hebron. But there is an evident progress here, since he made the purchase for his own settlement during life, while Abraham barely gained a burial place. The memory of Canaan by Israel and the later conquest (comp. Genesis 48:22), is closely connected with this possession. In Jacob’s life, too, the desire to exchange the wandering nomadic life for a more fixed abode, becomes more apparent than in the life of Isaac. [Robinson’s “History of Shechem” is full and accurate. Wordsworth’s remark here, after enumerating the important events clustering around this place from Abraham to Christ, is suggestive. Thus the history of Shechem, combining so many associations, shows the uniformity of the divine plan, extending through many centuries, for the salvatian of the world by the promised seed of Abraham, in whom all nations are blessed; and for the outpouring of the spirit on the Israel of God, who are descended from the true Jacob; and for their union in the sanctuary of the Christian church; and for the union of all nations in one household in Christ, Luke 1:68.—A. G.]

4. Dinah’s history, a warning history for the daughters of Israel, and a foundation of the Old Testament limitation of the freedom of the female sex.

5. The collision between the sons of Jacob and Shechem, the son of Hamor, is a vivid picture of the collisions between the youthful forms of political despotism and hierarchal pride. Shechem acts as an insolent worldly prince, Jacob’s sons as young fanatical priests, luring him to destruction.

6. After Jacob became Israel, the just consciousness of his theocratic dignity appears manifestly in his sons, under the deformity of fanatical zeal. We may view this narrative as the history of the origin, and first original form of Jewish and Christian fanaticism. We notice first that fanaticism does not originate in and for itself, but clings to religious and moral ideas as a monstrous and misshapen outgrowth, since it changes the spiritual into a carnal motive. The sons of Jacob were right in feeling that they were deeply injured in the religious and moral idea and dignity of Israel, by Shechem’s deed. But still they are already wrong in their judgment of Shechem’s act; since there is surely a difference between the brutal lust of Ammon, who after his sin pours his hatred upon her whom he had dishonored, and Shechem, who passionately loves and would marry the dishonored maiden, and is ready to pay any sum as an atonement; a distinction which the sons of Jacob mistook, just as those of the clergy do at this day who throw all branches of the seventh commandment into one common category and as of the same heinous dye. Then we observe that Jacob’s sons justly shun a mixture with the Shechemites, although in this case they were willing to be circumcised for worldly and selfish ends. But there is a clear distinction between such a wholesale, mass conversion, from improper motives, which would have corrupted and oppressed the house of Israel, and the transition of Shechem to the sons of Israel, or the establishment of some neutral position for Dinah. But leaving this out of view, if we should prefer to maintain (what Jacob certainly did not maintain) that an example of revenge must be made, to intimidate the heathen, and to warn the future Israel against the Canaanites, still the fanatical zeal in the conduct of Jacob’s sons passed over into fanaticism strictly so called, which developed itself from the root of spiritual pride, according to its three world-historical characteristics. The first was cunning, the lie, and enticing deception. Thus the Huguenots were enticed into Paris on the night of St. Bartholomew. The second was the murderous attack and carnage. How often has this form shown itself in the history of fanaticism! This pretended sacred murder and carnage draws the third characteristic sign in its train: rapine and pillage. The possessions of the heretics, according to the laws of the middle ages, fell to the executioner of the pretended justice; and the history of the crusades against the heretics testifies to similar horrors and devastation. Jacob, therefore, justly declares his condemnation of the iniquity of the brothers, Simeon and Levi, not only at once, but upon his death-bed ( Genesis 49), and it marks the assurance of the apocryphal standpoint, when the book Judith, for the purpose of palliating the crime of Judith, glorifies in a poetical strain the like fanatical act of Simeon ( Genesis 9). Judith, indeed, in the trait of cunning, appears as the daughter in spirit of her ancestor Simeon. We must not fail to distinguish here in our history, in this first vivid picture of fanaticism, the nobler point of departure, the theocratic motive, from the terrible counterfeit and deformity. In this relation there seems to have been a difference between the brothers, Simeon and Levi. While the former appears to have played a chief part in the history of Joseph also ( Genesis 42:24, and my article, “Simeon,” in Herzog’s “Real Encyclopedia”), and in the division of Canaan was dispersed among his brethren, the purified Levi came afterwards to be the representative of pure zeal in Israel ( Exodus 32:28; Deuteronomy 33:8) and the administrator of the priesthood, i. e, the theocratic priestly first-born, by the side of Judah the theocratic political first-born. A living faith and a faithful zeal rarely develop themselves as a matter of fact without a mixture of fanaticism; “the flame gradually purifies itself from the smoke.” In all actual individual cases, it is a question whether the flame overcomes the smoke, or the smoke the flame. In the life of Christ, the Old-Testament covenant faithfulness and truth burns pure and bright, entirely free from smoke; in the history of the old Judaism, on the contrary, a dangerous mixture of fire and smoke steams over the land. And so in the development of individual believers we see how some purify themselves to the purest Christian humanity, while others, ever sinking more and more into the pride, cunning, uncharitableness and injustice of fanaticism, are completely ruined. Delitzsch: “The greatest aggravation of their sin was that they degraded the sacred sign of the covenant into the common means of their malice. And yet it was a noble germ which exploded so wickedly.”

7. This Shechemite carnage of blind and Jewish fanaticism, is reflected in a most remarkable way, as to all its several parts, in the most infamous crime of Christian fanaticism, the Parisian St. Bartholomew. [The narrative of these events at Shechem shows how impartial the sacred writer is, bringing out into prominence whatever traits of excellence there were in the characters of Shechem and Hamor, while he does not conceal the cunning, falsehood, and cruelty of the sons of Jacob. Nor should we fail to observe the connection of this narrative with the later exclusion of Simeon and Levi from the rights of the first-born, to which they would naturally have acceded after the exclusion of Reuben; and with their future location in the land of Canaan. The history furnishes one of the clearest proofs of the genuineness and unity of Genesis.—A. G.]

8. Jacob felt that, as the Israel of God, he was made offensive even to the moral sense of the surrounding heathen, through the pretended holy deed of his sons; so far so that they had endangered the very foundation of the theocracy, the kingdom of God, the old-covenant church. Fanaticism always produces the same results; either to discredit Christianity in the moral estimate of the world, and imperil its very existence by its unreasonable zeal, or to expose it to the most severe persecutions.

9. The direction of Jacob to Bethel, by the command of God, is a proof that in divine providence the true community of believers must separate itself from the condition into which fanaticism has placed it. By this emigration Israel hazards the possession at Shechem which he had just acquired.

10. Divine providence knows perfectly how to unite in one very different aims, as this narrative very clearly shows. They are then, indeed, subordinated to the one chief end. The chief end here which the providence of God has in view in the journey of Jacob from Shechem to Bethel, is the duty of Jacob to fulfil the vow he had made at Bethel. But with this the object of his removing from Shechem and of his concealed flight is closely connected. So also the purpose of purifying his house from the guilt of fanaticism, and the idolatrous image-worship. At the same time it is thus intimated that both these objects would have been secured already, if Jacob had been more in earnest in the fulfilment of his vow.

11. As Jacob intends holding a feast of praise and thanksgiving at Bethel, he enjoins upon his household first a feast of purification, i. e, a fast-day. This preparation rests upon a fundamental law of the inner spiritual life. We must first humble ourselves for our own deeds, and renounce all known evil practices, if we would celebrate with joyful praise and thanksgiving, with pure eyes and lips, the gracious deeds of God. The approach of such a feast is a foretaste of blessedness, and hence the conscience of the pious, warned by its approach, is quickened and made more tender, and they feel more deeply the necessity for a previous purification by repentance. In the Mosaic law, therefore, the purification precedes the sacrifices; the solemnities of the great day of atonement went before the joyful feast of tabernacles. Hence the Christian prepares himself for the holy Supper through a confession of his sins, and of his faith, and a vow of reformation. The grandest form in which this order presents itself is in the connection between Good-Friday and Easter, both in reference to the facts commemorated (the atonement and the new life in Christ) and in reference to the import of the solemnities. The Advent-season affords a similar time for preparation for the Christmas festival (comp. Matthew 5:23).

12. Viewed in its outward aspect, the purification of Jacob’s house was a rigid purification from religious image-worship, and the means of superstition, which the now awakened and enlightened conscience of Jacob saw to be nothing but idolatry. But these works of superstition and idolatry are closely connected with the fanaticism for which Jacob’s house must also repent. The common band or tie of idolatry and fanaticism is the mingling of the religious state and disposition with mere carnal thoughts or sentiments. There is, indeed, a fanaticism of iconoclasm, but then it is the same carnal thought, which regards the external aspect of religion as religion itself, and through this extreme view falls into an idolatrous fear of images, as if they were actual hostile powers. The marks of a sound and healthy treatment of images idolatrously venerated, are clearly seen in this history: 1. A cheerful putting away of the images at the warning word of God; but no threats or violence against the possessors of the images; 2. a seemly removal, as in the burial of the dead body. Whatever has been the object of worship should be buried tenderly, unless it was used directly for evil and cruel purposes. The sacred washings follow the removal of the images, the prelude to the religious washings of the Jews, and the first preliminary token of baptism. The washing was a symbol of the purifying from sin and guilt by repentance; and as such was connected with the change of garments, the new garments symbolizing the new disposition, as with the baptismal robes.

13. The religious earnestness with which Israel departed from Shechem set the deed of the sons of Jacob in a different light before the surrounding Canaanites. They saw in the march of Israel a host with whom the holiness and power of God was in covenant, and were restrained from pursuing them by a holy terror of God. The terror of God here indicates the fact, that the small surrounding nations received an impression from the religious and moral earnestness of the sons of Israel, far deeper and more controlling than the thirst for revenge. A like religious and moral working of fear went afterwards before the nation of Israel when it entered Canaan, and we may even view the present march of Jacob as foreshadowing that later march and conquest. But the same terror of God has at various times protected and saved the people of God, both during the old and new covenants.

14. The fulfilment of a pious vow in the life of the believer, corresponds, as the human well-doing, to the fulfilment of the divine promise. It stands in the same relation as the human prayer and amen to the word of God. The vow of baptism and confirmation³ is fulfilled in the pious Christian life, upon the ground of the grace and truth with which God fulfils his promises. Jacob’s vow refers to a special promise of God, at his entrance upon a difficult and dangerous journey, and hence the fulfilment of the vow was the glorification of the gracious leading of God, and of the truth and faithfulness of God to his word. It was a high point in the life of Israel, from which, while holding the feast, he looked back over his whole past history, but more especially over his long journey and wanderings. But for this very reason the feast was consecrated also to an outlook into the future. For the further history of Bethel, see Bible Dictionaries.

15. The solemn, reverent burial of Deborah, and the oak of weeping dedicated to her memory, are a proof that old and faithful servants were esteemed in the house of Jacob, as they were in Abraham’s household. As they had taken a deep interest and part in the family spirit and concerns, so they were treated in life and death as members of the family. The aged Deborah is the counterpart to the aged Eliezer. The fact that we find her here dying in the family of Jacob, opens to us a glance into the warm, faithful attachment of this friend of Rebekah, and at the same time enables us to conclude with the highest certainty that Rebekah was now dead. Deborah would not have parted from Rebekah while she was living. Delitzsch: “We may regard the heathen traditions, that the nurse of Dionysius (בָּכיּת, Βάκχος) lies buried in Scythopolis (Plin. H. N. ch. v15), and that the grave of Silenos is found in the land of the Hebrews (Pausan. Eliaca, cap24), with which F. D. Michaelis connects the passage, as the mere distorted echoes of this narrative.”

16. We may regard the new and closing revelation and promise which Jacob received at Bethel after his thanksgiving feast, as the confirmation and sealing of his faith, and thus it forms a parallel to the confirmation and sealing of the faith of Abraham upon Moriah ( Genesis 22:15). But it is to be observed here that Jacob is first sealed after having purified his faith from any share in the guilt of fanaticism. And the same thing precisely may be said of the sealing of Abraham, after he had freed himself from the fanatical prejudice that Jehovah could in a religious sense literally demand the sacrifice of a human life, i. e, the literal killing, he became certain of his life of faith, of the promise of God, and of his future. Thus here the flame of Israel is completely purified from the smoke. But here, again, it lies in the very law of the inward life, that God cannot seal the faith from which the impure elements have not been purged. Otherwise fanaticism, too, would be confirmed and sanctioned. Hence the assurance of faith will always waver and fluctuate, even to its disappearance in any one, in the measure in which he combines impure and carnal elements with his faith, and then holds it more and more as a confidence of a higher grade. Enthusiastic moments, mighty human acts of boldness, party earnestness and temerity, will not compensate for the profound, heavenly assurance of faith, an established life of faith, which is the gift of the Holy Spirit. True it is, that the precondition of sealing is justification, the heart experience of the peace of God, of reconciliation by faith; but this gift of God the Christian must keep pure by steadfastness in the Lord, even in the midst of temptation, which is often a temptation to fanaticism (see the Epistle of James), and then he is confirmed. In our estimate of the stages of confirmation, it is not at all strange that Jacob should have the name of Israel, first given to him at Peniel, here confirmed to him. Henceforth he is more frequently called Israel, for the new life in him has become a new nature, the prominent and ruling feature of his being.

17. The renewed Messianic promise assured to Jacob ( Genesis 35:11).

18. From the fact that Jacob erected a stone pillar at Bethel, on which he poured a drink-offering, and then oil, Knobel conjectures, without the least ground, that the Elohist here introduces the sacrifice in this form, and knows nothing of an altar and of animal sacrifices (p274). But it is evident that this pillar was taken from the altar before mentioned ( Genesis 35:7), and that this drink-offering must therefore be distinguished from the sacrifice upon that altar. As in the Wrestling of Jacob, the distinction between the outward and inward aspects of the right of the first-born, and thus also of the priesthood, first comes into view, so here, also, we have the distinction between the peculiar sacrifice in the strict sense and the thank-offering. The stone designates ( Genesis 28:20) the ideal house of God, and in this significance must be distinguished from the altar. Through the thank-offering Jacob consecrates the enjoyment of his prosperity to the Lord; through the oil he raises the stone, as well as his thanksgiving, to a lasting, sacred remembrance. [Kurtz remarks here: “The thirty years’ journey from Bethel to Bethel is now completed. The former residence at Bethel stands to the present somewhat as the beginning to the end, the prophecy to the fulfilment; for, the unfolding of the purpose of salvation, so far as that could be done in the life of Jacob, has now reached its acme and relative completion. There the Lord appeared to him in a dream, here in his waking state, and the dream is the prophetic type of the waking reality. There God promised to protect and bless him, and bring him back to this land—a promise now fulfilled. There Jacob made his vow, here he pays it. There God consecrates him to be the bearer of salvation, and makes the threefold promise of the blessing of salvation. So far as the promise could be fulfilled in Jacob, it is now fulfilled; the land of promise is open before him, he has already obtained possession in part, and the promised seed reaches its first stage of completeness in the last son of Rachel, giving the significant number twelve, and the idea of salvation attains its development, since Jacob has become Israel. But this fulfilment is only preliminary and relative, and in its turn becomes a prophecy of the still future fulfilment. Hence God renews the blessing, showing that the fulfilment lies in the future still; hence God renews his new name Israel, which defines his peculiar position to salvation and his relation to God, showing that Jacob has not yet fully become Israel; the promise and the name are correlates—the one will be realized when the other is fulfilled. Hence, too, Jacob renews the name Bethel, in which the peculiarity of the relation of God to Jacob is indicated, his dwelling in and among the seed of Jacob, and the renewing of this name proclaims his consciousness that God would still become in a far higher measure, El-beth-el.”—A. G.]

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

See the Doctrinal and Ethical remarks. Jacob’s settlement at Shechem: 1. The departure thither from Succoth; 2. the settlement itself: 3. the new departure to Bethel.—The settlement itself: 1. How promising! happy return. Prosperous acquisition of the parcel of land. Peaceful relations with the Shechemites. Religious toleration2. How seriously endangered (through Jacob’s carelessness. He does not return early enough to Bethel to fulfil his vow. Probably he even considers the altar at Shechem a substitute. His love for Rachel makes him tolerant to her teraphim, and consequently to the teraphim of his house generally. His polygamy is perhaps the occasion of his treating the children with special indulgence). 3. How fearfully disturbed! Dinah’s levity and dishonor. Importunity of the Shechemites; the carnage of his sons. The existence of his house endangered4. The happy conclusion caused by Jacob’s repentance and God’s protection.—The first great sorrow prepared for the patriarch by his children.—Dinah’s conduct.—The dangerous proposals of friendship by the Shechemites.—The brothers, Simeon and Levi. Their right. Their wrong.—Fanaticism in its first biblical form, and its historic manifestations.—Its contagious power. All, or at least the majority, of Jacob’s sons, are swept along by its influence.—Jacob’s repentance, or the feast of purification of his house.—How the union of repentance and faith is reflected in the sacred institutions. In both sacraments, in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, in the connection of sacred festivals, especially in the connection between Good-Friday and Easter.—The thanksgiving at Bethel.—Here, too, the feast of joy is followed by deep mourning and funeral obsequies.—Deborah: 1. We know very little of her; and yet, 2. we know very much of her.—The greatness of true and unselfish love in the kingdom of God.—The nobility of free service.—Jacob’s confirmation—confirmed as Israel.—The renewed promise.

First Section. The settlement at Succoth. Genesis 33:17. Starke: Hebrews, no doubt, visited his father during this interval.—Gerlach: (On some accounts we believe that Succoth was situated on the right side of Jordan, in the valley of Succoth, in which lay the city of Beth-Shean. Succoth are literally huts made of boughs, here folds made of boughs of trees and bushes.)

Second Section. The settlement at Shechem. Genesis 33:18-20. Starke: (Shechem, Quesita. The Septuagint transl, lambs; Chald, pearls. Others understand money. Epiph, de pond. et mons., asserts that Abraham introduced the art of coining money in Canaan). Schröder: Von Raumer considers Shalem as the more ancient name of Shechem. Robinson regards it as a proper name, and finds it now in the village of Shalem, some distance east from Shechem.

Third Section. Dinah. Genesis 34:1-31. Starke: Dinah’s walk: without doubt, taken from motives of curiosity.—Contrary to all his expectations (for a peaceful, quiet time of worship, etc.), Jacob’s heart is most keenly mortified by Dinah’s disgrace, and the carnage committed by Simeon and Levi.—He who wishes to shun sin, must avoid also occasions of sin.—Curiosity is a great fault in the female sex, and has caused many a one to fall.

Schröder: (Val. Herb.) A gadding girl, and a lad who has never gone beyond the precincts of home, are both good for nothing ( Titus 2:5). a. The rape. Starke: ( 2 Samuel 13:12) By force ( 2 Samuel 13:12-14). (Judging from Dinah’s levity, it was not without her consent.)—Cramer: Rape a sin against the sixth and seventh commandments.—What a disgrace, that great and mighty lords, instead of being an example to their subjects in chastity and honor, should surpass them in a dissolute and godless deportment.—Gerlach: Genesis 35:7. Fool and folly are terms used frequently in the Old Testament to denote the perpetration of the greatest crimes. The connection of the thought is this, that godlessness and vice are the greatest folly, etc.—Schröder: Josephus says, Dinah went to a fair or festival at Shechem. The person that committed the rape was the most distinguished ( Genesis 35:19) son (the crown-prince, so to speak) of the ruling sovereign.—The sons of Jacob, for the first time, transfer the spiritual name of their father to the house of Jacob, etc. They are conscious, therefore, of the sacredness of their families. The sharp antithesis between Israel and Canaan enters into their consciousness (Baumgarten). b. The proposal of marriage. Starke: Although it is just and proper to strive to restore fallen virgins to honor by asking their parents or friends to give them in marriage, and thus secure their legal position and rights, yet it is putting the cart before the horse.—Little children bring light cares, grown children heavy cares. (God afterwards prohibited ( Deuteronomy 7:3) them to enter into any friendly relations with the heathen nations.) c. The fanatical revenge of Jacob’s sons. Starke: Take care that you do not indulge in wrath and feelings of revenge.—Hall: Smiling malace is generally fatal.—Even the most bloody machinations are frequently gilded with religion.—Freiberger Bibel: Hamor, the ruling prince, is a sad example of an unfaithful and interested magistracy, who, under the pretence of the common welfare, pursues his own advantage and interests, while he tries to deceive his subjects.—The Shechemites, therefore, did not adopt the Jewish religion from motives of pure love or a proper regard for it, but from self-interest and love of gain.—Cramer: It is no child’s play, to treat religion in a thoughtless and careless way, and to change from one form to another.—One violent son may bring destruction upon a whole city and country.—Hall: The aspect of external things constrains many more to a profession of religion, than conscience ( John 6:26). But how will it be with those who do not use the sacraments from proper motives?—Strictures upon the apology for this deed in the book of Judith, and by others.—Cramer: God sometimes punishes one folly by another.—Hall: To make the punishment more severe than the sin, is no less unjust than to injure.—What Shechem perpetrated alone, is charged upon all the citizens in common, because it seems that they were pleased with it.—Lange: This was a preliminary judgment of God upon the Shechemites, thus to testify what the Canaanites in future had to expect from Jacob’s descendants.—Osiander: When magistrates sin, their subjects are generally punished with them. They evidently do not present circumcision as an entirely new divine service, as an initiation into the covenant with the God of Israel, but only as an external custom.—It is remarkable here, how adroitly Hamor and Shechem represent to the people as pertaining to the common advantage, what was only for their personal interest.—We here meet the wild Eastern vindictiveness in all its force. Moreover, the carnal heathen view, that all the people share in the act of the prince.—Schröder: We have here the same sad mixture of flesh and spirit which we have seen at the beginning, in Jacob.—Taube: Sins of the world and sins of the saints in their connection, d. Jacob’s judgment upon this crime. Starke: (Jacob, no doubt, sent back all the captives with their cattle.)—(It seems that, while not altogether like Eli, he did not have his sons under a strict discipline, since his family was so large.)—For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God ( James 1:20).—Gerlach: How miraculously God protected this poor, despised (?) company from mingling with the heathen on the one hand, and from persecution on the other.—Schröder: Judging from this test, what would have become of Jacob’s descendants, if divine grace had left them to themselves in such a way (Calvin)? It was not due to themselves, certainly, that they were not entirely estranged from the kingdom of God, etc.

Fourth Section. The departure to Bethel. Genesis 35:1-8. Starke: Because the true church was in Jacob’s house, God would not permit it to be wholly destroyed, as Jacob, perhaps, conjectured.—Change your garments.—Which are yet sprinkled with the blood of the Shechemites.—Osiander: Legitimate vows, when it is in our power to keep them, must be fulfilled ( Deuteronomy 23:21).—Cramer: The Christian Church may err, and easily be led to superstition; pious bishops, however, are to recognize these errors, and to do away with them. They are to purify churches, houses, and servants, and point them to the word of God. Repentance and conversion of the soul is the proper purification of sins.—Bibl. Tub.: Is our worship to please God, then our hearts must be cleansed, and the strange gods, our wicked lusts, must be eradicated.—The proper reformation of a church consists, not only in the extirpation of idolatry and false doctrines, but also in the reformation of the wrong courses of life ( Nehemiah 10:29).

Genesis 35:8. All faithful servants, both males and females, are to be well cared for when they become sick or feeble, and to be decently buried after their death.—Cramer: Christ is the pillar set up, both in the Old and New Testament; he is anointed with the oil of gladness, and with him only we find the true Bethel, where God speaks with us.—Gerlach: Genesis 35:1. His worship of God connects itself with this critical point in his history. As in the Old Test, “The God of peace and of comfort,” etc, is frequently mentioned, so also the faith of the patriarch clings to God in his peculiar personal revelations. It is the God who revealed himself at Bethel. (Still the name, El-Bethel, given with the first revelation at Bethel, includes the whole journey of Jacob until his return to Bethel.)—Schröder: Jehovah has accomplished what he has said.—We can only approach the house of God in faith, when we have first penitentially put away from our houses all strange gods. (Michaelis finds here the first and oldest trace of the baptism of proselytes.) I consider that Deborah, a wise and pious matron, was esteemed, so to speak, by the servants as a grandmother, who served and consoled Jacob (Luther).—Taube: The house of the patriarch Jacob as a mirror of Christian family life.

Fifth Section. The sealing of the covenant between God and the patriarch at Bethel. Genesis 35:9-15. Starke: As God appears to Abraham ten times, so he appears to Jacob six times ( Genesis 28:12; Genesis 31:11; Genesis 31:13; Genesis 32:1-2; Genesis 32:24; Genesis 35:1; the present passage; and Genesis 46:2).—Schröder: Now that Jacob has become Israel in its fullest sense, the renewal of the promise connected with the conferring of the name has a far greater signification than before (Hengstenberg).

Genesis 35:13. God descends into us, whenever he gives us a token of his presence. Here, therefore, we have a designation of the end of the vision (Calvin).—For the symbolical signification of oil, see Bähr.—As Israel, as patriarchal ancestor, the foundation-stone of the spiritual temple, he lays the first (?) stone to the building which his descendants are to complete. (Drechsler: So much is certain, that the first idea of a definite house of God is connected with the Bethel of Jacob.)

Footnotes