These few words were with power. They formed, I believe, the great era in the life of Jacob, or rather, in the history of his soul. They were few and simple, unaccompanied by anything strange or startling, no vision or miracle attending them; but they were a day of power. He had already come forth from the vision of the ladder at Bethel, from the magnificent sight of the angelic host at Mahanaim, and from the wrestling of the divine Stranger at Peniel, scarcely helped or advanced at all in the real energy of his soul. But now, power visits him; and power with God may use as weak an instrument as it pleases; it matters not. The hand of God can do the business of God, though it have but a sling and a stone, or the jaw-bone of an ass, or lamps and pitchers; and the Spirit of God can do the business of God with souls, though He use but a word, or a look, or a groan.
These few words which open chapter xxxv. prevail over Jacob. "Arise, go up to Bethel." Bethel is rewritten on his heart and conscience as by the finger of God. He falls before it, as Abraham, in chap. xvii., had fallen before the name of "God Almighty," or as Peter, long after, in Luke xii., fell before the look of Jesus.
Power is always its own witness, as light is. These words, carrying the power of God with them, are everything now to the soul of our patriarch. They manifest their virtue at once, just as the one touch of the woman in the crowd did. As soon as Jacob heard them, without fuller commandment to do so, he cleanses his household, and will have his tents purified of all the abominations which they had brought with them out of Padan. In spirit he was already at Bethel, the place where God had met him in the riches of His grace, in the day of his degradation and misery. Bethel had been reintroduced to his heart--yea, manifested to his soul in greater vividness than ever. He now read the story of grace clearer than ever; and grace pleads for holiness. The feast of unleavened bread waits on the Passover. The grace of God that bringeth salvation teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts. For grace, again I say it, pleads for holiness. And so, Jacob, now hearing of Bethel in the power of the Spirit, without further ordinance, or requirement, or command, will have his house and his household clean.
This is full of beauty and meaning. Pollution cannot be allowed by one who is in the sense and joy of abounding grace. Gods and earrings, idols and vanities, are together buried under an oak at Shechem, and Shechem is left behind. The patriarch rises up with all that was his, and is quickly on the road to Bethel. He had kept the feast of unleavened bread in company with the Passover, as Israel afterwards did in Egypt; but, like Israel too, he is at once, with staff in hand and shoe on foot, leaving his Egypt behind him. And the Lord accompanies him, as He did Israel in the day of their Exodus afterwards; and accompanies in strength too; for, as the rod of Moses opened the way of Israel in the face of enemies, and He that was in the cloud looked out and troubled the host of Pharaoh, so now, we read of Jacob and his household, "they journeyed, and the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob."
This is surely full of beauty and meaning, I may again say. There is mercy and blessing here, but there is humbling also. Israel had lost the power of God's name, and Jacob must now learn that he had lost also the honour of his own name. But all shall be given back to him. "God Almighty," and "Israel," and "Bethel" are revealed afresh, at this moment of revival.
God must be worshipped as the God of salvation. To be sure He must, in such a world as this. Such worship is the only worship "in truth." John iv. 23. In Lev. xvii. and in Deut. xii. the divine jealousy touching this is strongly expressed. It is as "Saviour," He records His name in a scene of sin and death. As He says by His prophet, "There is no God else beside; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me." Isa. xlv. 21. This is revelation of Him; and on this all worship is grounded. In this He records His name, and there is His house of praise. At Bethel, God has thus recorded His name, and there was His house, and there Jacob now brings his sacrifices. He raises his altar, and calls it El-Bethel. With Jacob, that was the Tabernacle of the wilderness, or the Temple on Mount Moriah, the Temple on Ornan's threshing-floor. And this was infinitely acceptable, and God gave fervent and immediate witness of such acceptableness; for He appeared to him at once at the altar there, and blessed him, and said, "Thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name: and He called his name Israel. And God said unto him, I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins; and the land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land. And God went up from him in the place where He talked with him."
This was the expression of divine acceptance, and delight in Jacob's altar at Bethel. This was like the glory filling the Tabernacle in Exodus xl., and again filling the Temple in 2 Chron. v. This was the God of grace and salvation with desire occupying the house and accepting the worship which a poor sinner, who had tasted abounding grace, had raised and rendered to Him. Nothing can exceed the interest of such a moment. Solomon felt the power of such a moment; for on seeing the glory fill the house which he had built, he utters his heart in these admirable words: "The Lord hath said that He would dwell in the thick darkness. But I have built a house of habitation for Thee, and a place for Thy dwelling for ever." The Temple, where mercy was seen to rejoice against judgment, had power to draw the Lord God from the thick darkness, the retreat of righteousness, into the midst of His worshipping people.
What could exceed this? And, in patriarchal days, this was seen at this altar or temple at Bethel. The glory was there. The Lord appeared there, and spoke there to Jacob, as afterwards to Solomon. Luz was as Ornan's threshing-floor, and each of them had become God's house. And Jacob called the place, a second time, Bethel, but without any of the misgivings that had soiled his spirit when he was there at the first. He is now there in the spirit of Solomon before the glory in the Temple, knowing God's return to him, and His nearness and presence with him.
Then, in the freedom and strength of all this, our patriarch resumes his journey. He goes from Bethel to Bethlehem, and from thence, by the tower of Edar, to Mamre, in the south country, where his father Isaac was dwelling. But in none of these places do we read of house or land again. It is the tent and the altar and the pillar, the journeying onward still, the burial of his aged father, and at last, as one with his fathers, dwelling in the land where they had dwelt before him. See chap. xxxvii. 1.
This was indeed a different journey, in its moral character, from the one which he had before taken from Padan to Mount Gilead, and from thence onward to Shechem through Mahanaim and Succoth. Jacob is unrebuked now. We have no wrestling as at Peniel, no peremptory voice summoning away as from Shechem. No fears are awakened in our hearts respecting him, lest the tent may be deserted again, or the call of God be forgotten. The word "Bethel," on the lips of the Lord and on the ear of Jacob, had done wonders. "A word spoken in due season, how good is it!" surely we may again remember. "Behold, God exalteth by His power: who teacheth like Him?" And He might surely have challenged His erring but convicted child, after this second scene at Bethel, and said to him in the words of Isaiah, "Thus saith the Lord thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, I am the Lord thy God which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go."