JACOB'S RECALL TO BETHEL.

Gen. xxxv. 1—16.

IN the four chief biographies of Genesis, we have unfolded and illustrated four great principles of God's dealing with His people in grace; besides the individuals

themselves being in many instances distinct types.

In Abram is presented God's principle of election and grace-"I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy,

the foundation of every thing in His ways to poor sinners. In Isaac, Sonship and Heirship,-" if Children then Heirs." In Jacob, discipline,-"What Son is he whom the Father chasteneth not?" In Joseph, suffering and glory,—"if we suffer we shall also reign with Him. Other truths have their place in each; but this is the leading thought. It is interesting to look at Bethel in connexion both with Abraham and Jacob, the man of faith, and the man of experience. Bethel, and the God of Bethel, are the same; but there is an aspect peculiar to each. Bethel was Abram's meeting-place with God, as well as Jacob's, and the place of his altar too (Gen. xii. 7,8)—but he had known him as the "God of glory" before this in Ur of the Chaldees; and this was the foundation of the call which the man of faith had obeyed. Faith had brought Abram as a stranger and a pilgrim to Bethel circumstances first brought Jacob there; and accordingly, after declension in Abram as the man of faith, there is a much speedier restoration to Bethel than Jacob found (Gen. xiii. 3, 4). But Jacob is our subject. In Gen. xxviii. 10, 22, we learn the circumstances in which Jacob first became acquainted with Bethel. His subtilty in seeking to obtain the blessing which was his, according to the sure promise of God, "the elder shall serve the younger" (Gen. xxv. 23), but which his natural character could not leave in the hands of the Lord to accomplish, had now made him an exile from his father's house, and a fugitive from an injured brother's rage. He was a supplanter; and the natural character in

Jacob presented no traits of loveliness, while in Esau there were the characteristics of a generous spirit. But Jacob, with all his obliquities and feebleness of character, was connected with God, while Esau was "a profane man who despised his birthright;" and with every trait of generous frankness, was but the man of sense, and seeking nothing beyond this world.

It was to this " worm Jacob," when he was a homeless pilgrim, a wandering forlorn man, with the heavens only for his canopy, and a staff for his companion, and the stone for his pillow, that the God of Bethel appeared; and there, from the top of the "ladder that reached to heaven," and on which the "angels of God were ascending and descending," He reveals Himself as the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac, and enters into an unchangeable relationship and connexion with Jacob.

Jacob never had a fuller revelation of God as the God of promise and grace, nor blessings larger and fuller sealed to him, nor a surer pledge of God's watchful care over him, than Bethel presented, and that too when every external circumstance was most contrary. Grace Grace penetrates his heart, while the vision of it is fresh before him, and he "vowed a vow saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put cn, so that I come to my father's house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God; and this stone which I have set for a pillar shall be God's house." But this is not the strong grasp of faith— staggering not at the promise through unbelief, but the feeble hesitancy of the soul, that must, through many sorrows, learn its own weakness, before it will take God only for its strength. But God is the God of Bethel; and under the power of this revelation of himself to Jacob, did he call upon him to walk and act in the scenes that lay before him. His subsequent history, before we hear again of Bethel, is marked by the unprincipled retributive conduct of Laban, and by the hard and unrewarded service with which he made him serve. And it seems that Jacob's bearing under this rigorous service, and changing of wages, was but little in accordance with the suited character of one who had known the revelations

and the sure presence with Him, and help of the God of Bethel. But in the midst of this scene of trial, God recalls his mind to Bethel, and the vow he had made there in other days. If Jacob, in the midst of worldly scenes, had forgotten his purpose of faithful profession of Jehovah for his God, and the service he had vowed to render, God had not forgotten the promise of His grace, "Behold I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of." And now He says (Chap. xxxi. 13) "I am the God of Bethel, where thou anointedst the pillar, and where thou vowedst a vow unto me: now arise, get thee out of this land and return unto thy kindred."

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This fresh call of "the God of Bethel" breaks the link of Jacob's bondage in Padan Aram, and puts the Syrian [that was], ready to perish," again with his "staff," to recross the Jordan with his "two bands." But, pilgrim as he is again, and on his journey back under the hand of God, there is many an exercise of heart in the presence of God yet lies between him and Bethel. There are the seven days' hot pursuit of Laban, after the man that had "stolen away unawares," though he left at the bidding, and under the protection, of the God of Bethel! But there is God's pillar between Jacob and Laban, as there was afterwards between the trembling Israelites and Pharaoh's pursuing hosts. But another trial awaits him, which brings to remembrance the sins of other days, and leads to deeper exercises before the God of Bethel still. "Deliver me" (says the trembling man) "from the hand of Esau, for Ì fear him, lest he come and smite me, and the mother with the children, And Thou saidst, I will surely do thee good [this was the remembrance of Bethel], and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitudes." And now comes the last effort of his wisdom in his arrangements to meet the trying hour; and then he is "left alone" with God! Apart from every circumstance, and every tie, he is "left alone" with God. But it is not in the calm worship by the altar of Bethel, but

to know a night of wrestling with Him, who, because He meant to bless, must needs resist the ways and cripple the energy that had neither been subdued by the presence of grace, nor subjected to God by the power of faith! "There wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint." His flesh was touched! [I speak only morally of this scene, and not of its typical bearing on Israel's history in a future day]. "He had power over the angel and prevailed;" but it was with the distress of the wrestler-dreading lest the blessing should escape-" that he wept and made supplication to Him." He had found God and obtained the blessing; but "Peniel" is not "Bethel." The poor crippled man lets us into the secret of his thoughts through that night of weeping and wrestling, when he calls "the "name of the place Peniel; for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved!" But this is not worshipping by the anointed pillar, under the opened heavens, with the bright visions of glory, and in the sweet confidence of an eternal connection with the God of Bethel. It is God at Peniel; and, in the strength that was given there, he meets his brother Esau, and he finds how God, to whom he cried, had bowed his brother's heart, without the presents that were meant by poor Jacob to bribe his love! "Esau said, I have enough, my brother, keep that thou hast unto thyself." "And Jacob came to Shalem (Gen. xxxiii. 18), a city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan... And he bought a parcel of a field, where he had spread his tent, at the hand of the children of Hamor, Shechem's father, for an hundred pieces of money. And he erected there an altar, and called it El-elohe-Israel." He is now a worshipper of " God the God of Israel;" his "altar," with its inscription, tells whose worshipper he is. But God in "Shechem" is not God at "Bethel," as Jacob has to learn. Why does he linger here, and purchase the piece of ground, as if he would have a possession among the Canaanites, when God had called him to Bethel, and shewed him there his title to all the land as his inheritance? Alas! this fresh

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attempt of the pilgrim-man to stop a little short of the place to which God had called him, ministers still further to his experience. But experience is a sad teacher, unless it be when faith points her lessons, and God is the subject of her study. If her father has purchased a possession here, why may not Dinah his daughter" go out to see the daughters of the land ?" Alas, her corruption follows, as the fruit of this; and Simeon and Levi's treachery and terrible revenge, soon destroy the poor pilgrim's "green spot in the desert ;" and all that he can say in the bitterness of his heart is, "Ye have troubled me to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land . . . . and I being few in number, they shall gather themselves together against me, and slay me; and I shall be destroyed, and my house. And they said, Should he deal with our sister as with an harlot?" Small comfort to allay his agony and distress! But God appears (what grace!) -to call him forth again, that from the midst of these circumstances, he should know him fully as the God of Bethel. "And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Beth-el, and DWELL there; and make there an altar unto God, that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother. And Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put away th strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments: and let us arise, and go up to Beth-el; and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went. And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hands, and all their ear-rings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem. And 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." God made them feel in all the wretched circumstances of this man and his familythough their hatred burned against him-and his own fears could picture nothing but destruction, until God had reminded him again of Beth-el,—that they must not intermeddle with them, because God was in a living connexion with them!