| Yahweh thy (Isaac's) God
(27:20) |
This is almost cynical;
the sort of thing an unbaptized child of a believer might
say to their parents |
| Yahweh is in this place...how
dreadful is this place! This is none other than the house
of God (28:16,17) |
Jacob feared God with the
fear of one who has no real relationship with Him |
| If God will be with me...then
shall Yahweh be my God: and this stone...shall be God's house
(28:20-22) |
The implication was that
Jacob didn't consider Yahweh to be his God at that time. Jacob's
words sound as if he believed in 'God' as a kind of force
or spirit, but did not have Yahweh as his personal God. And
yet God had promised Abraham that He would be the God of his
seed (17:7,8); Jacob was aware of these promises, and yet
he is showing that he did not accept their personal relevance
to him at this time. The fact at the end he does call God
his God reveals that he then accepted the Abrahamic promises
as relevant to him personally. His offer to give a tithe to
God if God delivered him would have been understood in those
days as saying that Yahweh would then be his king
(cp. 1 Sam. 8:15,17); and yet he evidently felt that Yahweh
wasn't then his King. There is no record that Jacob
ever did build a temple or tithe; but at the end of his life
he realizes that God had kept His side of the deal,
in that He had been with him and fed him all his life long.
The fact he hadn’t kept his side of the deal made Jacob realize
the huge grace of God… |
| Am I in God's stead, who
hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb? (30:2) |
Jacob starts to further
realize the power of God |
| Yahweh hath blessed thee
since my coming (30:30) |
Jacob saw God as the one
who gave physical blessing; he saw the promises of Divine
blessing as primarily re. material blessing. He missed their
basic import, which was of forgiveness and the Kingdom (Acts
3:26,27) |
| The God of my father (31:5) |
Not my God |
| God... God... the Angel
of God (31:7,9,11) |
He perceived God as an Angel,
like Isaiah he knew therefore he deserved to die |
| Laban said: " The God
of your father appeared unto me..." (31:29) |
That Jacob worshipped the
God of his father rather than his own God was well known.
" Your (plural) father" (cp. " thee"
in the previous and following verses) may suggest that Jacob
was confident enough of his father's God to have introduced
it to his family, although he himself still had not reached
the point where he had made this God completely his own. |
| Except the God of my father,
the God of Abraham and the fear of Isaac, had been with me,
surely thou hadst sent me away empty. God hath seen my affliction
(31:42) |
Again, not my God.
And he saw God as the supplier of physical blessing; he understood
the promise to Abraham that " I will be with thee"
as referring to blessing of cattle more than anything more
spiritual. |
| " The God of Abraham,
and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge betwixt
us (Laban said). And Jacob sware by the fear (i.e. the God)
of his father Isaac" (31:53) |
This seems to be emphasizing
that Laban swore by his fathers' gods, because he knew no
better, and Jacob did likewise. A Baptist is a Baptist because
his father is, and at the beginning of spiritual life, a Christian
can be one for no better reason than his parents are. Jacob
was still at this stage in middle age. And so so many of us
must pass through that inevitable growth curve of Jacob. |
| O God of my father Abraham,
and God of my father Isaac, Yahweh... (32:9) |
He came to see that 'God'
was Yahweh (cp. notes on 28:20 above); he saw that there was
only one 'God', and that the vague sense of 'God' which he
had was in fact 'Yahweh'. But still he speaks of this Yahweh-God
as someone else's God. |
| Jacob asked him, and said,
Tell me, I pray thee, thy name (32:29) |
Jacob knew the Yahweh Name,
he knew the name El Shaddai (Ex. 6:3); surely he was asking
for a deeper exposition of the Name. He realized his need
to draw closer to God. But the Angel grants him the blessing
of forgiveness, and says that Jacob doesn't need such an exposition,
because he now knows the character of God: he has received
such grace and forgiveness and future assurance. This is the
Name / character of God revealed. Thus Jacob realized that
he knew the theory of God, but not the practice. Latter day
Jacob, natural and spiritual, are little better. In so many
ways, so often, we know but don't believe; and it has been
commonly observed that the problem with us is that we are
right in doctrine but very weak in practice. This shouldn't
surprise us. It was exactly the characteristic of our father
Jacob. But the God of Bethel is our God too, and will bring
us through to a deeper maturity. That night, Jacob reached
" manhood" , spiritual maturity (Hos. 12:3 RV). |
| I have seen God face to
face (32:30) |
He perceived God as that
Angel |
| The children which God hath
graciously given thy servant...God hath dealt graciously with
me (33:5,11) |
He saw God as the one who
graciously gave physical blessings, and also as the God who
gives spiritual grace / mercy to undeserving sinners like
himself. Thus a growing appreciation of grace was a facet
of Jacob's perception of God and spiritual growth. |
| He erected there an altar,
and called it El-elohe-Israel (33:20) |
This seems to have been
a flash of spiritual insight, a peak of faith which was not
afterwards sustained; not only did Jacob accept the new name
God had given him (although he needed reminding of this again
in 35:9), he saw that 'God' was his God, the God behind the
powerful ones (Angels) who looked after Jacob / Israel. Still
he saw God as pre-eminently physically powerful,
and manifested in many Angels. And still he had not fulfilled
his promise to make Yahweh his God. |
| God (Heb. el),
who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me
in the way (35:3) |
God is still a God who gives
physical blessings. Jacob has previously only spoken of Yahweh
or elohim. He thought it was the elohim
who had appeared to him at Bethel; now he sees more clearly
the concept of one God. |
| God Almighty give you mercy
before the man (43:14) |
Jacob's perception of God
was as very powerful, One who can give undeserved grace to
men like Jacob's sinful sons. He uses a term he has not previously
used: El-Shaddai, the Almighty El. Using new terms
for God reveals a deepening of understanding of Him. We likewise
will grow in our knowledge of Him through the trials of life.
Consider how poor Hannah was driven through the sorrow of
her life to coin the phrase " the Lord of hosts"
for the first time in Scripture (1 Sam. 1:11), so strong became
her sense of the strength and manifestation of Yahweh in His
Angels. |
| " I am God (el),
the God (elohim) of thy father...I will make of thee
a great nation" (46:3), as God had promised Abraham and
Isaac |
This is God's encouragement
to Jacob to fully accept Him as his own God, not just see
Him as his father's God. Even at 130, Jacob had to be helped
to break free of his parental background, and make God his
own God. It was also an attempt to make Jacob see that the
true God was not just an Angel, but the power behind the Angels.
This would imply that Jacob was so blinded by God manifestation
that he failed to see the God that was being manifested. We
have the same problem, and a sign of spiritual maturity is
the awesome realization of the reality of God on a personal
level. |
| God Almighty appeared unto
me (48:3) |
Jacob's perception of the
power of God, this one Almighty El, is growing.
Ex. 6:3 says that Yahweh appeared to Jacob " by the name
of God Almighty" , so presumably this Name was declared
to Jacob at the vision in Bethel; for this, Jacob says, was
when God primarily " appeared" to him. And yet he
is only recorded as using this name 50 years later. It took
50 years for the fact that God really is ALL mighty to sink
in, and for him to come out with this publicly. |
| I had not thought to see
thy face: and, lo, God hath shewed me also thy seed (48:11) |
He realizes that God does
exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think (Eph. 3:20) |
| God, before whom my fathers
Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which shepherded me all
my life long, the Angel... (48:15) |
Now Jacob is getting closer
to a personal perception of God; he realizes that the same
God who was with Abraham and Isaac has been with him. He sees
elohim as essentially only one God. |
| God make thee as Ephraim
... God shall be with you and bring you again into the land
of your fathers (48:20,21) |
Now Jacob's perception of
God is as a God who does something in the future, in fulfilment
of His promises of the Kingdom |
| I have waited for thy salvation,
O Yahweh (49:18) |
Yahweh is a saviour God,
not just a provider of children, cattle and land for the present;
and now, at long last, Jacob associates Yahweh with himself;
Yahweh has become his God, as he promised 70 years before.
Ex. 6:3 says that Jacob knew the Yahweh Name from the time
God appeared to him; but it took him a lifetime to make Yahweh
his very own God. |
| The mighty God (abiyr)
of Jacob (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel
[Jacob; i.e. Messiah]), even the God (El) of thy
father (Jacob)....the Almighty (49:24,25) |
I could almost weep for
joy here. Finally, at long last, Jacob got there.
He says three times the same thing; God is my God, Yahweh-
Messiah will be the my rock, my stone, yes, He is the God
of your father Jacob, He is ALL-MIGHTY to save. That promise
made 70 years previously in semi-belief, he had now fulfilled.
He had made Yahweh his God. He was not only the God
of his father and grandfather. The God who can do all things,
not only physically but more importantly (as Jacob now realized)
spiritually, was with his very own God. No wonder
he dies repeating this three times over. And remember, he's
our pattern. Jacob coins a new name for God: the abiyr,
translated here " the mighty [God]" . This word
occurs only in five other places, and each time it is in the
phrase " the mighty one (abiyr) of Jacob"
(Ps. 132:2,5; Is. 1:24; 49:26; 60:16). Likewise, the Lord
used new titles of God in his time of ultimate spiritual maturity
as he faced death (Jn. 17:11,25). Many of the Messianic Psalms
refer to God as " my God" , and it was one of the
phrases in the Lord's mind in His final, glorious maturity
(Mt. 27:46). Moses in his final speech of Deuteronomy often
encouraged Israel that God was thy (singular, personal)
God. Jacob knew God's mightiness for himself in a
very special way; he knew His gentle forgiveness of all his
pride and self-will, that mighty forgiveness, that mighty
patience with him, that Almighty salvation of him which had
been made possible. In the same way we will each be given
the name of God, and yet this Name will be known only to us
(Rev. 2:17; 3:12; 14:1); it will be God's Name, but in a form
entirely personal to us. In dim foreshadowing of that glorious
relationship with God, Jacob reached something of this even
in his mortal life. And so the God of Duncan is not quite
your God, and the God of (e.g.) Robert Roberts is not quite
my God. The whole concept is wondrous, really. We are straining
at the limit of our possible perceptions. |
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