Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Genesis 35:9 - 35:15
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
The Lord Blesses Jacob
v. 9. And God appeared unto Jacob again, when he came out of Padanaram, and blessed him. He did not merely speak to Jacob in a dream, but He revealed Himself to him in some visible form, now that Jacob had once more returned to that section of Canaan from which he had left for Mesopotamia. As Abraham had been blessed repeatedly, so the Lord here renewed His Messianic promise.
v. 10. And God said unto him, Thy name is Jacob; thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name; and He called his name Israel. Thus the Lord confirmed to Jacob what He had told him at Peniel, Gen_32:28. It was a formal introduction to the blessing.
v. 11. 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;
v. 12. and the land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee. I will give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give this land. It was God Almighty that was speaking to Jacob, He whose protection and guidance Jacob had so richly enjoyed during the last thirty years. It was the patriarchal blessing, including the Messianic promise, which was here transmitted, for it indicated that Israel according to the flesh would not alone be the possessor of the oracles of God, Rom_3:2, but that members of all nations would make up the sum total of the spiritual Israel, of the great assembly of nations whose God would be the Lord. The immediate guarantee of this eventual blessing would be the temporal blessing of the possession of Canaan, the heritage of the children of Israel. Cf Gen_48:3-4.
v. 13. And God went up from him in the place where He talked with him.
v. 14. And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where He talked with him, even a pillar of stone; and he poured a drink-offering thereon, and he poured oil thereon. Jacob not only set this place apart, consecrated it for the worship of the true God, but he also performed an act of worship by pouring out a libation to the Lord, this being the first instance in which the drink-offering is mentioned in the Bible. To commemorate this vision, to keep it in remembrance among his children, Jacob erected a stone for a monument.
v. 15. And Jacob called the name of the place where God spake with him, Bethel. This was his confession of his trust in the Word and promise of God, which is the rod and the staff of all believers during their pilgrimage on earth.