Revival

Revival at Bethel and the Call to Return

Well, this morning we begin chapter 35, which we'll, Lord willing, finish next week. And really we're getting closer to another major transition. It'll be about time for some of the brethren here to read through the next section of Genesis, the last cycle, which is the Joseph cycle.

So we're coming up to the genealogy of Jacob as well as Esau in chapter 36, and then we'll enter right into the Joseph cycle. We've left chapter 34, and we've left with it this scene of carnage, the massacre at the city of Shechem.

And despite the tragedy there, the Lord is calling Jacob, calling Israel back to Bethel, the place that 30 years before this the Lord had revealed Himself to him, where, as Tony just recited, Jacob vowed that the Lord would be his God.

It's where God gave him the promise of Abraham and the promise of Isaac. In other words, He gave him the promise of the covenant. And of course, as 10 years have been spent in the tent pitched before the city of Shechem, those 10 years have shown obvious decline in ways that we'll see this morning.

And so God calling Jacob to Bethel is God calling Jacob to revival, and that's what we really have in the first 15 verses is the revival of Jacob. And so we want to consider three actions in terms of the revival of Jacob as he enters Bethel.

And these three actions we'll work through in five parts as we work through these verses together. But the first three actions we'll see in the first three parts. And the first action begins with receiving God's Word.

So that's point number one, receiving God's Word, which is verse 1. Then God said to Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there. Make there an altar to God, who appeared to you when you fled from the face of Esau your brother.

Now, we remember that Bethel had really been, since Eden, the place of God's revelation. Of course, God appeared to Abraham, but the description of Bethel is so enigmatic that we could say up to this point in time, it is one of the most sacred places on the earth.

We don't know exactly where it was. I don't even know if Jacob could return and find the exact spot, but surely he could have found maybe that stone he set up as a pillar. Maybe that's what he repairs in verse 15.

But for the most part, Bethel is this Edenic place of God's self-revelation. And that's what God is calling Jacob to return to. The place where I revealed myself to you, Jacob, that's where I want you to return.

And Jacob, you can almost sense the exhilaration of this call. Jacob, in all the actions that follow, is going to respond to this invitation, this command of God, rise up and go to Bethel, dwell there and make an altar to me.

Thirty years before, Jacob would have thought of this time he had spent in exile and on the run from his father's household when that glorious ladder opened with angels descending and ascending to God.

And all these years that had passed since then, not just the years of discipline and sanctification under Laban, but also these past ten years, where perhaps he's realizing after the massacre at Shechem just how far him and his family have declined.

Even though he had prevailed with God at Peniel, the tragedy of Shechem likely made Jacob aware that he was in a place of very real spiritual danger, that his family was quickly departing from the way of God.

His life before Shechem seemed to be on the straight and narrow. He seemed to be going from strength to strength. And when he pitched his tent before Shechem, he seemed to have everything going in the right direction.

But this decade has been a decade of decline. And what we see in verse 1 is that God will not let Jacob decline. God will not let Jacob decline. God has given promises to Jacob, God has shed his grace upon Jacob, and therefore God will not ultimately let Jacob decline.

And that ought to be an encouragement to us, brothers and sisters. Though we may be in Shechem for a decade, if we belong to the Lord, if we are heirs of His promises, He will not let us decline. It may be a long season of stale worship, of stuttered growth, maybe even of backsliding in certain key areas in our lives and in our homes.

But God will not ultimately let us stay in Shechem.

He will call us to Bethel.

In other words, He will revive us. He will call us back to the place where His presence can be found. Arise, He says, to His people even this morning. Come to My presence. Come to the place where I reveal Myself to you.

Worship Me. Make an altar to Me at this place. And He does so with a call to remembrance. Remember who I was, who you thought I was, when I revealed Myself to you at Bethel and consider how much more you know of Me now.

Have I failed to be anything that I promised to be to you? Have I let you down in any of the ways I said that I would protect your way and provide for you? You come to Me with gratitude, in other words, and we'll see Jacob and all of his actions demonstrating this gratitude and humility before God.

All of this rich meaning is pregnant in verse 1. All in this command, rise and go to Bethel, dwell there, make an altar to God. So Jacob is now preparing. He's exhilarated, we'll see. He's being brought to remembrance of the patience and grace of God.

And if God could have been patient and gracious with him 30 years ago when he deceived his brother and twisted his way and showed hatred and animosity toward Isaac in the dishonor and deception he showed toward his father, if God could be gracious then, then even after the bloodshed at Shechem, could it be that God will be gracious still?

Could it be that God will show mercy to me even now, even after my family has done something unthinkable? In this call in verse 1, arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there, God is almost suggesting, Jacob, do you remember when things seemed to be completely a mess?

When you were filled with terror because your brother was threatening to kill you? And right now you're feeling the same terror because you think all the inhabitants of the land are about to kill you.

And do you remember how you found refuge in Me at Bethel? Rise and go to Bethel. God's almost suggesting if you want to experience my presence in that way again, rise and go.

To Bethel.

That seems to be the suggestion. And so God, we notice, takes the initiative. God takes the initiative. Jacob doesn't say, you know what, this is it, we've had it, this isn't working out anymore, I'm terrified, let's run and get out of here and go hide out in Bethel.

We'll change our names, we'll pretend that we're Canaanites, but in our tents we'll worship. He doesn't take any of these maneuvers. He's in terror, just like he was 30 years ago, and God calls him. God calls him to go back to the place where he had found him 30 years ago.

So really, first application here, God takes the initiative of grace. God takes the initiative of grace. Sometimes, when we're brought out of a place of decline, when God pulls us up out of the pit, it feels like we're taking the initiative.

Well, you know, I said to myself, I've had enough, and I knew it was time for a change. And so I started working all these things into my life, and now I'm doing really good. And we wisely would say, well, actually, God was prompting you, God was preparing you, God was helping you, God was the one that wouldn't allow you to stay in that place of decline.

You may have been there for 10 years, but ultimately it was God's initiative that brought you to this place of grace in your life. So again, we see here, the only possible means of revival, and by revival we don't mean the big tent with the sawdust, by revival we mean renewal, restoration, redemption.

The only possible means of revival after a season of spiritual decline is the old paths of repentance and faith. That might be old hand. There's nothing more profound that I can add to that. There's no further equation that the Scriptures give to us.

Revival follows the old paths of repentance and faith. But in saying that revival follows the old paths of repentance and faith, we also recognize that the initiation is of God's grace. God is the one who prompts us, who calls us, who moves us along these paths of repentance and belief.

I love what Jeff Thomas says, in every command of God there is an offer of grace to obey. It's kind of a riff on Augustine's prayer, right? Command what you will, but give me grace for what you command.

In every command of God there is an offer of grace to obey, and God is assuring Jacob that the angels who came down to him at Bethel will not come down to him now bearing vials of wrath, but that God will meet him in mercy and that he will not be destroyed there.

He's saying, your sins are forgiven, Jacob. Come back to my presence. I think that's so well said. Jacob understood that. We'll see it in verse 2. He understood that God was giving him another opportunity to receive grace and mercy and refuge.

When I was looking at this passage, I could only help but think of what James says, because this is what God is essentially saying in verse 1. Cleanse your hands and purify your heart, you sinner. Draw near to me at Bethel and I will draw near to you.

Make an altar there to me. Now as soon as we read that, we remember Jacob had already built an altar at Shechem. He's like, sorry God, I already actually have an altar here. Isn't that altar good enough?

Well apparently that altar at Shechem that is now 10 years old, apparently that altar had been somewhat stale. It didn't have spiritual power and influence in the life of Jacob's family. That altar may have been present, but God is essentially calling Jacob to church hop.

Not that I'm condoning church hopping, but I'm saying, he's saying, this clearly isn't working out in Shechem. The altar of your worship here is stale, ineffective, formal, hollow, empty. You need to go make a new altar and offer genuine worship where I will meet you at Bethel.

So we see already this altar at Shechem, but we recognize the worldliness of Shechem had a bigger influence on the life of Jacob and his family than the altar of God did. And that's always a dangerous place when the world around us, the culture around us, has a bigger influence on our lives and on our families than the altar of worship.

And God calls us to be revived and restored so that it's the other way around. So that we're being formed and shaped by our worship at God's altar rather than formed and shaped by the influence of the culture surrounding us.

As one said, F .B. Meyer, that altar had long lost all power for Jacob and his family. Since their daily living was, for the most part, a direct contradiction of their testimony.

Ouch!

And I wonder if some of us need to feel that sting. Their daily living was a direct contradiction to their testimony. Coming to the altar of God, the God who said, I will make you a blessing to the nations, and then following after the gods of those nations, and then even slaughtering the subjects of those nations.

It is scarcely too much, Meyer again, to say that children, now speaking of Jacob's sons, that children brought up in an atmosphere of worldliness are the very hardest to impress with the realities of spiritual faith, even though they attend an altar week after week.

And you see the point here. Six days spent in Shechem will always outweigh one day spent at the altar. There is no way around that. So if the altar of God is not central to the life of the family, not central to the household, Shechem wins.

Shechem is discipling the family rather than the altar of Yahweh. And that's what we saw in chapter 34, over a 10-year period. And so what is God calling Jacob to do in going to Bethel? He's saying, get rid of this empty, formal, ineffective, useless, unspiritual worship.

Rid yourself of the influence of Shechem. Come back to the old paths. Remember how I revealed myself to you, and find my grace as you return to me. And that's essentially what he offers every believer when he calls us to revival, when he calls us out of that stale decline, and we meet with him again to be renewed in our strength and in our holiness.

Now Jacob's response shows that he understood exactly what this call meant. And so the second action, the first action, right, receiving God's word, and the second action, putting away idols. Putting away idols, verses 2 through 4.

Look at verse 2. Jacob doesn't reply to God in the text, he replies to his household. Remember where we left off in chapter 34. Simeon and Levi showed no respect for Jacob whatsoever, right? They have the last word.

You know, Jacob is saying, you've made us a stench in this land, and now we're going to be slaughtered, me, my whole household, you know, you are going to be slaughtered as a result of this. And they don't even care about that.

They see their father now cowering in fear, and their response is one of just disrespect to him. Should they have treated our sister like a harlot? It just shows that they don't really care about his warnings, his threats, his fears, his concerns, his convictions.

They don't have a respect for him. Things have changed as a result of God's call in chapter 35. Notice that Simeon and Levi don't say, well, we actually like it here at Shechem, and we're not afraid. No, actually, now Jacob is actually standing up into his role as the covenant head, as the patriarch, as the man over his household.

And so he directs God's word to his family members because he's head over them.

He has responsibilities toward them.

Verse 2, Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, you know, one of the sad realities of chapter 34, all who are with him includes all these newly widowed women of Shechem and their children and their slaves.

That's all part of his household now. It's all part of the train that's going to go to Bethel. But Jacob is evangelizing them. And so he says to all of them, put away the foreign gods that are among you.

Purify yourselves. Change your garments. Jacob is thinking clearly again. He recognizes that this call to return to Bethel is a call to be renewed and restored by God's grace. It's a call to enter into God's presence again.

Oh, he's not calling me to Bethel unless he's going to reveal himself to me. And if he's going to reveal himself to me, I need to be pure. And I need to get rid of all this garbage in my life. And you can't come with me unless you purge the idols in your life and change your garments and make yourself ready to meet with God.

That's essentially what Jacob is saying to his household. We remember in Genesis 31 that Rachel smuggled the household gods away from Laban. And apparently, if it's not these household gods, then it was the gods of the Shechemites and the other Canaanites in the area.

We see throughout the history of Israel as a nation, how they constantly gave themselves over to hybridized worship with the gods of the nations. He reminded his family, as we'll see, of why Bethel was so important.

He gives a testimony. So he doesn't just give the command, but then he also gives the testimony. This is where God revealed himself to me, right? Put away the foreign gods which are among you. Incline your heart to the Lord God of Israel.

That is what Joshua said. And in the same setting in Shechem. And so Jacob here is speaking to Israel and he's giving them a testimony. Put away these false gods, purify yourself. Remember that it was God who met with me when I ran from my brother Esau.

He's thinking clearly again. Now the action of removing false gods, the action of becoming clean, ritually clean, that's implied by the changing of the garments, it shows that he understands the significance of worshiping God at Bethel.

That God will be present and it requires a holiness in not only heart, but even in appearance. And as he approaches Bethel, we're reminded of Israel's call to approach the worship of God in the same way.

And this ritual cleanliness becomes codified. And you have the priestly codes that demonstrate this ritual cleanness in approaching God's worship. And all of this is meant to instruct us as believers about the holiness that is required if we're to meet with God and experience his presence and his power in our lives.

Jacob and his sons had sinned. Jacob and his sons had the influence of idols in their midst. Jacob and his sons needed to purge the idols from among them. And I use that word purge decidedly. It's like purging the leaven out of the tent.

What we see here is that repentance is, again, the only path, the old path toward revival. Repentance and faith. Repentance and faith. Putting away these household idols is the form of repentance for Jacob and for his household.

And repentance is not something, we often say this, it's not something a Christian does at the beginning of their Christian life. And then they just carry on. Repentance is the Christian life, as Martin Luther said in the first of his 95 theses.

When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, repent, he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.

That's Luther.

Also, we recognize the concern that Jacob is finally showing for his family. Do you remember one of the saddest reports of chapter 34 was Jacob seemed unsure of how to handle the situation with Dinah.

He didn't show the concern and the outrage that Simeon and Levi, her brothers, showed. And as a father, that just was not a good show, not a good sign of him leading, even just as a man, far less a spiritual leader.

But now look at the concern he has for his family. Now he's directing and ordering his family's life. Purge these idols from among you. If only he had done that 10 years ago. If only he had been doing that week after week for these 10 years.

Chapter 34 would have never happened. Dinah never would have left her family secretly. Her sons, his sons would have never slaughtered the Shechemites. They would have been evangelizing the Shechemites.

You see the influence that Jacob has. He's recovering that now. Put the idols away. I love what Spurgeon says about this. The idols of the family, the acts and the deeds of our young, which grieve God, even the doings of the old, which are inconsistent with our profession.

All of these things that we indulge in the divisions of our heart and our family, all of that is sinful and unlovely and it must go if we ever hope to be made right again. There must be a breaking and a burying of idols if we plan to worship God of Bethel.

So what do we do, Spurgeon? Begin to pray in your families, especially when things have gone wrong. Get them right by drawing near to God more distinctly. We're going to talk about that in the third action.

We have receiving the Word of God. We have this great putting away of idols, this great purging or act of repentance. And then we'll see in the third action that there's a need to build. There's a need of action, change.

And that's what Spurgeon is suggesting here. Draw near to God more distinctly, build, make radical changes. And then he anticipates an objection.

Did I hear you say,.

I would have loved to be at the Metropolitan and hear him talk to a false opponent. Did I hear you say, well, we don't want to be formalists, right? Well, I mean, we could make these changes, but isn't that kind of legalistic?

You know, we're going to read our Bibles, this many times a day, and we're going to pray like this, and we're going to, that's formalism, that's legalism. And isn't God all of grace? No, I'm not afraid you would be a formalist, Spurgeon says.

I'm afraid of you actually neglecting anything that would help your family or even your own spiritual growth. I pray you labor to acquaint yourselves with God. Draw near to the Lord again, more thoroughly than you've done in the past.

This is the only way to remedy the backsliding of the household. The significance for Israel is profound. I've already referenced it, but let's actually look at it in Joshua 24. Joshua gathers all the tribes of Israel at Shechem, right?

Jacob and his sons are at Shechem when Jacob, Israel, is saying to his sons, these future heirs of the tribes, purge yourselves of these idols, put them away, cleanse yourselves. And we read in Joshua 24, at Shechem, he called all the elders of Israel together.

Verse 2, he said to all the people, thus says the Lord God of Israel, your fathers, including Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, they dwelt on the other side of the river in the old times.

That's the Euphrates. And they served other gods. But I took your father Abraham from the other side of the river, led him throughout all the land of Canaan, multiplied his descendants, gave him Isaac, and to Isaac gave him Jacob.

Verse 13, I've given you a land for which you did not labor, cities which you did not build, and yet you dwell in them. You eat of the vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant. Now, therefore, fear the Lord, serve him in sincerity and in truth.

Put away the gods of your fathers that they served on the other side of the river.

Serve the Lord.

You see what Joshua is saying to Israel? It's what Jacob is saying to the tribes. Put away these gods that the other nations are serving and serve the Lord. Now, therefore, verse 23, put away the foreign gods which are among you, incline your heart to the Lord God of Israel.

And the people said to Joshua, the Lord our God, we will serve His voice,.

We will obey.

We don't have it there as the response of His family, but they all follow Him to Bethel. And it seems just like the people at Shechem in Joshua 24, they're saying, we will obey. Because they all lend their idols over to be buried by the oak tree of Shechem.

And so the result, let us arise, let us go up to Bethel. This is verses 3 -4, I will make an altar there to God who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me in the way which I've gone.

He's now giving a testimony to His family. He wants His sons to know the God of Bethel. He wants Simeon and Levi to find this path of repentance and restoration. Oh God, that You would reveal to them what You revealed to me, that You would be to them what You've been to me.

So you see this man now spiritually revived and he's not even at Bethel. This is all the pretext, the preconditions of revival. The Word of God has come and he's brought to repentance, this zeal to purge things in his life that keep him from the presence of God.

And as he's doing that, he's on the path to restoration.

Verse 4,.

So they gave Jacob all of the foreign gods which were in their hands. Sense that, oh, you mean these gods and they're pulling them out of their pockets and backpacks. It's almost embarrassing. And the earrings which were in their ears and Jacob hid them under the terebinth tree which was by Shechem, that is the terebinth of Genesis 12 when Abraham first entered into the land.

And so here we've come full circle in the mantle of the covenant heir of Abraham's promises. He's directing the tribes of Israel to purge themselves of idolatry at the very place where Abraham first worshipped God in the land.

Now, what do we make of these earrings? Well, there actually is some debate about the significance of these earrings, but most scholars seem to think they serve the cultic value which is why they're included in this idol burial at the great terebinth tree.

Some suggest, and this seems likely, that the earrings almost symbolized either vows or prayers that were made to these idols. So it was almost like a votive to say, I've made this prayer or this vow and you've heard it.

You've heard these. And so the earrings represented really a beseeching or a provoking of the idols towards some cause or towards some end. And so sometimes the earrings would be on the suppliant, on the worshipper.

Sometimes they would actually be put on the idols. They would be sort of pinched around the ears of the votive idol. And if they were in the ears of the idols or if they were in the ears of the worshippers, the fact that they're given over with these idols to be buried shows that the whole family is removing the idols from their midst.

Not one earring is going with them to Bethel. Everything is purged. They're cleaning the floor in preparation to meet with and worship God. That is revival. That is revival. I was sharing, I might've been with Marty and Tony a few weeks ago.

There's really fascinating accounts of the Welsh revival between 1904 and 1906. And several of the coastal fishing villages and other areas in Wales, there was this profound influence. And you saw this movement among villages and towns and cities where people were brought to clean the floor as it were, as they were making themselves ready to meet with God.

And there was, in some of the centers of industry, 30, 40, 50 years worth of workers that had been occasionally taking a wrench or a screwdriver. Maybe it stays in your pocket when you leave and clock out and clock back in.

And the Lord began to put such intense conviction upon these men under conditions of revival that anonymously, they would bring back these tools that had been missing for five, 10, 20, 30 years. And so eventually the management had to start putting out signs like if you've taken tools, you're forgiven, please keep them because we can't actually do anything with these piles of old tools.

And just again, a screwdriver, you know, a nail, a staple. If it was something that was sinful,.

Get it out of here. We don't want to have anything.

To do with it. We want to repent and be restored. And it shows the same kind of zeal. Even the earrings have to go. We don't want to be associated with the idolatry in any way. I love what A .W. Pink says.

There can be no doubt that in the readiness of the family's response, we see the hand of the Lord. It's not just God's grace reaching into Jacob's life as a father and spiritual leader. It's reaching into his son's.

In fact, the power of God is evident at every point. The immediate effect of God's Word upon Jacob to immediately rise up and go to Bethel and the whole unanimous response of the family. And that's how you'll know that the Lord God is at work reviving you and reviving your household.

When you take these kind of steps by faith and you say, we can't do this anymore. We have to get back to basics. We have to clear the floor. We have to purge this garbage from our lives. And the whole family says, yes, we must do this.

Yes, we will go with you. Yes, we want to meet with God in this way. Remember how passive Jacob was in chapter 34. But look at him here. God is already restoring him and he's not even at Bethel. As soon as Jacob speaks, they give him their idols.

As soon as Jacob leads, they follow.

That's what's been missing. He hasn't been leading them.

And as soon as he does in the humility of repentance, the sons that had disrespected him only a few sentences ago, all of a sudden follow him. They know that he's a man to be followed. There's an aura of reverence about him now.

Perhaps the Lord put a fear, a holy fear upon them toward the father. But not only do we see that, we see in verse five, the hand of the Lord as a hand of protection. He puts the fear of the Lord upon the nations.

They journeyed in the terror of God was upon the cities that were all around them so that they did not pursue the sons of Jacob. And so now God's presence in an interesting way is actually protecting Jacob as he travels to Bethel.

And the protection looks like terror among the nations. And again, we think of Jacob as Israel. He's almost giving us the clue that Israel is going to have the hand of the Lord protecting them. And if they walk in this kind of repentance and faith, God will protect the nation of Israel by putting the terror of himself upon them.

So think of Moses writing this.

To the Israelites.

And they're saying, if we bend our knees to the Lord in this way, if we put off the filth and the idolatry from our lives, if we pursue worshiping God in spirit and truth, we cannot fear the nations around us.

He will put his terror upon them in order to protect us. Rahab's report in Joshua 2. I know that the Lord has given you the land. The terror of you has fallen on us. The inhabitants of the land are fainthearted because of you.

So we have a striking illustration of God's sovereign protection of his people. This has not changed. God is the same yesterday, today, forever. There are situations that cause us to be anxious and fearful.

We just need to focus on pursuing the presence of God in our lives, doing what God has called us to do, putting away the idols that so easily entangle. Our protection and our provision, that's in God's hands.

How's he gonna provide in this way? It's not gonna work out. We're not gonna be able to make ends meet. We're not gonna get by. It's not possible. I just don't have the stamina. I don't have the physical capability.

This can't work. You pursue the presence of God. He will provide. He will protect. He will make straight your paths. Not a hand can be raised against the Lord's people, whether that hand be an opponent or a circumstance or a physical liability.

So those are the three actions. Receiving the word of God, putting away the idols, and then building, building an altar, the third point, building an altar. So Jacob came to Luz, that is Bethel, which is in the land of Canaan.

He and all the people who were with him, and he built an altar there and called the place El Bethel because there God appeared to him when he fled from the face of his brother. It's significant that he doesn't just say, oh yeah, well, this is Bethel.

I remember I named it Bethel, so this is still Bethel. He says, this is El Bethel. And I think here we see part of the transformation in his life. It's literally Bethel is the house of God. So El Bethel is the God of the house of God.

He had only known God really circumstantially at that first initial revelation. And we saw that in the bartering. All right, if you're willing to do this for me, I guess you'll be my God. And I'll call this the house of God.

He didn't know that much about God at that point in time, but he knew the house of God. He knew the significance of that place and that moment in his life. But 30 years have gone by, and in those 30 years, he doesn't just know about the house of God.

He knows the God of Bethel. And so he calls this place El Bethel. It's almost saying, now I know you. Now I've seen your face. Now I know the God of the house of God. Matthew, Henry, the comfort which the saints have in holy ordinances is not so much from Bethel, but from El Bethel.

The ordinances are empty things if we do not meet with God in them, right? Everything we do in this Bethel, in this house of God, is as empty as the altar at Shechem if we're not actually meeting with God when we come.

And if you're like me, you have to frame and prepare and pray and beseech that God will meet you here. It's just another room, Lord, unless you meet me here with your presence. It's just a Bethel formally unless you come and make it El Bethel.

And that's essentially what we're striving after whenever we come and gather together to worship the Lord. With verse eight, we have an interlude of sorts. I don't want to spend too much time on this.

We will talk about the subsequent deaths and the rest of chapter 35, but this is kind of previewing the fact that we're about to enter a shift. This revival will give way to the death of Isaac and, of course, the birth of Benjamin, which is the very beginning of the Joseph cycle after chapter 36.

And so we have an interlude here. Again, the narrative is laconic. We did not know that Rebecca's nurse had been with them. She died a ripe old age. One estimate was 180 years. That's pretty impressive at this point in time.

But she's buried, and that's a detail, an interlude. And then we have a repetition of the promises of God, verses nine through 12. God appeared to Jacob again when he came from Paddan Aram and blessed him, and God said to him, your name is Jacob.

Your name shall not be called Jacob anymore, but Israel shall be your name. So he called his name Israel. This was the revelation given at Peniel, but 10 years have brought Israel closer to the old ways of Jacob.

And so here, returning to Bethel, God says, your name is Israel. Stop acting like Jacob because you're Israel. And also God said to him, I am God Almighty. We should remember that from Genesis 17. Be fruitful, multiply, a nation and a company of nations shall proceed from you.

Kings shall come from your body. The land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, I give to you and to your descendants after you. I give you this land. So this is following Genesis 17. The first thing we'd notice is verse nine.

God appeared to Jacob again. This is a theophany. We had at the beginning in verse one the word of God, but this is actually the presence of God, the theophanic manifestation of God. God appeared to Jacob and Jacob seemed to know that if he moved to Bethel, he would have another Bethel-like experience of God's revelation.