Genesis 28:18 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Genesis 28:18

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The stone used as a pillow now becomes a memorial to his meeting with God in that remote place. Jacob says, I will never forget this day, and the pillar is set up as a sort of altar. He poured oil on it which signified his vow. We no longer worship God in a physical way, because we have new light and our altar is in heaven, but we must still remember the great things God has done for us, and individually we will remember times of special blessing from the Lord. He sees it as is in the spiritual sense. He thinks this is as the place where God met him: the most important encounter of his life.Jacob treated the spot as sacred and anointed the stone as a holy place. Though it was only a rock and had been used in the simplest manner as a place for a passing traveller to lay his head, it was now sacred to him because of what God had done. It was a place which under normal circumstances he would never have recognised again, a place too insignificant to recall. But God’s intervention transforms ordinary events of our lives into the gateway of heaven itself. It must not be forgotten. It's a good thing if a believer is in a position sometimes to go back to the place where he or she was saved and rededicate his life there and remember that. That's why Jacob built a pillar. He wanted to mark the spot that was going to stay in his mind should he ever pass that way again.Jacob therefore changed the name of that place. The town in the region already had the name Luz, but now he changed it to Bethel. This would be remembered by his descendants for ages to come. The land had indeed been given to him and his seed and in token of his claim to ownership he gave the place this name. When he named the place Bethel, or House of God, he expected his posterity to use that name when they one received the fulfilment of the promise.

Application

Every believer looks back at the time of his conversion, whether he knows the precise day or not, as the greatest day of his life. It is a day which he will remember for all eternity, as the day when God washed away all his sins and gave him the gift of eternal life. Then he understood for the first time what Christ accomplished on the cross. Then he had his guilt taken away, and rejoiced at the certainty of an inheritance which is kept secure for him in heaven. It may have taken place in an obscure place which is special to no one else, but it is special to us because God dealt with us personally there. It is not superstition to do so. It is simply a recognition of the fact that God is the God who intervenes in the lives of His people. We love his interventions because they are so personal, and we are nor lost to him in some great crowd.

I remember two or three years ago a man came into the vestry to see me after service. He was English but he was pastoring in America and he'd brought his son with him who was I think 19, and he had brought him because he wanted him to see the place where the Lord spoke to his father. And the son seemed to me to be very moved. That is a good thing. You can retrace your steps and rededicate yourself where God very first spoke to you. That is what was behind Jacob's pillar.

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Genesis 28:18 Commentary and Bible Study