Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“Jacob awakened out of his sleep, and he said, “Surely Yahweh is in this place, and I didn’t know it.” He was afraid, and said, “How awesome this place is! This is none other than God’s house, and this is the gate of heaven.” Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put under his head, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil on its top. He called the name of that place Bethel, but the name of the city was Luz at the first.”
(Genesis 28:16-19)

Jacob’s first personal encounter with God left him in awe. Encounters with God will ALWAYS leave us in awe. God is an awesome God. Jacob wasn’t a spring chicken with no experience in life. He was in his seventies at this point. God will always inspire us, amaze us, and make us feel the difference between us. Jacob’s first reaction was awe and he followed that into worship. That is always the appropriate response.

When Jacob lay down, this was just another spot to stop. There was nothing remarkable about it to his eyes. Now that he had an encounter with God, all he could see was how special it was. Not because of itself, but because God had shown up. We should feel the same way every day. God has chosen to inhabit US. We are His Temple. We are His dwelling. God has chosen to show up in us. He does it every day. We should feel the weight of that. We should remember the weight of that. It changes how you behave. It changes how you view life.

As soon as it was light enough to see, Jacob got up and responded to God. He set up a memorial and anointed it. He named the place so that all who came by would understand it was a special place. Jacob didn’t wait. He acted and he made a point of making sure everyone could do what he was doing and point their attention toward God. Bethel means ‘house of God’.

Jacob wasn’t shocked that there was a God. He had learned about God from his grandfather Abraham and his parents. He knew about God. But he wasn’t submitted to God. This encounter started changing his perspective about God and his own relationship to Him.

Bethel WAS special in the sense that a LOT of things happened here. Abraham had lived here and received his blessing from the Lord here (Genesis 12:7-8; 13:3). Rebekah’s nurse was buried here (Genesis 35:8). Deborah, a prophetess in Israel, dwelt nearby (Judges 4). In the time of King Saul they worshipped God here (1 Samuel 10:3). Jeroboam set up idols here trying to keep the northern kingdom worshipping in Israel, and not going to Jerusalem (1 Kings 12:26-30). Because of that God sent a prophet to prophesy against them here (1 Kings 13). It came true (2 Kings 23:15-16). King David was born in Bethlehem, which was in the same region (1 Samuel 17:12). Jesus was also born in Bethlehem (Luke 2:11).

The Torah: A Women’s Commentary writes: ‘He named that place Beth El. The vision results in a new perception of his environment as “the house of God” and “the gate of heaven.” Accordingly, Jacob names it Beit El (House of God). Beth El—as it is known in English—later became the national sanctuary of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, although one that some prophets maligned (Amos 3:14; 4:4; 5:5–6; Hosea 10:15). In ancient Israel the account of Jacob’s vision likely justified and sanctified the Beth El temple.’

The sage Rav Hirsch writes: ‘V. 16 יקץ ,ויקץ and קוץ both mean to awake, the latter in the Hiphil. The fundamental meaning of קוץ is disgust, to become sick of that which hitherto one had greedily enjoyed. The summer is called קיץ as being the time when the fruit, which up till then had greedily sucked up the sap from the earth, now disdains it, and has achieved complete independence. In the same way קוץ and יקץ designate the moment when man has satiated himself with sleep on the regenerating bosom of nature, and tearing himself free from it, rises again to an independent existence. ויאמֶר, is not so separated as וירא ויאמַר which follows, what he says does not begin a fresh activity but is rather what he said as he woke up, the first impression that what he had lived through in sleep made on his conscious state: So God is here! He modestly ascribes the proximity of God, not to himself, but to the place. So there is no necessity to go to heaven to look for God, but where a guiltless man lays down his head, God is there! That was his first thought. And his second: And up till now I did not know this! Did not know that the Glory of God seeks its bearers amongst human beings! V. 17 ויירא. What made him afraid? Probably nothing else, but the consciousness of this new idea and the new demands that it brings with it, that man, frail man, is to be, should be, the bearer of the Glory of God on earth, could have brought this overwhelming feeling of fear in him: how awesome is this place. What has been shown me here is nothing other than “the house of God”, and that, at the same time, is “the gate to Heaven”. The House of God, a house into which God moves, that a human life can be, and should be, such, that when the ascending angels seek God in heaven, they have to come down to find Him amongst mankind. And every such house, in which such a life is lived is the “gate of Heaven”, a gate through which we come to God, accordingly, the most consummate union of the earthly with the heavenly. V. 18 מצבה consists of a single stone, מזבח is an elevation built up by many stones; מצבה is presented by nature, מזבח is made by man. Before מתן תורה God’s rule was manifest primarily only in the ways of nature and in Man’s fate, accordingly in what Man gets from the Hand of God. A מצבה corresponds to that, a stone taken from God’s creation as a memorial for something which He has done. But with מתן תורה God wishes to be revealed, not so much in what Man receives from Him, as in what Man does with what he gets from Him; not with God’s gifts but with Man’s deeds is God to be glorified. That indeed is the purpose of the Lawgiving, since then מצבה is rejected. שמן על ראשה — either as consecration of the stone, as the vessels of the Sanctuary were anointed with oil by which — as oil does not mix with other liquids — the anointed object is set apart from, and raised above the others. Or, in the sense of a libation. Just as later on, wine was poured out to express the acknowledgment that all joy in life comes from God and remains dedicated to Him, (יין משמח אלקים ואנשים). Or in the highest national libation water was poured out on the Altar to express that, not only exceptional gifts, but that every drop of water is a gift from God, and with every drop of water we feel allied to God: so here oil — at later offerings the expression for health and well-being (להצהיל פנים משמן) — that he awaits his continued existence and well being from God’s Hand and would use it always regarding it as a continuous gift of God. V. 19. Whereas God found this spot to be the most important centre on earth, to which the salvation of the whole of mankind would be attached, up till now nothing unusual had been noticed there, the city had been simply named after a hazel-nut tree, Hazelnut City.’

The sage Radak writes: ”וייקץ..אכן יש ה, he concluded that this site was a site chosen for revelations, seeing that he had become the recipient of such great and wonderful visions in his dream with the ladder. ואנכי לא ידעתי, if I had known that this was a holy site I would not have chosen this site to sleep on. It is possible that this dream represented the beginning of Yaakov’s prophetic visions. This is why he had not been aware of the sanctity of the site until after his dream, seeing that this was the first time G’d had revealed Himself to him in any manner. ויירא ויאמר, he was concerned for himself fearing that he might have done something which one is not allowed to do in a holy place. Perhaps while he had been asleep and unable to control his movements, he had behaved in a manner unbefitting such a sacred location. ויאמר מה נורא המקום הזה, since he had seen an awe-inspiring vision here he concluded that the whole place may have been an awesome place, not to be approached except in a state of ritual purity. אין זה כי אם בית אלוקים, this place is suitable only for becoming a House of G’d, a temple of sorts. a place wherein to pray and to offer sacrifices to G’d. Another explanation of Yaakov’s exclamation could be that he concluded that the only reason he had been shown the vision was to stimulate him to erect a House of G’d there. וזה שער השמים, an expression analogous to Chronicles II 30,27 ותבא תפלתם למעון קדשו לשמים, “their prayer reached the residence of His Holiness, to heaven.” וישכם יעקב….וישם מצבה, he erected the stone to its full height. ויצק שמן על ראשה, so that he would recognise this stone on his return from Charan. Oil stains on a stone remain for many years and do not disappear. He planned to erect an altar at this site when he would return from Charan. It is also possible that the pouring of oil on that stone was equivalent to pouring a libation of wine on the altar. In fact, when he did return to this site he is reported as doing exactly this (Genesis 35,14) All of this was to be a visible reminder that the Jewish people would take possession, inherit the land promised to them by G’d. Just as Avraham and Yitzchok during their time had treated the land as if it already belonged to them, Yaakov now did the same, albeit it in a miniscule, symbolical way. Once Yaakov had made a monument out of this stone no one had the right to use this stone for his private needs. The fact that some 34 years later he built an altar there using this stone as its foundation, shows that no one in the interval had disputed what this stone had represented. The Torah would not bother to mention that Yaakov had called this site Bet El unless the local people had been informed of this and had not objected to the name change. Clearly, just as the local population had to go along with the wells dug by Avraham and Yitzchok and the names given to these wells because G’d made them respect these patriarchs, so now G’d inspired the local residents to go along with what Yaakov had done there. The attitude G’d inspired in the local population is best described by David in Psalms 105 15 אל תגעו במשיחי ולנביאי אל תרעו, “do not dare touch My anointed, nor do harm to My prophets.”’