But there is another thing to be remarked in Jacob's recall to Bethel. He is told to make an altar "unto God, that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother." He is thus reminded of "the day of his distress." It is often well to have our minds led in this way to the point in our history in which we found ourselves brought down to the lowest step of the ladder. Thus Saul is brought back to the time when he was "little in his own eyes." This is the true starting-point with all of us. "When thou wast little in thine own eyes," is a point of which we often need to be reminded. It is then that the heart really leans on God. Afterwards we begin to fancy ourselves to be something, and the Lord is obliged to teach us afresh our own nothingness. When first one enters upon a path of service or testimony, what a sense there is of personal weakness and incapacity! and, as a consequence, what leaning upon God! what earnest, fervent appeals to him for help and strength! Afterwards we begin to think that, from being so long at the work, we can get on by ourselves,--at least there is not the same sense of weakness or the same simple dependence upon God; and then our ministry becomes a poor, meagre, flippant, wordy thing, without unction or power,--a thing flowing, not from the exhaustless tide of the Spirit, but from our own wretched minds.
From ver. 9-15, God renews his promise to Jacob, and confirms the new name of "prince," instead of "supplanter;" and Jacob again calls the name of the place "Bethel." At verse 18 we have an interesting example of the difference between the judgment of faith and the judgment of nature. The latter looks at things through the hazy mist with which it is surrounded; the former looks at them in the light of the presence and counsels of God. "And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing (for she died), that she called his name Ben-oni: but his father called him Benjamin." Nature called him "the son of my sorrow;" but faith called him "the son of the right hand." Thus is it ever. The difference between the thoughts of nature and those of faith must ever be wide indeed; and we should earnestly desire that our souls should be governed only by the latter, and not by the former.