And Jacob - took the stone - and set it up for a pillar - He placed the stone in an erect posture, that it might stand as a monument of the extraordinary vision which he had in this place; and he poured oil upon it, thereby consecrating it to God, so that it might be considered an altar on which libations might be poured, and sacrifices offered unto God. See Genesis 35:14.

The Brahmins anoint their stone images with oil before bathing; and some anoint them with sweet-scented oil. This is a practice which arises more from the customs of the Hindoos than from their idolatry. Anointing persons as an act of homage has been transferred to their idols.

There is a foolish tradition that the stone set up by Jacob was afterwards brought to Jerusalem, from which, after a long lapse of time, it was brought to Spain, from Spain to Ireland, from Ireland to Scotland, and on it the kings of Scotland sat to be crowned; and concerning which the following leonine verses were made: -

Ni fallat fatum, - Scoti quocunque locatum

Invenient lapidem, - regnare tenentur ibidem.

Or fate is blind - or Scots shall find

Where'er this stone - the royal throne.

Camden's Perthshire.

Edward I. had it brought to Westminster; and there this stone, called Jacob's pillar, and Jacob's pillow, is now placed under the chair on which the king sits when crowned! It would be as ridiculous to attempt to disprove the truth of this tradition, as to prove that the stone under the old chair in Westminster was the identical stone which served the patriarch for a bolster.

And poured oil upon the top of it - Stones, images, and altars, dedicated to Divine worship, were always anointed with oil. This appears to have been considered as a consecration of them to the object of the worship, and a means of inducing the god or goddess to take up their residence there, and answer the petitions of their votaries. Anointing stones, images, etc., is used in idolatrous countries to the present day, and the whole idol is generally smeared over with oil. Sometimes, besides the anointing, a crown or garland was placed on the stone or altar to honor the divinity, who was supposed, in consequence of the anointing, to have set up his residence in that place. It appears to have been on this ground that the seats of polished stone, on which the kings sat in the front of their palaces to administer justice, were anointed, merely to invite the deity to reside there, that true judgment might be given, and a righteous sentence always be pronounced. Of this we have an instance in Homer, Odyss. lib. v., ver. 406-410: -

Εκ δ' ελθων, κατ' αρ' ἑζετ' επι ξεστοισι λιθοσιν,

Οἱ οἱ εσαν προπαροιθε θυραων ὑψηλαων,

Δευκοι, αποστιλβοντες αλειφατος· οἱς επι μεν πριν

Νηλευς ἱζεσκεν, θεοφιν μηστωρ αταλαντος.

continued...

And Jacob rose up early in the morning,.... In order to proceed on his journey, being comfortably refreshed both in body and mind: but first he

took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar; not for a statue or an idol to be worshipped, but for a memorial of the mercy and goodness of God unto him, see Joshua 4:3; indeed, among the Heathens, stones, even rude and unpolished ones, were worshipped as gods; and this was the ancient custom among the Greeks, and which, as Pausanias (l) says, universally obtained among them:

and poured oil upon the top of it; which he had brought with him for necessary uses in his journey, or fetched from the neighbouring city; the former is most likely: and this he did, that he might know it again when he returned, as Aben Ezra remarks, and not for the consecration of it for religious use; though it is thought, by some learned men (m), that the Phoenicians worshipped this stone which Jacob anointed; and that from this anointed stone at Bethel came the Boetylia, which were anointed stones consecrated to Saturn and Jupiter, and others, and were worshipped as gods; the original of which Sanchoniatho (n) ascribes to Uranus, who, he says, devised the Boetylia, forming animated stones, which Bochart renders anointed stones; and so Apuleius (o), Minutius Felix (p), Arnobius (q), and others, speak of anointed stones, worshipped as deities; and hence it may be through the early and ancient abuse of such pillars it was, that they were forbidden by the law of Moses, and such as the Heathens had erected were to be pulled down, Leviticus 26:1.

(l) Achaiaca sive, l. 7. p. 441. (m) Bochart. Canaan. l. 2. c. 2. col. 707, 708. Marsham. Chronicon, p. 56. & alii. (n) Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 1. p. 37. (o) Florida, c. 1.((p) Octav. p. 2.((q) Adv. Gentes, l. 1. p. 2.

In the morning Jacob set up the stone at his head, as a monument (מצּבה) to commemorate the revelation he had received from God; and poured oil upon the top, to consecrate it as a memorial of the mercy that had been shown him there (visionis insigne μνημόσυνον, Calvin), not as an idol or an object or divine worship (vid., Exodus 30:26.). - He then gave the place the name of Bethel, i.e., House of God, whereas (ואוּלם) the town had been called Luz before. This antithesis shows that Jacob gave the name, not to the place where the pillar was set up, but to the town, in the neighbourhood of which he had received the divine revelation. He renewed it on his return from Mesopotamia (Genesis 35:15). This is confirmed by Genesis 48:3, where Jacob, like the historian in Genesis 35:6-7, speaks of Luz as the place of this revelation. There is nothing at variance with this in Joshua 16:2; Joshua 18:13; for it is not Bethel as a city, but the mountains of Bethel, that are there distinguished from Luz (see my Commentary on Joshua 16:2).

(Note: The fact mentioned here has often been cited as the origin of the anointed stones (βαίτυλοι) of the heathen, and this heathen custom has been regarded as a degeneration of the patriarchal. But apart from this essential difference, that the Baetulian worship was chiefly connected with meteoric stones (cf. F. von Dalberg, @fcb. d. Meteor-cultus d. Alten), which were supposed to have come down from some god, and were looked upon as deified, this opinion is at variance with the circumstance, that Jacob himself, in consecrating the stone by pouring oil upon it, only followed a custom already established, and still more with the fact, that the name βαίτυλοι, Βαιτόλια, notwithstanding its sounding like Bethel, can hardly have arisen from the name Beth-El, Gr. Βαιθήλ, since the τ for θ would be perfectly inexplicable. Dietrich derives βαιτύλιον from בּטּל, to render inoperative, and interprets it amulet.)

And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and {g} set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it.

(g) To be a reminder of the vision shown to him.

28:18 He set up the stone for a pillar - To mark the place again, if he came back, and erect a lasting monument of God's favour to him: and because he had not time now to build an altar here, as Abraham did in the places where God appeared to him, Gen 12:7, he therefore poured oil on the top of this stone, which probably was the ceremony then used in dedicating their altars, as an earnest of his building an altar when he should have conveniencies for it, as afterwards he did, in gratitude to God, Ge 35:7. Grants of mercy call for our returns of duty and the sweet communion we have with God ought ever to be remembered.

18, 19. Jacob set up a stone, etc.-The mere setting up of the stone might have been as a future memorial to mark the spot; and this practice is still common in the East, in memory of a religious vow or engagement. But the pouring oil upon it was a consecration. Accordingly he gave it a new name, Beth-el, "the house of God" (Ho 12:4); and it will not appear a thing forced or unnatural to call a stone a house, when one considers the common practice in warm countries of sitting in the open air by or on a stone, as are those of this place, "broad sheets of bare rock, some of them standing like the cromlechs of Druidical monuments" [Stanley].

28:16-19 God manifested himself and his favour, to Jacob, when he was asleep. The Spirit, like the wind, blows when and where it listeth, and God's grace, like the dew, tarrieth not for the sons of men. Jacob sought to improve the visit God had made him. Wherever we are, in the city or in the desert, in the house or in the field, in the shop or in the street, we may keep up our intercourse with Heaven, if it is not our own fault. But the more we see of God, the more cause we see for holy trembling before him.