Chapter xxxii. God, by the instrumentality of Elihu, begins to wrestle

with him; and in Chapter xxxviii. he comes down upon him directly with all the majesty of his power, overwhelms him by the display of his greatness and glory, and elicits from him the well-known words, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." (Chap. xlii. 5, 6.) This was really touching the hollow of his thigh. And mark the expression, "mine eye seeth _thee_." He does not say, "I see myself" merely; no; but "thee." Nothing but a view of what God is, can really lead to repentance and self-loathing. Thus it will be with the people of Israel, whose history is very analogous with that of Job. When they shall look upon him whom they have pierced, they will mourn, and then there will be full restoration and blessing. Their latter end, like Job's will be better than their beginning. They will learn the full meaning of that word, "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help." (Hosea xiii. 9.)

FOOTNOTES:

[19] No doubt, when faith allows God to act, he will use his own agency; but this is a totally different thing from his owning and blessing the plans and arrangements of unbelief and impatience. This distinction is not sufficiently understood.

CHAPTERS XXXIII. XXXIV.

We may here see how groundless were all Jacob's fears, and how useless all his plans. Notwithstanding the wrestling, the touching the hollow of the thigh, and the halting, we find Jacob still planning. "And Jacob lifted up his eyes, and looked, and, behold, Esau came, and with him four hundred men. And he divided the children unto Leah, and unto Rachel, and unto the two handmaids. And he put the handmaids and their children foremost, and Leah and her children after, and Rachel and Joseph hindermost." This arrangement proved the continuance of his fears. He still anticipated vengeance from the hand of Esau, and he exposed those about whom he cared least to the first stroke of that vengeance. How wondrous are the depths of the human heart! How slow it is to trust God! Had Jacob been really leaning upon God, he never could have anticipated destruction for himself and his family; but alas! the heart knows something of the difficulty of simply reposing, in calm confidence, upon an ever-present, all-powerful, and infinitely gracious God.

But mark now the thorough vanity of the heart's anxiety. "And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him; and they wept." The present was quite unnecessary,--the plan useless. God "appeased" Esau, as he had already appeased Laban. Thus it is he ever delights to rebuke our poor, coward, unbelieving hearts, and put to flight all our fears. Instead of the dreaded sword of Esau, Jacob meets his embrace and kiss; instead of strife and conflict, they mingle their tears. Such are God's ways. Who would not trust him? Who would not honor him with the heart's fullest confidence? Why is it that, notwithstanding all the sweet evidence of his faithfulness to those who put their trust in him, we are so ready, on every fresh occasion, to doubt and hesitate? The answer is simple: we are not sufficiently acquainted with God. "Acquaint now thyself with him and be at peace." (Job xxii. 21.) This is true, whether in reference to the unconverted sinner, or to the child of God. The true knowledge of God, real acquaintance with him, is life and peace. "This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." (John xvii. 3.) The more intimate our acquaintance with God, the more solid will be our peace, and the more will our souls be lifted above every creature dependence. "God is a rock," and we only need to lean our whole weight upon him to know how ready and how able he is to sustain us.

After all this manifestation of God's goodness, we find Jacob settling down in Succoth, and, contrary to the spirit and principles of a pilgrim life, building a house as if it were his home. Now, Succoth was evidently not his divinely-appointed destination. The Lord had not said to him, "I am the God of Succoth;" no; but "I am the God of Bethel." Bethel, therefore, and not Succoth, should have been Jacob's grand object. But alas! the heart is always prone to rest satisfied with a position and portion short of what God would graciously assign.

Jacob then moves on to Shechem, and purchases ground, still falling short of the divine mark, and the name by which he calls his altar is indicative of the moral condition of his soul. He calls it "El-elohe-Israel," or "God, the God of Israel." This was taking a very contracted view of God. True, it is our privilege to know God as our God; but it is a higher thing to know him as the God of his own house, and to view ourselves as part of that house. It is the believer's privilege to know Christ as _his_ head; but it is a higher thing to know him as the head of his body the Church, and to know ourselves as members of that body.

We shall see, when we come to Chap. xxxv. that Jacob is led to take a higher and a wider view of God; but at Shechem he was manifestly on low ground, and he was made to smart for it, as is always the case when we stop short of God's own ground. The two tribes and a half took up their position on this side of Jordan, and they were the first to fall into the enemy's hand. So it was with Jacob. We see, in Chap. xxxiv., the bitter fruits of his sojourn at Shechem. There is a blot cast upon his family, which Simeon and Levi attempt to wipe out, in the mere energy and violence of nature, which only led to still deeper sorrow; and that, too, which touched Jacob still more keenly than the insult offered to his daughter: "And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, Ye have troubled _me_, to make _me_ to stink among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites: and _I_ being few in number, they shall gather themselves together against _me_, and slay _me_; and _I_ shall be destroyed, _I_ and my house." Thus it was the consequences in reference to himself that affected Jacob most. He seems to have walked in constant apprehension of danger to himself or his family, and in the manifestation of an anxious, a cautious, timid, calculating spirit, utterly incompatible with a life of genuine faith in God.

It is not that Jacob was not, in the main, a man of faith; he assuredly was, and as such gets a place amongst the "cloud of witnesses" in Heb.