(15) Jacob called . . . --See Genesis 28:19. The name had, of course, remained unknown and unused, as what then passed had been confined to Jacob's own inward consciousness. He now teaches the name to his family, explains the reason why he first gave it, and requires them to employ it. But with so grand a beginning the town was debased to unholy uses, and from being Beth-el, the house of God, it became Bethaven, the house of iniquity (Hosea 10:5).
Verse 15. - And Jacob called the name of the place where God spake with him, Bethel. This name was first given after the dream vision of the ladder (Genesis 28:19); already on this occasion it had been changed into El-beth-el (ver. 7); now its old name is reimposed.
35:6-15 The comfort the saints have in holy ordinances, is not so much from Beth-el, the house of God, as from El-beth-el, the God of the house. The ordinances are empty things, if we do not meet with God in them. There Jacob buried Deborah, Rebekah's nurse. She died much lamented. Old servants in a family, that have in their time been faithful and useful, ought to be respected. God appeared to Jacob. He renewed the covenant with him. I am God Almighty, God all-sufficient, able to make good the promise in due time, and to support thee and provide for thee in the mean time. Two things are promised; that he should be the father of a great nation, and that he should be the master of a good land. These two promises had a spiritual signification, which Jacob had some notion of, though not so clear and distinct as we now have. Christ is the promised Seed, and heaven is the promised land; the former is the foundation, and the latter the top-stone, of all God's favours.
And Jacob called the name of the place where God spake with him, Bethel. He confirmed the name he had before given it, when he went to Mesopotamia, and now upon his return renews and establishes it; or he gave this name more especially to that particular spot where God conversed with him, and on which he erected a pillar, and consecrated it to religious worship, and so made it God's house, as he promised he would, Genesis 28:22, both building an altar for sacrifice, and setting up a pillar, which was beginning an house for God.
CHAPTER 35:16-29