About 10 years had passed since Jacob had returned from Paddan-aram, and he had not yet returned to Bethel to fulfill his vow there (28:20-22). His negligence evidently was due in part to the continuing presence of the idols that Rachel and probably others had brought from Haran. Perhaps their allegiance to these gods restrained Jacob's total commitment to Yahweh.
God appeared to Jacob (the fourth time) and commanded him to fulfill his vow (v. 1). This revelation encouraged Jacob to stop procrastinating. This is the first time God commanded a patriarch to build an altar. The command constituted a test of Jacob's obedience similar to Abraham's test when God instructed him to offer up "a burnt offering"on Mt. Moriah (22:2). In preparation for his trip to Bethel he purged his household of idolatry by literally burying Rachel's idols along with other objects associated with the worship of these gods. He also purified himself from the defilement of the blood his family had shed in Shechem (ch. 34).
"It is significant that Jacob called God the one who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone' (v. 3). That epithet serves as a fitting summary of the picture of God that has emerged from the Jacob narratives. Jacob was in constant distress; yet in each instance God remained faithful to his promise and delivered him."771
The oak referred to here (v. 4) seems to have been the oak of Moreh (lit. "teacher") where God had appeared to Abraham shortly after he had entered the land (12:6).
"At the same spot, possibly prompted by Jacob's example, Joshua was one day to issue a very similar call to Israel (Josh. 24:23ff.)."772
God blessed Jacob for his commitment, expressed in his burying the idols and earrings (perhaps taken from the Shechemites), by placing the fear of Jacob's family in the hearts of the Canaanites whom they passed on their way to Bethel (vv. 5-8; cf. Prov. 16:7). Perhaps God used the memory of Simeon and Levi's fierce treatment of the Shechemites to accomplish this end.
"Throughout his life Jacob has had to contend with his own fears--fear of God (28:17), fear of Laban (31:31), fear of Esau (32:8, 12 [Eng. 7, 11]). Nobody had been in fear of him. Angry, yes; fearful, no."773
Jacob faithfully fulfilled his vow to God at Luz, which he renamed Bethel (house of God, v. 15). He named the place of his altar El-Bethel (God of Bethel, v. 7) in memory of God's first revelation to him there.
Deborah, Rebekah's nurse (cf. 24:59), must have been an important member of Jacob's household to merit this notation by the writer. She may have left Beersheba with Jacob or may have joined him later after the death of Rebekah. One writer suggested that the reference to Deborah is simply a way of reminding the reader of Rebekah and alluding to her death in a veiled manner.774This may have been appropriate in view of Rebekah's deception of Isaac (ch. 27).
