Commentaria in Genesim
POURING OIL UPON THE TOP OF IT—as a sign of consecration, says Abulensis, because things consecrated are anointed with oil. This pouring of oil was therefore not a libation or a sacrifice; for nowhere do we read that oil alone was poured out or sacrificed to God. And so Jacob, waking in the morning after this divine vision, brought oil, says Abulensis, from the neighbouring city of Luza, afterwards called by him Bethel, and with it anointed the stone on which, as he slept, so wondrous a vision had befallen him, and by anointing it consecrated it, as it were, to God. Whence afterwards he used the same stone as a consecrated altar, and sacrificed upon it, as is plain from chapter 35, verse 7.
Thus, after the example of Jacob, the Church dedicates and consecrates altars and sacred temples to God by a holy anointing, the moral signification of which anointing see in St. Bernard, sermon On the Dedication of a Church. Again, with a like anointing, says Theodoret, pious women are wont to anoint the shrines of the Martyrs, to testify both their holiness and their own devotion towards them. Whence also the devil, as the ape of God and of the Saints, imitated this anointing in his own rites, when he persuaded his followers to anoint and consecrate stones to Terminus. So St. Augustine, book 16 On the City of God, chapter 33.
Allegorically, St. Augustine in the same place thinks that here are signified Christ and the Chrism of Christians: for Christ is the chief corner-stone of the Church, Ephesians 2:20, anointing and anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows.
Tropologically, oil is the symbol of graces and virtues, on account of the eight properties which it has: first, oil has the power of giving light: for it is the food and nourishment of light and of lamps; second, oil has the power of seasoning food, and of making it wholesome and pleasant to the taste; the third power of oil is that of floating above other liquids; the fourth is that of soothing wounds and easing pains: hence in Luke chapter 10, that Samaritan bound up the wounds of him whom the robbers had left half dead with grievous blows, pouring in oil and wine; the fifth is that of making the face cheerful, and refreshing weary and languid limbs: whence that of Psalm 103: “That he may make the face cheerful with oil”; the sixth is that of lightening labours and lessening troubles, to which that of Isaias 10 refers: “The yoke shall putrefy at the presence of the oil”; the seventh is that of invigorating and strengthening the body, and making it fit for wrestling and contest, as used to be done with athletes; the eighth is that of softening and making fat, according to that of Psalm 22: “Thou hast anointed my head with oil”; wherefore, on account of its softness and richness, oil is commonly a symbol of mercy. All these things it is easy to apply to graces and virtues.
Verse 19. AND HE CALLED THE NAME OF THE CITY BETHEL, WHEREAS BEFORE IT WAS CALLED LUZA.—The city which was before called Luz, or Luza, from the abundance of nuts or almonds (for luz in Hebrew signifies a nut), as St. Jerome says in his Hebrew Questions, was called Bethel by Jacob, that is, the house of God, because, sleeping near it, he had seen God leaning upon the ladder.
This Bethel is not Jerusalem, nor Mount Moria, as the Hebrews, Lyranus and Cajetan would have it; but, as Abulensis, Adrichomius and others rightly say, it is a city more than eighteen miles distant from Jerusalem, situated in the lot of the tribe of Ephraim, near Sichem, in which, as also in Dan, as in the furthest bounds of his kingdom, Jeroboam set up his golden calves for the people to adore, abusing for the persuasion of this the example of Jacob, who in the same place set up this stone for a title; whence by the Prophets this Bethel is called by antiphrasis Bethaven, that is, House of an idol, or of iniquity, as Theodotion renders it, Osee.
Some think there were two Bethels, this one in the tribe of Ephraim, and another in the tribe of Benjamin, near Hai, of which Josue 16:22. But Andreas Masius refutes this, and proves that Bethel was one and the same, situated in the field of Luza, so that it was distant from Luza itself, from which, however, Luza was afterwards called Bethel. Which of these is the truer we shall discuss at Josue 17 and Judges 1.
Verse 21. THE LORD SHALL BE MY GOD.—The Lord had already been God to Jacob from his birth, and in verse 1. The sense therefore is, as if he said: If God shall give me food and clothing, and a happy return to my country, I vow and promise to Him that henceforth I will worship Him with a special and greater worship than I have worshipped God before, namely, that I will give Him tithes, both for sacrifices and for any other worship of Him; and that after my return from Mesopotamia I will dedicate this place to God as an altar and temple or chapel: for thus Jacob himself explains this vow of his in what follows, as Cajetan rightly observes.
Morally, Rupert presses the words of Jacob, If God shall be with me, and shall give me bread, and says: “He said this as a poor man, and truly a beggar of God. Nor is it wonderful, since the greatest king, David, says: But I am a beggar and poor. A good example, therefore, has been provided for us, the sons, by the fathers, that however rich we may be, we should say, all of us beggars before the doors of divine grace: Give us this day our daily bread, etc., that we may confess that bread is ours by His gift, who alone could create the necessary nourishment of bread no less for a king on his shining throne than for a widow sitting at the mill.” Again, Jacob asks for bread, not for flesh, not for partridges. For, as Nyssen teaches, in his book On Prayer: “We are bidden to seek that which is enough to preserve the nature of the body: saying to God, Give bread, not luxury, not delicacies, not golden ornaments, not the gleam of jewels, not lands, not governorships of nations, not silken garments, not musical entertainments, nor anything by which the soul is drawn away from the divine and higher care; but bread.” And below: “It is little that thou owest to nature; why dost thou multiply tributes against thyself? The belly is a perpetual exactor of tributes, etc. Say to him who bringeth bread out of the earth, say to him who feedeth the ravens, who giveth food to all flesh, who openeth his hand and filleth every living creature with blessing: From thee is life to me, from thee also may the support of life befall me. Do thou give bread, that is, that I may obtain food from just labours. For if God is justice, he has not bread from God who has food from a thing fraudulently and unjustly obtained.”
Finally, St. Chrysostom, homily 54, weighs the words and shall give me bread. For Jacob in fact anticipated the prayer which Christ afterwards taught and ordained, saying: “Give us this day our daily bread; he speaks of the food of the day: let us not therefore ask of Him anything temporal. For it is very unworthy to ask of One so generous and so excellent in power such things as are dissolved in this present life and have great vicissitude. Of this kind are all human things, whether thou speakest of riches, or power, or human glory. But let us ask always for things that abide, that suffice, that know no change.” It is a metonymy: for the thing located is put for the place, as if he said: The place in which this stone is, by my application, destination and as it were consecration, shall be and shall be called holy, and the house or dwelling of God, and upon this stone, as upon an altar, I will sacrifice to God. So the Chaldee, Cajetan, Lipomanus and others. That this is the sense is plain from chapter 35, verse 7; for there Jacob fulfils this vow of his, on his return from Haran, and upon this stone, as upon an altar, offers sacrifice to God.
I WILL OFFER TITHES TO THEE.—Hence it is plain, against Calvin, that a work may piously and religiously be vowed even though it is not commanded by God; for such is the giving of tithes, which Jacob here vows.