Commentaria in Genesim
In like manner, because of this new second vision and apparition of God, he a second time gives the same name to the place, and calls it Bethel, that is, the house of God. Hence Abulensis believes that Jacob obtained those two names, Jacob and Israel, from his strength and victories, as wrestler and as one seeing God: for like a second Hercules he wrestled with very many labours, with his brother’s threats, with the ingratitude of Laban; again with fear of his brother, with the angel through the whole night, with the seditions of his children among the Sichemites, with the death of Joseph, inflicted, as he supposed, by a most savage beast, with the bitterness of famine, with grief over Benjamin taken away for the sake of food, not to mention other things. A true Jacob plainly, a true wrestler; but nonetheless a true Israel, truly seeing God: for seven times he saw God, or an angel. First, when he appeared to him on the ladder, Genesis 28. Second, in Mesopotamia, when he showed him the breeding of the flocks, Genesis 30. Third, when God bade him depart from Mesopotamia, Genesis chapter 31. Fourth, when he saw the camps of the angels prepared for his defence, Genesis 32. Fifth, when, in the form of a man, he found one wrestling with him.
Sixth, when after the slaughter of the Sichemites God bade him go to Bethel and sacrifice there, Genesis 35. Seventh, when he again gave him the name Israel, Genesis 35. These visions, moreover, were joined with special favours of grace, by which God admirably tempered the bitterness mingled with his labours; and so it came about that the same man was at once Jacob and Israel, a kind of balance of struggles and of visions of God,” says Fernandez, Vision 2.
Jacob, they say, is here called Israel because God here raised Jacob up, so that he who until now, as Jacob, that is, supplanter, had led the active and wrestling life, fighting against enemies and vices, should now lead the contemplative life, and be Israel, that is, seeing God, or reigning with God, or strong with God, so that nothing could draw him away from God and the contemplation of God, and that he should thereby become unconquerable, and victor over all enemies, visible and invisible. This sense is true and pious, but tropological.
Fourthly, St. Augustine, Question 114: Jacob, he says, that is, supplanter, signifies the struggles and labours of the present life; Israel, that is, seeing God, signifies the reward of the future beatitude and the vision of God. But this likewise is symbolic and anagogical.
11. I AM GOD ALMIGHTY—who can perform, and do perform, what I promise: in Hebrew it is Saddai, of which I spoke in chapter 17, verse 1; as if to say: To thee, O Jacob, I show myself as Saddai: therefore increase and multiply. God here repeats the promises which we heard in chapters 28, 31 and 32, lest Jacob should think that God had revoked them because of the slaughter of the Sichemites perpetrated by his sons, especially three, about which doubt could arise. For first, it weighed upon Jacob that he and his were few, and yet he had so many adversaries; against this he hears: “Increase and multiply: nations and peoples of nations shall be from thee.” Secondly, it weighed upon him that his sons had made him hateful to his neighbours; against this it is said to him: “Kings shall come out of thy loins”: thou shalt not therefore be hated nor despised. Thirdly, he feared lest his neighbours, gathering together, should drive him from the land; against this he hears: “I will give thee this land.” Rightly therefore could Jacob say: “According to the multitude of my sorrows, thy comforts have gladdened my soul.” See therefore that all things are made subject to the just, that they themselves may be subject to God.
NATIONS AND PEOPLES OF NATIONS SHALL BE FROM THEE.—For the twelve tribes, propagated from thee, shall so increase that they will be equal to many nations and peoples.
12. TO THEE AND TO THY SEED.—“And” here is exegetical, and means “that is”; for God gave the land of Chanaan not to Jacob but to his seed, that is, his posterity, under Josue.
14. HE SET UP A MONUMENT—which should be at once a monument, that is, a memorial of this apparition and divine promise, and at once an altar; hence upon it Jacob sacrifices and pours a libation, that is, he pours out offerings in honour of God, namely some measures of wine.
POURING OIL—for the consecration of the altar. See what was said in chapter 28, verse 18.
16. IN THE SPRING TIME.—The Hebrew is Kibrat, which Rabbi Menachem takes by metathesis to be the same as Kebar, that is, as if “much,” as though to say: When much, and a great stretch of the journey, remained to Ephrata.
Secondly, Rabbi Solomon would have Kibrat be the name of a measure, and signify a mile or a league, as though to say: When a league remained to Ephrata.
Thirdly, our author best derives kibrat from bara, that is, to feed, or to bring forth grain (for from this bar is called far, or grain), and from the prefix caph, which signifies “according to” or “near,” as though to say: Near the time when the earth bears and brings forth food and crops, which St. Jerome sometimes calls the time of greening, sometimes spring, sometimes the choice time, deriving kibrat not from bara but from bur, which signifies to choose.
Moses notes that at the death of Rachel it was spring-time, to suggest that because of the milder air of spring it was not permitted to Jacob to carry Rachel’s body to Hebron, lest it putrefy, so that she might be buried there in the sepulchre of Abraham and Sara.
The Hebrews relate that Rachel died in the year 365 of her age; but since Rachel was of marriageable age when Jacob first came to her at the well in Haran, and Jacob stayed in Haran twenty years, and after his return from Haran lived with her ten years in Chanaan up to this point, it is clear that Rachel was nearly fifty at her death.
18. BENJAMIN.—Rachel, dying, called her son Benoni, that is, son of sorrow; but his father Jacob called him Benjamin, and this after the death of his mother, to show that he bore it with an even mind, and to rouse this son and his brothers to the same, by this hope and name, that he would be Benjamin, that is, son of the right hand, that is, happy and strong, although he was begotten in his father’s old age: for the right hand is a symbol of strength and happiness. Thus the Hebrews call a woman or a man “of the right hand,” or of strength, happy, strong, one who is vigorous, keen and strong.
It was an opinion of the ancients that those children would be fortunate who came into the light after their mother had been killed; and such was Scipio Africanus, and Julius Caesar, first of the Caesars, who, they hold, was called Caesar from the womb of his mother being cut open (though others derive it from caesaries, hair, others from elsewhere): such also was Benjamin.
How strong the posterity of Benjamin were is plain from the war which they alone waged against all the other tribes, Judges 20:16.
Jacob did in this place the same thing that he did twenty years before, when he departed from the land of Chanaan. For the pillar which he had then set up when fleeing from his brother might now have been largely thrown down, either by the injury of time or by the inhabitants, or even wholly, so that no traces of it remained, and therefore had to be renewed. So many say.
Benjamin was so named because he was dearest to his father: for parents love most the youngest, whom they begot last, and dearest, in their old age, and place them between their knees or at their right hand.
Benjamin was born in the year 107 of Jacob; he was therefore sixteen years younger than Joseph: for Joseph was born in the year 91 of Jacob, and consequently in the same year in which Benjamin was born Joseph was sold, namely in the sixteenth year of his age, of which again at verse 28.
Allegorically, Rachel is the Synagogue, Benjamin is Christ and the Apostles, and especially St. Paul, sprung from Benjamin, says Cyril: for the mother Synagogue envied and grieved over him when he was made a Christian and an Apostle; but the heavenly Father made him Benjamin, that is, that he should most strongly subdue all enemies to himself, and that dying he should sit at his right hand in the heavens. So Rupert.