Eventide at Bethel: Chapter 17
By John MacDuff
"Arduous is the conflict, but abundant the strength--hard the toil, but glorious the reward. O forsake not me, Your child, when walking through the great tumultuous crowd, who know not Your Name. Wide is the sea through which I have to steer my course, and high its swelling waves; but grace is the breeze that fills the sails; my compass is faith, and my pilot, Christ."--Tholuck's "Hours of Devotion."
"Let me set forth anew, O Lord, as a pilgrim on the earth, with my rod and staff, and so set my heart on You, that in all places You may be my dwelling-place and home, until I return here to my last resting-place."--Memorials of a Quiet Life.
"Then Jacob went on his journey."--Genesis 29:1.
We cannot do better than begin this chapter in the words of Christian in the "Pilgrim's Progress"--"Who can tell how joyful this man was when he had gotten his roll again! For this roll was the assurance of his life, and acceptance at the desired haven. Therefore, he laid it up in his bosom, gave thanks to God for directing his eye to the place where it lay, and with joy and tears betook himself to his journey."
So it was with the Pilgrim Dreamer of Bethel. "He went on his journey," or, as these words literally mean, "he lifted up his feet." They are rendered in the Jewish Commentary--"His heart lifted up his feet." The waking dread and terror had given way to reassured peace and joy. Vows of covenant love having been interchanged between him and his God, like a desert wayfarer of Apostolic times after a similar Gospel revelation--"he went on his way rejoicing" (Acts 8:39). The spirit and sentiment of the unwritten 121st Psalms might well, from first to last, be his. Indeed, there is strong ground for surmising that when that "traveler's Psalm" was composed, the inspired Singer of a future age must have had "the Keeper of ISRAEL," "the Shepherd of the stony pillow," before his mental vision. The night scene, the name of the Divine speaker, the very words of the Divine promise, have their echo and reflection in the glowing strain--
I lift up my eyes to the hills--
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip--
he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord watches over you--
the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all harm--
he will watch over your life;
the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.
"Jacob went on his journey."--These words, in connection with the Patriarch, may suggest to us, in an emblematic form, some further practical thoughts regarding the life-journey which each of us is pursuing.
I. It is in the active prosecution of the journey--in other words, the earnest spirit in which we discharge our various duties and obligations to God and man--that we go either with "lifted up" or with lagging feet and heart. Life is, or ought to be, at least, no dreamland. It is the idle, purposeless existence which breeds morbid thoughts, and moping feelings, and peevish reflections on the Divine dealings. "Go," said God to another Wayfarer, whose case has already suggested more than one parallel with that of Jacob--"Go on your way; Return to duty. Leave juniper-trees and deserts behind you. Go anoint Hazael; Go anoint Jehu; Go anoint Elisha; and in the resumption of assigned life-work, languor and misgivings will take to flight" (1 Kings 19:15, 16).
