Genesis 28:20-21 - Exposition

And Jacob vowed a vow ,—not in any mercenary or doubtful spirit, but as an expression of gratitude for the Divine mercy (Calvin), as the soul's full and free acceptance of the Lord to be its own God (Murphy), as the instinctive impulse of the new creature (Candlish)— saying, If (not the language of uncertainty, but equivalent to "since, ' or "forasmuch as;" Jacob by faith both appropriating and anticipating the fulfillment of the preceding promise) God (Elohim; for the reason of which vide infra ) will be with me, —as he has promised ( Genesis 28:15 ), and as I believe he will— and will keep me in this way that I go ,—a particular appropriation of the general promise ( Genesis 28:15 )— and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on ( i . e . all the necessaries of life, included, though not specially mentioned, in the preceding promise), so that I come again to my father's house —also guaranteed by God ( Genesis 28:15 ), and here accepted by the patriarch— in peace ( i . e . especially free from Esau's avenging threats); then shall the Lord be my God —literally, and Jehovah will be to me for Elohim (Rosenmüller, Hengstenberg, Keil, Kalisch, 'Speaker's Commentary'), though the received translation is not without support ( LXX ; Vulgate, Syriac, Calvin, Michaelis, Lange, Murphy, Wordsworth); but to have bargained and bartered with God in the way which this suggests before assenting to accept him as an object of trust and worship would have been little less than criminal. Accordingly, the clause is best placed in the protasis of the sentence, which then practically reads, "if Elohim will be Jehovah to me, and if Jehovah will be to me Elohim".