Genesis 31:13

13. I am the God of Beth-el See Genesis 28:12-22. The revelations and promises of Jacob’s dream at Beth-el were incompatible with his remaining permanently in Haran, and it was now time for him to get himself away . Keil argues that this dream was largely the work of Jacob’s excited imagination, “the materials being supplied by the three thoughts that were most frequently in his mind, by night as well as by day, namely: 1) His own schemes and their success; 2) The promise received at Beth-el, 3) The wish to justify his actions to his own conscience.” No doubt absorbing thoughts and schemes, united with strong desires to succeed, may furnish the proper physical conditions for dreams like this of Jacob; but it seems entirely superfluous to insinuate such a suspicion of the objective reality of the angel’s words to Jacob. If we allow such an exposition here, we introduce a principle of hermeneutics that would as easily make against the reality of other recorded revelations. Jacob had natural reason to withhold from his wives his own artifices, but we can scarcely believe that he tells a falsehood in respect to this dream. As in all the wrong actions of his life God overruled and wrought good out of evil, so in this.