Genesis 35:11-12

‘And God said to him, “I am El Shaddai (the Almighty God). Be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations (goyim) will be from you, and kings will come from your loins. And the land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac, to you will I give it, and to your seed after you will I give the land.” '

The meaning of ‘El Shaddai' is not yet apparent to us but the LXX translates it as ‘the Almighty'. God only reveals Himself under this title twice, to Abraham in connection with the greater covenant and to Jacob here, and in both cases there is stress on a change of name for the recipient. To receive a covenant from El Shaddai means a whole new direction in life.

So Jacob is confirmed as the inheritor of the greater covenant. Whenever God is mentioned under the name of El Shaddai it is in relation to many nations, not just to the family tribe. To Abraham in Genesis 17 ‘you shall be the father of a multitude of nations (hamon goyim)', and Ishmael is a part of that covenant, to Isaac as he blesses Jacob in Genesis 28:3 ‘that you may be a company of peoples' (liqhal ‘amim), and again to Jacob in Genesis 48:4 reference is made to ‘a company of peoples' (liqhal ‘amim). It is in recognition of this fact that Jacob speaks of El Shaddai when he sends his sons back to Egypt to obtain the release of Simeon and entrusts them with Benjamin (Genesis 43:14). It is Yahweh as El Shaddai, the sovereign God over the whole world, who has the power to prevail over the great governor of Egypt. This may also be why Isaac used this title of Yahweh when he sent his son into a foreign land.

So Jacob is not just inheriting the promises related to the family tribe but those which relate to God's worldwide purposes. However, as always, this includes these local promises, thus he will bear both a nation and a company of nations. His direct descendants will be kings and his seed will inherit the promised land.

These promises relate closely to those mentioned by Isaac in 28:3-4 in the context of El Shaddai. To be fruitful and multiply, to be a company of peoples, and to receive the blessing of Abraham in the inheritance of the land. Thus God confirms that he is speaking to him as the God of Isaac.

Less directly they also relate to the promises made when he first came to Bethel, for there too he was promised that he and his seed would receive the land (Genesis 28:13), that he would multiply greatly and especially that through him and his seed all the families of the earth would be blessed (Genesis 28:14).

“Be fruitful and multiply.” This has more the sons of Jacob in mind than Jacob himself. But their sons would be his sons, and their seed his seed. He would proudly look on further generations and finally they would become an innumerable multitude.

“A nation and a company of nations.” His family tribe would become a nation. But this would not be all, for a company of nations would also come from him. And later Israel was to be a company of nations, for it was to include not only his descendants but large numbers of peoples of other nations who joined themselves with Israel (e.g Exodus 12:38), and even further on peoples from all nations would gladly form the true Israel, the ‘Israel of God' (Galatians 6:16 with 3:29; Ephesians 2:11).

“Kings shall be descended from you (come from your loins).” Nationhood would result in kingship, and those kings would be his own descendants. Indeed from him would come the greatest King of all.

And he and his seed would inherit the land. We cannot fully appreciate what it meant to a sojourner (alien and non-landowner), a wanderer, a landless person who must trust to the good nature of others and whatever bargains he could arrange and pay for in one way or another, to become the possessor of land. And here the promise to Abraham and Isaac is confirmed to Jacob. He and his seed will one day possess the whole land.

We note here that the promises are unconditional. At these great moments God does not lay down any terms. He is sovereign and will bring about His purposes. The only hint that response is required comes in the reference to Jacob's change of name to Israel and its significance. But even this was part of God's sovereign purpose and Jacob was the recipient. And this is recognised especially in the fact that Jacob makes no response as he had done previously at Bethel (28:20-22). This is not a time for man to make his promises and bargains. This is a moment of receiving in awesome silence.