Genesis 28:18-19

Gen. 28:18, 19. "And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillow, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it, and he called the name of that place Bethel," etc. So, chap. Genesis 31:13; Genesis 45:45; Genesis 35:14. From hence the heathen Bœtylia, mentioned by Philo Biblius out of Sanchoniathon. The god Uranus excogitated Bœtylia, having fashioned them into living stones. Bochart conceives that Sanchoniathon, instead of living stones, wrote [the Hebrew word for] anointed stones, (from the radix [the Hebrew word] Shuph, which, among the Syrians, signifies to anoint) which Philo Biblius read [the Hebrew word for living]; whence he changed anointed, into living stones. So Damascius tells us, I saw a Bœtylus moved in the air. The Phoenicians, imitating Jacob at Bethel, first worshipped the very stone which the patriarch anointed. So Scaliger, in Euseb. tells us that "the Jews relate so much, that although that Cippus, or stone, was at first beloved of God, in the times of the patriarchs, yet afterwards he hated it, because the Canaanites turned it into an idol." Neither did the Phoenicians worship only this stone at Bethel; but also, in imitation of this rite, erected several other Bœtylia, on the like occasion as Jacob erected his pillar of stone as a memorial of God's apparition to him. So in like manner both the Phoenicians and the Grecians, upon some imaginary apparition of some god (or dust, rather), would erect their Bœtylia, or pillars, in commemoration of such an apparition. So Photius, out of Damascius, tells us that near Heliopolis, in Syria, Asclepiades ascended the mountain Libanus, and saw many Bœtylia, or Bœtyli; concerning which he relates many miracles. He relates also that these Bœtylia were consecrated, some to Saturn, and some to Jupiter, and some to others. So Phavorinus says, Bœtylus is a stone which stands at Heliopolis, near Libanus. This stone some also called Στηλην, which is the same word by which the Seventy render Jacob's pillar. Gale's Court of the Gen. p. 1. b. 2. c. 7. p. 89, 90.

Gen. 28:18-22

Gen. 28:18-22. "And he took the stone that he had set for his pillow, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it - And this stone which I have set up for a pillar shall be God's house." This anointed pillar is a type of the Messiah, or Anointed, who is often called a stone or a rock, and is the house of God, wherein the Godhead dwells and tabernacles. He was signified by the tabernacle and temple, as Christ tells us, when he says, "Destroy this temple," etc. And he, we are told, is the temple of the new Jerusalem. This is the stone that was Jacob's pillow; it signified the dependence the saints have upon Christ, and that it is in him they have rest and repose, as Christ invites those that are weary to come to him, and they shall find rest. The psalmist says he will lay him down and sleep, and awake, the Lord sustaining him. And as the stones of the temple rested on the foundation, so the saints, the living stones, rest upon Christ, building and resting upon that rock. This stone signified the same with the other that he built there when he returned: Genesis 35:7. "And he built there an altar, and called the place El-beth-el, because there God appeared unto him, when he fled from the face of his brother." Verse 14. "And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he talked with him, even a pillar of stone; and he poured a drink-offering thereon, and he poured oil thereon."