We may find some light toward the answer if we remember that every promise of God to man must in the nature of the case _imply certain conditions_; and the promise in this covenant equally with all other promises. “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” “Ye ask and receive not because ye ask amiss.”――――As bearing on this very covenant let us recall the ground of the Lord’s confidence that he should be able to fulfill his words to Abraham: “I know him that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment, _that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him_.”――――Now it will be in point to consider that these scenes of danger from Esau’s rage inevitably brought up between the Lord and Jacob the question whether the deception practiced upon Isaac to transfer to Jacob the blessing which legitimately fell to Esau could be passed over by the Lord without rebuke. Was it proper that the Lord should endorse it with no rebuke whatever? If he were ever to bear his protest against it, the present was the time.――――Yet further, the fact had but recently come to Jacob’s knowledge that his favorite Rachel had stolen her father’s gods and taken them with her as she left the family home. Had Jacob been faithful to the God of his fathers in teaching and impressing the worship of the one true God and in protesting solemnly against idol-worship? And had he been firm and outspoken against such theft and deception as that of his beloved Rachel? Must not things of this sort be inquired into and definitely settled before the Lord could interpose with such manifest deliverance as would virtually endorse Jacob as right before God?――――It ought not to escape our notice that while the narrative in the preceding chapter (31) recites the misconduct of Rachel and shows that Jacob then for the first time became aware of the extent of her idolatry, theft, and deception, so a subsequent narrative (35: 1–4) apprises us in a very significant way that both the Lord and Jacob remembered this wonderful night of struggle, and that some of the matters then in issue were set right. “God said to Jacob――Arise, go up to Bethel [that place of so many hallowed associations] and dwell there and make there an altar unto God who appeared to thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother. Then Jacob said to his household and to all that were with him, _Put away the strange gods that are among you_, and be clean, and change your garments, and let us arise and go up to Bethel, and I will make there an altar unto God _who answered me in the day of my distress_, and was with me in the way which I went.” Yes, “he who answered me in that day of my distress,” before whom this whole matter was reviewed and debated through that long, fearful night――who called me to account in that dread emergency and pointed out my sins and put my soul to most humble confession of