******************************* 1.  The correct explanation of this is found in Ewald, Gesch. d.  V. lsraels, i. 436 seq. (3d edit.).  A. Bernstein (Ursprung der Sagen von Abrabam, etc., Berlin, 1871) drags in politics in a repulsive way.  “He does not indeed actually enter Shechem and Bethel—­ these are places hostile to Judah—­but in a genuine spirit of Jewish demonstration he builds altars in their vicinity and calls on the name of Jehovah” (p. 22).  Rather, he builds the altars precisely on the places where, as can be shown, they afterwards stood, and that was not inside the towns.  In Gen. xviii. also the oak of Mamre is employed to fix not Abraham’s residence, but the place of Jehovah’s appearing. ********************
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But of course it was not intended to throw dishonour upon the cultus of the present when its institution was ascribed to the fathers of the nation.  Rather, on the contrary, do these legends glorify the origin of the sanctuaries to which they are attached, and surround them with the nimbus of a venerable consecration.  All the more as the altars, as a rule, are not built by the patriarchs according to their own private judgment wheresoever they please; on the contrary, a theophany calls attention to, or at least afterwards confirms, the holiness of the place.  Jehovah appears at Shechem to Abraham, who thereupon builds the altar “to Jehovah who had appeared unto him;” he partakes of his hospitality under the oak of Mamre, which is the origin of the sacrificial service there; He shows him the place where he is to make an offering of his son, and here the sanctuary continues to exist.  On the first night of Isaac’s sleeping on the sacred soil of Beersheba (xxvi.24) he receives a visit from the Numen there residing, and in consequence rears his altar.  Surprised by profane glances, Jehovah acts as a destroyer, but Himself spontaneously points out to His favoured ones the places where it is His pleasure to allow Himself to be seen; and where men have seen Him and yet lived, there a sanctuary marks the open way of access to Him.  The substance of the revelation is in these cases comparatively indifferent:  “I am God.”  What is of importance is the theophany in and for itself, its occurrence on that particular place.  It must not be regarded as an isolated fact, but rather as the striking commencement of an intercourse [ R)H PNY YHWH ] between God and man which is destined to be continued at this spot, and also as the first and strongest expression of the sanctity of the soil.  This way of looking at the thing appears most clearly and with incomparable charm in the story of the ladder which Jacob saw at Bethel.  “He dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven, and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.  And he was afraid and said, How dreadful is this place!  This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”  The ladder stands at the place not at this moment merely, but continually, and, as it were, by nature.  Bethel—­so Jacob perceives from this—­is a place where heaven and earth meet, where the angels ascend and descend, to carry on the communication between earth and heaven ordained by God at this gate.