And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed;
The Lord stood ... That Jacob might be at no loss to know the purport of the vision, he heard the divine voice; and a direct address to himself, together with a renewal of the covenant with Abraham, and an assurance of personal protection, produced at once the most solemnizing and inspiriting effect on his mind.
I am the Lord God of Abraham, ... The Divine Person who appeared repeatedly to the patriarchs expressly called himself the Lord х Yahweh (H3068)] on two occasions only-namely, once in His earlier communications with Abraham (Genesis 15:7), and afterward on the occasion before us, which was apparently the commencement of his miraculous conversation with Jacob. Having shown to these patriarchs that He possessed a rightful claim to the name Yahweh, He in subsequent appearances to them assumed the name El Shaddai (God Almighty); while the name Yahweh was often applied both in his manifestations (Genesis 18:19; Genesis 22:19) and in their ordinary conversation (Genesis 24:3; Genesis 24:7; Genesis 49:18) to the great and glorious Being of whom He was the Angel or Messenger.
Thus, the names Yahweh and El Shaddai appear to have had in the patriarchal age that degree of distinct application which the names Lord and God had in the language of the apostles (1 Corinthians 8:6). The patriarch's usual name for the First Person (the Revealer) was the Lord (Yahweh): for the Second, El Shaddai (God Almighty) (Kidd 'On the Divine Names').