Gen. 35:13-14, Then God went up from him in the place where He had spoken with him. Jacob set up a pillar in the place where He had spoken with him, a pillar of stone, and he poured out a drink offering on it; he also poured oil on it.
Phil. 2:17 But even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all.
2Tim. 4:6 ¶ For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come.
The libation offering was an offering of love. Wine in scripture can represent several things, but primarily it speaks of the joy of First-Love. First love is not chronological, but it is a descriptive term for a kind of love that is fresh, and fully alive. It is the Mary of Bethany kind of love, that is extravagantly fascinated with Jesus. Jacob had encountered God in this very place many years ago and anointed a stone with oil as a living testimony of encounter. This fresh experience in Genesis 35 provoked more than honor and memory in Jacob. This time he poured out his adoration of love, and marked the stone with oil as an anointed memorial of his lovesickness for God. Jacob wasn’t just grateful this time; his heart was now poured out in affection. This is the first time that the libation offering is mentioned in the Bible. Symbolically the wine was offered as a poured out life of love to God, with the intention of bringing gladness to his heart. Later, almost all offerings and sacrifices had the libation offering added to them, so that the people of God would remember that their offerings were meant to be acts of love and worship, not just a system of dead rituals. Jacob’s pillar was a tangible memorial that others could see, of a life poured out in love to God. Others would encounter God themselves through the testimony of the memorial of Jacob’s love for God, and it would be a place of worship to Jehovah through Jacobs lasting testimony. My prayer is that my life will leave behind more than just memorials of duty, and obedient ritual, but instead there would be all kinds of tangible markers of a life poured out as a drink offering of lovesickness to God, and that those memorials would be a place of encounter for others.