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JACOB IN BETHEL

Chapter 28

This chapter begins the exile of Jacob, to escape the wrath of Esau, while seeking for himself a wife from among the relatives of his parents in Padan Aram (plain of Aram), according to their wishes.

Before he left, Isaac warned him not to take a wife from the daughters of Canaan. Canaan was under the curse of Noah and, like Isaac himself, Jacob had to keep his lineage purely Semitic.Isaac then told Jacob to go to the home of his grandfather, the father of Rebekah, in Padan Aram (where Rebekah came from) and to take as a wife one of his cousins, daughters of his uncle Laban.

Despite having been deceived by Jacob, Isaac had now finally realized that it was through him that the promise of the LORD to Abraham would be fulfilled.So he prayed that God Almighty might  give Jacob the blessing of Abraham.

Jacob (age 75) left to travel the 800 miles to the house of his grandfather.

Esau, in turn, becoming aware of all this, and knowing that his father did not approve the two wives he already had, came to the conclusion that he should also take a wife for himself that was not a Canaanite, so he went to the house of his uncle Ishmael (who had died some 14 years earlier), and married his cousin Mahalath (also called Basemath - Chapter 36:3).

She was the sister of Nebajoth, an Ishmaelite prince whose descendants formed a nation (Isaiah 60:7). Ishmael, the son of Hagar the Egyptian servant of Sarah, had married an Egyptian (Chapter 22:21).The Egyptians were Hamitic from the line of line of Cush, brother of Canaan (chapter 10:6-14).

Having travelled some seventy miles of his journey, Jacob lay down exhausted on the ground and used a stone as a pillow for sleeping. Nearby Abraham had offered one of his first sacrifices to God when he arrived in Canaan, and another when he returned from Egypt (Chapters 12:8, 13:4). There was a small town there called Luz (almond tree).

Jacob dreamed he saw a ladder reaching from earth to heaven, on which angels ascended and descended (two thousand years later his descendant the Lord Jesus stated that He was the way to heaven - John 1:47-51, 14:6). Identifying Himself as the LORD God of Abraham and the God of Isaac, the LORD stood above the ladder and confirmed the Abrahamic covenant to Jacob, adding that He would be with him and keep him wherever he went, and would bring him back to this land.

On awakening, Jacob remembered the dream well and showed great surprise because the LORD was in that place (we know that God is everywhere!): God appeared to him when he least expected it. Rather than take pride in the great revelation, he immediately felt fear, which in biblical language means a deep reverence mixed with fear, when he became aware that the Almighty God was there.

“How awesome is this place!” He thought the fact that God appeared before him there, as if opening a door of communication with the heavens, made this place worthy of greater reverence: it was the house of God and the gate of heaven.

Then he got up (it was early in the morning) and erected the stone that he had used as a pillow, consecrating it with oil to mark the place where later he could build something better. He was in a hurry and would not stop there.

When he returned, years later, he built an altar there (chapter 35:7). He also changed the name of the place to Bethel, the house of God. When Moses wrote this book centuries later, this was the name of the place, so the name appears in previous chapters to identify it.

In the last three verses Jacob seems to be bargaining with God even for less than God had promised (v. 14). If this was so, his faith was not strong enough to take God at His word, so he had to make his tithe conditional on God's performance of His part of the agreement. Another interpretation, however, is that the "if" is simply an inherent part of all Hebrew oaths and that Jacob was binding himself to give a tenth unconditionally (see Numbers 21:2; Judges 11:30-31; 1 Samuel 1:11 for similar Hebrew oaths).

Either way, God blessed him, but He had some hard lessons to teach him. Jacob was going through a period of fear and distress. It is in these conditions that often people resort to making a promise, or when they want a great mercy (Numbers 21:2, 1 Samuel 1:11, Psalm 66:13,14; Jonah 1:16). In this promise of Jacob, we note:

Faith: He trusted in God's promise, believing He would allow his return to his father's house.

Modesty: he was satisfied with getting security, food, clothing and peace on his return home (1 Timothy 6:8).

Godliness, respect for God: he longed for God's presence with him, giving him protection on his journey; he also resolved to give Him due honour as His God, beginning by consecrating the place of the column as a house of God, and dedicating the tithe of everything he received to God (1 Corinthians 16:2, 2 Corinthians 9:7).

R David Jones

 

 

1 Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him, and charged him, and said to him: "You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan.
2 Arise, go to Padan Aram, to the house of Bethuel your mother's father; and take yourself a wife from there of the daughters of Laban your mother's brother.
3 "May God Almighty bless you, And make you fruitful and multiply you, That you may be an assembly of peoples;
4 And give you the blessing of Abraham, To you and your descendants with you, That you may inherit the land In which you are a stranger, Which God gave to Abraham."
5 So Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to Padan Aram, to Laban the son of Bethuel the Syrian, the brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau.
6 Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Padan Aram to take himself a wife from there, and that as he blessed him he gave him a charge, saying, "You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan,"
7 and that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and had gone to Padan Aram.
8 Also Esau saw that the daughters of Canaan did not please his father Isaac.
9 So Esau went to Ishmael and took Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife in addition to the wives he had.
10 Now Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran.
11 So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep.
12 Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.
13 And behold, the LORD stood above it and said: "I am the LORD God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants.
14 Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
15 Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you."
16 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it."
17 And he was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!"
18 Then Jacob rose early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put at his head, set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on top of it.
19 And he called the name of that place Bethel; but the name of that city had been Luz previously.
20 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, "If God will be with me, and keep me in this way that I am going, and give me bread to eat and clothing to put on,
21 so that I come back to my father's house in peace, then the LORD shall be my God.
22 And this stone which I have set as a pillar shall be God's house, and of all that You give me I will surely give a tenth to You."

Genesis chapter 28