The Foundation: Study in Genesis Part 28
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Chapters 28, 29 Jacob Encounters God at Bethel
Chapters 28, 29 Jacob Encounters God at Bethel
Begin with prayer
Recap Chapter 27
46 Rebekah said to Isaac, “I am tired of living because of the daughters of Heth; if Jacob takes a wife from the daughters of Heth, like these, from the daughters of the land, what good will my life be to me?”
Reviewing 27:46 because 28:1 starts with “So”. It is based on this verse
Rebekah had realized that for his own protection from his brother, Jacob had to leave Canaan. Though she told Jacob that he was to go to Haran for a few days, she surely had to know that it would be much more than that. As it turns out, she would never see her son again. She was sending him away for his safety, but she was also sending him to her family in Haran to take a wife, which of course was necessary to fulfill the covenant promises.
1 So 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 Paddan-aram, to the house of Bethuel your mother’s father; and from there take to yourself a wife from the daughters of Laban your mother’s brother.
Notice that Isaac called Jacob and blessed him in response to Rebekah’s words in 27:46. Here we find Isaac freely blessing Jacob not through any deception at all. It is rather humorous when you think about it that Isaac gives Jacob the charge as if it was his idea. His mother had already told him this very thing. A wise woman can make her husband think that he’s come up with a brilliant idea, when actually it was hers!
3 “May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples.
4 “May He also give you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your descendants with you, that you may possess the land of your sojournings, which God gave to Abraham.”
5 Then Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to Paddan-aram to Laban, son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau.
So Isaac here gives Jacob a second blessing. This seems to expand on the blessing that he gave to him in chapter 27. This makes you wonder what transpired “under the radar” between Isaac and Rebekah. He is no longer hesitant in blessing Jacob. Did Rebekah convince Isaac that Jacob was the son who was supposed to have the blessing of the firstborn? Did God reveal this to Isaac directly? I don’t know.
Notice verse 3 a minute. God Almighty is “El Shaddai”. This is the same name for God that He had used in verse 17 when He appeared to Abraham when he was 99. He revealed to him there that he was about to have a son and his name would be Isaac. Now, Isaac is the old man and he is using this name for God as he blesses his son Jacob.
“That you may become a company of peoples.” This word “company” is used for the first time in the Bible here. It means “assembly” or “congregation.” It’s NT equivalent is “Ekklesia” or church. This is a prophecy that through Jacob would come a nation.
Isaac then transfers the blessing of Abraham to Jacob “that you may possess the sojournings”.
Verse 5 simply says that Isaac went to Paddanaram to Laban. In a few verses, we are going to find out what happened to Jacob on the way. Meanwhile, we find out Esau’s reaction.
6 Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan-aram to take to himself a wife from there, and that when he blessed him he charged him, 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 Paddan-aram.
8 So Esau saw that the daughters of Canaan displeased his father Isaac;
9 and Esau went to Ishmael, and married, besides the wives that he had, Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebaioth.
So it seems that Esau wanted to get back into his father’s good graces after taking two Hittite women as his wives. Rather than repent of this, he takes another wife...this one a daughter of Ishmael. Evidently, Esau thought that this would appease his father.
Isn’t it like a natural man to think that though we have done something against God’s will that if we do something good that it will all balance out? You know, if we have a mountain of sins on one side of the ledger, but we do a few good things on the other side, that God will now be pleased with us? It doesn’t work that way!
I believe that one reason we are given this information here is that from now on, descendants of Ishmael and descendants of Esau will be intertwined. And they will all be enemies of Israel.
Questions/Comments?
Back to Jacob...
10 Then Jacob departed from Beersheba and went toward Haran.
11 He came to a certain place and spent the night there, because the sun had set; and he took one of the stones of the place and put it under his head, and lay down in that place.
12 He had a dream, and behold, a ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.
Have you ever had an unexpected encounter with God? You know, you were just minding your business, and God shows up! I’ve had a few in my life. Every one was life changing. (Tell story of dream that I was to move to southern Indiana from Ark?)
It seems that Jacob is making this trip by himself, which is definitely not how it was usually done. Since there were no Ramadas or Holiday Inns in the area, Jacob has to spend the night in the open. He takes a stone and uses it for a pillow. (They were definitely hardier souls than we are today!)
Verse 12 tells us that he had a dream. Jacob sees a stairway (probably a better translation than ladder) reaching from earth to heaven. Angels are ascending and descending on it. We are probably supposed to get the picture of a ziggurat which had stairway up the exterior of it. This is a tower reaching to heaven. Have we come across a tower that was supposed to reach to heaven before? The tower of Babel. However, that tower was man-made and was doomed to fail. This tower was God-made. It is the opposite of the tower of Babel.
Now I love the old spiritual “We are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder.” But it wasn’t human beings who were climbing this ladder. It was angels. God’s messengers. You would think that they would be going down the ladder from heaven then coming back up, but the text says that they were “ascending and descending” on it. Word order in scripture is important, even when we don’t fully understand it. Do you have any thoughts as to why it is worded this way? I can see it as the angels taking our prayers to heaven and God responding by sending angels down to protect us and bless us.
13 And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your descendants.
It is wonderful that at the top of this stairway, God is standing. I’m not sure if we’ve had any time in Genesis yet where God is standing. It tells me that He is actively engaged! God is actively engaged in your life and mine! He’s not a God who is far off but one who is near!
God tells Jacob that the land on which he is lying will be his and his descendants.
14 “Your descendants will also be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
This is the same blessing that God gave to Abraham and that he gave to Isaac. It is now given to Jacob directly from God. It was wonderful to receive the blessing of his father...twice. But to receive the blessing directly from God...how much greater is that!
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 promised you.”
What a comforting word this must have been to Jacob. Here he was, fleeing from his brother, going to a strange land. Remember, that Jacob is more of a home boy. It’s not in his nature to want to go see the world. Yet, here he is on this harrowing journey by himself! God says “I am with you, Jacob...I will keep you wherever you go. Moreover, I’m going to bring you back to this land one day. I won’t leave you until all that I have promised you will come to pass.”
You know, sometimes, we have to leave to come back. God doesn’t always work in a straight line. In fact, he hardly ever does. You may receive a promise from God and it may be decades before it comes to pass. It might not even be completely fulfilled in this lifetime. Sometimes, we have a wilderness to track through before we see the promises of God fulfilled. But everything that he has ever promised us will come to pass. Remember this verse in Joshua?
45 Not one of the good promises which the Lord had made to the house of Israel failed; all came to pass.
That was true of Israel, but it is also true for us. All will come to pass. What he has said He will do!
Before we move on, I have to mention the time that Jesus talked about this ladder or stairway. Do you remember?
Jesus had just met Nathaniel and told him that He had seen him that he was an Israelite in which there was no deceit. He told him that he saw him under the fig tree. That He knew him. That was all that Nathaniel needed. He confessed that Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah. Here’s Jesus response:
50 Jesus answered and said to him, “Because I said to you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You will see greater things than these.”
51 And He said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
Did you get that? Who is the stairway to heaven? It’s Jesus Himself! He is the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father except through Him. It was through Jesus that God was able to communicate with Jacob on that lonely night at Bethel. It is through Jesus that the angels minister to you and me today. It is all through Jesus!
So now Jacob awakes from his dream. He has no doubt whatsoever that this dream was from God.
16 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”
17 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 So Jacob rose early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on its top.
19 He called the name of that place Bethel; however, previously the name of the city had been Luz.
Jacob realizes that this place was a special place and he was not aware of it. He calls this “The house of God” and names it Bethel which means “the house of God.” He takes his “pillow” and set it up as a “pillar” or a memorial stone and anoints it.
I have run across some that have insinuated that Jacob was wrong to say that God is in this place. They say God is in every place...and they are right. But I believe that throughout history there have been special places that God reveals himself to man in a special way. This is one of them. Jerusalem is certainly one of them as well. I also believe that for each of us, there are special places that are meaningful to us...where we feel the closeness of God. Sometimes during the week, I will come down here and just sit. This is one of those places. He has set his seal here. This is a Bethel to me and I think to most of us here.
20 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will keep me on this journey that I take, and will give me food to eat and garments to wear,
21 and I return to my father’s house in safety, then the Lord will be my God.
22 “This stone, which I have set up as a pillar, will be God’s house, and of all that You give me I will surely give a tenth to You.”
His words are not to be considered as implying a doubt, far less as stating the condition or terms on which he would dedicate himself to God. Let ‘if’ be changed into ‘since,’ and the language will appear a proper expression of Jacob’s faith - an evidence of his having truly embraced the promise (Jamieson Faucett Brown Commentary)
Jacob makes a promise to God. If God will be with him on the way (since God will be with him on the way) and do what he promised he will do, the Lord will be His God. This is not to imply that Yahweh was not his God before, but that he will have more reasons to take the Lord as his God (I think). He promises that this stone will be recognized as God’s house and that he will give God a tenth of what he has.
Matthew Henry
Let us then remember our Bethels, how we stand engaged by solemn vows to yield ourselves to the Lord, to take him for our God, and to devote all we have and are to his glory!
In a few chapters, we will find Jacob as a much older man coming back to this sacred place.
1 Then Jacob went on his journey, and came to the land of the sons of the east.
2 He looked, and saw a well in the field, and behold, three flocks of sheep were lying there beside it, for from that well they watered the flocks. Now the stone on the mouth of the well was large.
3 When all the flocks were gathered there, they would then roll the stone from the mouth of the well and water the sheep, and put the stone back in its place on the mouth of the well.
So now we find ourselves at a well...again! Do you remember an encounter at a well a few chapters back? Abraham’s servant at a well meets Rebekah (maybe the very same well!)
4 Jacob said to them, “My brothers, where are you from?” And they said, “We are from Haran.”
5 He said to them, “Do you know Laban the son of Nahor?” And they said, “We know him.”
6 And he said to them, “Is it well with him?” And they said, “It is well, and here is Rachel his daughter coming with the sheep.”
7 He said, “Behold, it is still high day; it is not time for the livestock to be gathered. Water the sheep, and go, pasture them.”
8 But they said, “We cannot, until all the flocks are gathered, and they roll the stone from the mouth of the well; then we water the sheep.”
Jamieson Faucet Brown
In Arabia, owing to the shifting sands and in other places, owing to the strong evaporation, the mouth of a well is generally covered, especially when it is private property. Over many is laid a broad, thick, flat stone, with a round hole cut in the middle, forming the mouth of the cistern. This hole is covered with a heavy stone which it would require two or three men to roll away. Such was the description of the well at Haran.
In order to prevent the consequences of too frequent exposure in places where water is scarce, the well is not only covered, but it is customary to have all the flocks collected round it before the covering is removed in presence of the owner or one of his representatives; and it was for this reason that those who were reposing at the well of Haran with the three flocks were waiting the arrival of Rachel.
9 While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep, for she was a shepherdess.
10 When Jacob saw Rachel the daughter of Laban his mother’s brother, and the sheep of Laban his mother’s brother, Jacob went up and rolled the stone from the mouth of the well and watered the flock of Laban his mother’s brother.
So we haven’t seen this side of Jacob before. He’s definitely not looking like a “momma’s boy” here! It was expected to take two or three men to move this stone and he moved it by himself. Maybe the presence of Rachel gave him some extra strength!
11 Then Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted his voice and wept.
12 Jacob told Rachel that he was a relative of her father and that he was Rebekah’s son, and she ran and told her father.
13 So when Laban heard the news of Jacob his sister’s son, he ran to meet him, and embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his house. Then he related to Laban all these things.
14 Laban said to him, “Surely you are my bone and my flesh.” And he stayed with him a month.
I don’t think that the kiss that Jacob gave Rachel was anything more than a kiss between members of a family.
Charles Wesley
Providence brought him to the very field where his uncle's flock's were to be watered, and there he met with Rachel that was to be his wife. The Divine Providence is to be acknowledged in all the little circumstances which concur to make a journey or other undertaking comfortable and successful. If, when we are at a loss, we meet with those seasonably that can direct us; if we meet with a disaster, and those are at hand that will help us; we must not say it was by chance, but it was by providence: our ways are ways of pleasantness, if we continually acknowledge God in them.
