Last 5 Days
And Behold!
1 Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and directed him, “You must not take a wife from the Canaanite women. 2 Arise, go to Paddan-aram to the house of Bethuel your mother's father, and take as your wife from there one of the daughters of Laban your mother's brother. 3 God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples. 4 May he give the blessing of Abraham to you and to your offspring with you, that you may take possession of the land of your sojournings that God gave to Abraham!” 5 Thus Isaac sent Jacob away. And he went to Paddan-aram, to Laban, the son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob's and Esau's mother.
6 Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan-aram to take a wife from there, and that as he blessed him he directed him, “You must not take a wife from the Canaanite women,” 7 and that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and gone to Paddan-aram. 8 So when Esau saw that the Canaanite women did not please Isaac his father, 9 Esau went to Ishmael and took as his wife, besides the wives he had, Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, the sister of Nebaioth.
10 Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran. 11 And he came to a certain place and stayed there that night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep. 12 And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it! 13 And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. 14 Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth 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 promised 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 So early in the morning Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. 19 He called the name of that place Bethel, but the name of the city was Luz at the first. 20 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, 21 so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God, 22 and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God's house. And of all that you give me I will give a full tenth to you.”
Up till this point, we have seen Jacob grasping for the blessings of the firstborn. He had stolen the blessing from Esau and was going to go to Paddan-aram, where his uncle, Laban, was. Before he goes, Isaac places the covenant blessing on him. Isaac, like his father Abraham did, also insisted that Jacob married someone from outside the land. This time, however, the circumstances differed where, instead of keeping Jacob in the land, Isaac was sending Jacob from the land.
While some may wonder if the sending of Jacob away from the land might cause jeopardy to the promise of land (for example, if Jacob was never to return, then how would the promise of the inheritance of the land be fulfilled?), it is worthwhile to note that with Abraham and Sarah’s graves in the land, the land was now home, and that there was less potential for Jacob to never return. Instead, Jacob now has to content with fulfilling the promise of the seed, the offspring.
After Jacob left, the Lord himself appeared to Jacob at Bethel through a dream. From verses 12 to 13, “and behold” was mentioned thrice, demarcating the dream into three parts – the stairway, the angels, Yahweh God. Jacob dreamt of a stairway that reaches to heaven. This is cultural in context to the world of the Ancient Near East, where a stairway that reaches to heaven is representative of a messenger of the gods moving from one realm to another. Likewise, in Genesis 28, the messengers of Yahweh God are using the stairway to travel between the realms, but Yahweh was not seen descending by the stairway and was instead standing beside it. Hence, while the dream was thoroughly embedded in the imagery of the culture of its time, it was distinct in how Yahweh God related to it.
God spoke over Jacob the promise of the land and seed, and blessed him. Although it was the same blessing that Isaac had given to Jacob, and which Jacob had probably heard about his whole life, it was a personal revelation of these words when God spoke them over him while at Bethel. God was truly going to make a great multitude through Jacob, and will give the land to his descendants. These words were no longer words uttered by his father and his father’s father, but God’s Word spoken personally to him, God’s promises given personally to him.
When Jacob arose, he recognised the sacredness of the place he was at, set up the stone as pillar, and named the place Bethel, meaning “house of God”. He also made a vow to God and promised a tithe of all he receives from the hand of God. He also promised that he would recognise Yahweh as behind the providence. Through Jacob’s response, it seems that he was still demanding that God proved himself before Jacob would respond. He had put conditions on God before Jacob would offer the promises.
Here we see Jacob as a continual work in progress. At a time when he was probably feeling vulnerable and in despair, given the loneliness of the long travel, God had reached out to him. God had encouraged Jacob by His presence and comforted him with His promise. God revealed Himself to Jacob, allowing Jacob to experience that intimacy with Him and the grace of that intimacy.
Similarly, dear brothers and sisters, we are a continual work in progress until Christ comes again. God, in His grace, will continue to work in us to complete His works. God Himself will grant us the faith and the desire to accomplish His works, and empower us to complete them. God Himself will reveal Himself to us through His Word, and He will comfort and encourage us. What a wonderful promise!
