Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Genesis 28:1

Jacob Dismissed in Peace

v. 1. And Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, and charged him, and said unto him, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan. What Rebekah had planned came to pass; Isaac saw the point of her objection and took the hint given in her words. Isaac formally called Jacob, welcomed him with all kindness, and then gave him the definite command not to marry a Canaanitish woman.

v. 2. Arise, go to Padanaram, to the house of Bethuel, thy mother’s father; and take thee a wife from thence of the daughters of Laban, thy mother’s brother. There was evidently some, at least occasional, communication between the two families of relatives, since Isaac knew of the daughters of Laban.

v. 3. And God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people;

v. 4. and give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee; that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave unto Abraham. The words of Isaac unmistakably point to the fact that he now openly recognized Jacob as the chosen heir. The consciousness of his patriarchal calling was awakened in him, and he had the strength to give the blessing of Abraham, which included the Messianic promise, to the son whom he would have rejected, but whom God had chosen.

v. 5. And Isaac sent away Jacob; and he went to Padanaram unto Laban, son of Bethuel, the Syrian, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob’s and Esau’s mother. Bethuel had by this time either died or was no longer actively engaged in business, therefore Laban, Jacob’s uncle, is spoken of as the head of the household.

v. 6. When Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob, thus openly acknowledging him as the bearer of the patriarchal blessing, and sent him away to Padanaram, to take him a wife from thence; and that as he blessed him he gave him a charge, saying, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan;

v. 7. and that Jacob obeyed his father and his mother, and was gone to Padanaram;

v. 8. and Esau, seeing that the daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac, his father, literally, were evil in his eyes;

v. 9. then went Esau unto Ishmael, that is, to the house of Ishmael, the father himself having been dead more than twelve years, and took unto, in addition to, the wives which he had Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife. This woman, Gen 36:2, is called Bashemath, and she was called the sister of Nebajoth, because he was her oldest brother. Esau probably intended to regain the full regard of his father by this act, since this third wife was a descendant of Abraham, but merely betrayed his utter lack of understanding, so far as the relation of the patriarchs to the prophecies of the Lord with regard to the possession of this land was concerned, for Ishmael and his children were not to be heirs with the son of Sarah.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

EXPOSITION

Gen 28:1

And Isaac called Jacob (to his bed-side), and blessed him,in enlarged form, renewing the benediction previously given (Gen 27:27)and said unto him, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan (cf. Gen 14:3). Intermarriage with the women of the land was expressly forbidden to the theocratic heir, while his attention was directed to his mother’s kindred.

Gen 28:2

Arise, go to Padan-aram (vide Gen 14:10; Gen 25:20; Gen 27:43), to the house of Bethuel thy mother’s father;(vide Gen 14:24). If yet alive, Bethuel must have been very old, since he was Isaac’s cousin, and probably born many years before the son of Abrahamand take thee a wife from thencethough Isaac’s wife was found for him, he does not think of imitating Abraham and dispatching another ,Eliezer in search of a spouse for Rebekah’s son. Probably he saw that Jacob could attend to that business sufficiently without assistance from othersof the daughters of Laban thy mother’s brother (vide Gen 14:1-24 :29). “Isaac appears to entertain no doubt of Jacob’s success, which might be the more probable since the same reason which kept Jacob from marrying in Canaan might prevent Laban’s daughters from being married in Haran, the worshippers of the Lord being few (Inglis).

Gen 28:3

And God AlmightyEl Shaddai (vide Gen 17:1)bless thee,the Abrahamic benediction in its fullest form was given by El Shaddai (vide Gen 17:1-8)and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest beliterally, and thou shalt become (or grow to)a multitudean assembly, or congregation, or crowd called together, from a root signifying to call together (Gesenius), or to sweep up together (Furst); corresponding to in Greekof people.

Gen 28:4

And give thee the Blessing of Abraham,i.e. promised to Abraham (vide Gen 12:2; Gen 22:17, Gen 22:18). The additions of (LXX.), = (Samaritan), are unwarrantedto thee, and to thy seed with thee; that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger,literally, the land of thy sojournings (Gen 17:8)which God gave unto Abrahamby promise (cf. Gen 12:7; Gen 13:15; Gen 15:7, Gen 15:18; Gen 17:8).

Gen 28:5

And Isaac sent away Jacob (Rebekah only counseled, Isaac commanded): and he went to Padan-aram unto Laban, son of Bethel the Syrian (vide Hos 12:12), the brother of Rebekah, Jacob’s and Esau’s mother. The historian here perhaps intentionally gives the first place to Jacob.

Gen 28:6-9

When (literally, and) Esau saw that Issue had blessed Jacob, and sent him away to Padan-aram, to take him a wife from thence; and that as he blessed him he gave him a charge,literally, in his blessing him (forming a parenthesis), and he commanded himsaying, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan; and that (literally, and) Jacob obeyed his father and his mother, and was gone (or went) to Padan-aram; and Esau seeing that (more correctly, saw that) the daughters of Canaan pleased not (literally, were evil in the eyes of) Isaac his father; then (literally, and) went Esau unto Ishmael (i.e. the family or tribe of Ishmael, aiming in this likely to please his father), and took unto the wives which he had (so that they were neither dead nor divorced) Mahalath (called Bashemath in Gen 36:3) the daughter of Ishmael (and therefore Esau’s half-cousin by the father’s side, Ishmael, who was now dead thirteen years, having been Isaac’s half-brother) Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebajoth,Ishmael’s firstborn (vide Gen 25:13)to be his wife.

HOMILETICS

Gen 28:1-9

Jacob and Esau, or diverging paths.

I. JACOB‘S JOURNEY TO PADAN–ARAM.

1. The path of duty. Entered on in obedience to his mother’s wish and his father’s commandment, it was an evidence of filial piety. It is the token of a good son that he “hears the instruction of his father, and forsakes not the taw of his mother” (Pro 1:8). Sons come to mature age should respect and, where not inconsistent with allegiance to God, yield submission to parental authority (Pro 6:20; Mal 1:6; Eph 6:1-3).

2. The path of blessing. The benediction already bestowed upon Jacob was repeated with greater amplitude and tenderness before he left the patriarchal tent. Happy the youth who enters upon life’s journey carrying on his head and in his heart a father’s blessing I much more who goes forth beneath the canopy of Heaven’s benediction! and this is ever the experience of him who travels by the way of filial obedience. Pious children seldom fail to come to honor, and never want the favor of the Lord (Psa 37:26; Pro 4:20-22; Pro 8:32).

3. The path of promise. In addition to his father’s blessing and the Almighty’s benediction, Jacob carried with him as he left Beersheba the promise of a seed and an inheritance to be in due time acquired; and in like manner now has the saint exceeding great and precious promises to cheer him in his heavenward pilgrimage, promises the full realization of which is attainable only in the future (Joh 14:2; 1Pe 1:4).

4. The path of hope. Sad and sorrowful as Jacob’s heart must have been as he kissed his mother and bade farewell to Isaac, it was at least sustained by pleasant expectation. Gilding the horizon of his future was the prospect of a wife to love as Isaac had loved Rebekah, and to be the mother of the seed of promise. So the pathway of the children of promise, though often painful, arduous, and protracted, is always lighted by the star of hope, and always points to a bright and beautiful beyond.

II. ESAU‘S MARRIAGE WITH MAHALATH.

1. The way of sin. His former wives being neither dead nor divorced, the conduct of Esau in adding to them a third was wrong.

2. The way of shame. In the selection of Ishmael’s daughter he hoped to please his father, but was apparently indifferent about the judgment of either Rebekah or Jehovah. Daring transgressors, like Esau, rather glory in their shame than feel abashed at their wickedness.

3. The way of sorrow. If not to himself, at least to his pious parents, this fresh matrimonial alliance could not fail to be a grief. The daughter of Ishmael was certainly better than a daughter of the Hittites, being almost as near a relative on Isaac’s side as Rachel and Leah were on Rebekah’s; but, unlike Rachel and Leah, who belonged to the old family stock (the Terachites) in Mesopotamia, Mahalath descended from a branch which had been removed from the Abrahamic tree.

Learn

1. The care which pious parents should take to see their sons well married.

2. The piety which children should delight to show to their parents.

3. The connection which subsists between true religion and prosperity.

4. The inevitable tendency of sin to produce shame and sorrow.

5. The wickedness of violating God’s law of marriage.

HOMILIES BY R.A. REDFORD

Gen 28:1-9

Life with, and life without, God.

The divergence of the two representative men is seen in this short statement of their marriage relations.

1. Domestic life under the blessing of God and apart from that blessing.

2. The true blessing is the blessing of Abraham, the blessing which God has already provided, promised, and secured.

3. The heir of the blessing must be sent away and learn by experience how to use it.

4. The disinherited man, who has scorned his opportunity, cannot recover it by his own devices. Esau is still Esau. Polygamy was suffered, but never had the blessing of God upon it.R.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

SIXTH SECTION

Isaacs preference for the natural first-born, and Esau. Rebekah and Jacob steal from him the theocratic blessing. Esaus blessing. Esaus hostility to Jacob. Rebekahs preparation for the flight of Jacob, and his journey with reference to a theocratic marriage. Isaacs directions for the journcy of Jacob, the counterpart to the dismissal of Ishmael. Esaus pretended correction of his ill-assoried marriages

Gen 27:1 to Gen 28:9

1And it came to pass, that when Isaac was old, and his eyes were dim, so that he could not see,1 he called Esau his eldest son, and said unto him, My son: And he said unto him, Behold, here am I. 2And he said, Behold, now I am old, I know not the day of my death. 3Now therefore take, I pray thee, thy weapons [hunting weapons], thy quiver, and thy bow, and go out to the field, and take me some venison; 4And make me savory meat [tasty; favorite; festive dish. De Wette: dainty dish], such as I love, and bring it to me, that I may eat; that my soul may bless thee before I die. 5And Rebekah heard when Isaac spake to Esau his son. And Esau went to the field to hunt for venison, and to bring it.

6And Rebekah spake unto Jacob her son, saying, Behold, I heard thy father speak unto Esau thy brother, saying, 7Bring me venison, and make me savory meat, that I may eat, and bless thee before the Lord before my death. 8Now therefore, my son, obey my voice [strictly], according to that which I command thee. 9Go now to the flock [small cattle], and fetch me from thence two good kids of the goats; and I will make them savory meat for thy father, such as he loveth: 10And thou shalt bring it to thy father, that he may eat, and that he may bless thee before his death. 11And Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man: 12My father peradventure will feel me, and I shall seem to him as a deceiver; and I shall bring a curse upon me, and not a blessing. 13And his mother said unto him, Upon me be thy curse, my son: only obey my voice, and go fetch me them. 14And he went, and fetched, and brought them to his mother: and his mother made savory meat 15[dainty dish], such as his father loved. And Rebekah took goodly [costly] raiment of her eldest son Esau, which were with her in the house, and put them upon Jacob her younger son: 16And she put the skins of the kids of the goats upon his hands, and upon the smooth [part] of his neck; 17And she gave the savory meat and the bread, which she had prepared, into the hand of her son Jacob.

18And he came unto his father, and said, My father: And he said, Here am I; who art thou, my son. 19And Jacob said unto his father, I am Esau thy firstborn; I have done according as thou badest me: arise, I pray thee, sit and eat of my venison, that thy soul may bless me. 20And Isaac said unto his son, How is it that thou hast found it so quickly, my son? And he said, Because the Lord thy God brought it to me. 21And Isaac said unto Jacob, Come near, I pray thee, that I may feel thee, my son, whether thou be my very son Esau, or not. 22And Jacob went near unto Isaac his father; and he felt him, and said, The voice is Jacobs voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau. 23And he discerned him not, because his hands were hairy, as his brother Esaus hands: so he blessed him. 24And he said, Art thou [thou there] my very son Esau? 25And he said, I am. And he said, Bring it near to me, and I will eat of my sons venison, that my soul may bless thee. And he brought it near to him, and he did eat: and he brought him wine, and he drank. 26And his father Isaac said unto him, Come near now, and kiss me, my son. 27And he came near, and kissed him: and he smelled the smell of his raiment, and blessed him, and said, See, the smell of my son 28 is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed: Therefore [thus] God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth and plenty [the fulness] of corn and wine: 29Let people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee: be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mothers sons bow down to thee [thy mothers sons shall bow]: cursed be every one that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee.

30And it came to pass, as soon as Isaac had made an end of blessing Jacob, and Jacob was yet scarce gone out from the presence of Isaac his father, that Esau his brother came in from his hunting. 31And he also had made savory meat, and brought it unto his father, and said unto his father, Let my father arise, and eat of his sons venison, that 32thy soul may bless me. And [then] Isaac his father said unto him, Who art thou? And he said, I am thy son, thy firstborn Esau. 33And Isaac trembled very exceedingly [shuddered in great terror above measure], and said, Who? where is he [who then was he]? that hath taken [hunted] venison, and brought it me, and I have eaten of all before thou camest, and have blessed him? yea, and he shall be blessed. 34And when Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry, and said unto his father, Bless me, even me also, O my father. 35And he said, Thy brother came with subtilty, and hath taken away thy blessing. 36And he said, Is he not rightly named [heel-holder, supplanter] Jacob? for he hath supplanted me these two times: he took away my birthright [right of the firstborn]; and, behold, now he hath taken away my blessing. And he said, Hast thou not reserved a blessing for me? 37And Isaac answered and said unto Esau, Behold, I have made him thy lord, and all his brethren have I given to him for servants; and with corn and wine have I sustained him [have I endowed him]: and what shall I do now unto thee, my son? 38And Esau said unto his father, Hast thou but one blessing, my father? bless me, even me also, O my father. And Esau lifted up his 39voice and wept. And [then] Isaac his father answered, and said unto him, Behold, thy dwelling shall be the fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above; 40And by thy sword shalt thou live, and shalt serve thy brother: and [but] it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion [in the course of thy wanderings], that thou shalt break his yoke from, off thy neck.

41And Esau hated Jacob, because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him: and Esau said in his heart [formed the design], The days of mourning for my [dead] father are at hand, then will I slay my brother Jacob. 42And these words of Esau her elder son were told to Rebekah: and she sent and called Jacob her younger son, and said unto him, Behold, thy brother Esau, as touching thee, doth comfort himself, purposing to kill thee [goes about with revenge to kill thee].2 43Now therefore, my son, obey my voice; and arise, flee thou to Laban my brother, to Haran: 44And tarry with him a few days 45[some time], until thy brothers fury turn away; Until thy brothers anger turn away from thee, and he forget that which thou hast done to him: then I will send, and fetch thee from thence: why should I be deprived also of you both in one day? 46And Rebekah said to Isaac, I am weary of my life, because of the daughters of Heth: if Jacob take a wife of the daughters of Heth, such as these which are of the daughters of the land, what good shall my life do me [what is life to me]

Gen 28:1.And Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, and charged him, and said unto him, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan. 2Arise, go to Padan-aram [Mesopotamia], to the house of Bethuel, thy mothers father; and take thee a wife from 3thence of the daughters of Laban, thy mothers brother. And God [the] Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be [become] a multitude3 of people; 4And give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee and to thy seed with thee; that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger [of thy pilgrimage], which God gave unto Abraham. 5And Isaac sent away Jacob: and he went to Padan-aram unto Laban, son of Bethuel the Syrian, the brother of Rebekah, Jacobs and Esaus mother.

6When Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob, and sent him away to Padan-aram, to take him a wife from thence; and that, as he blessed him, he gave him a charge, saying, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan; 7And that Jacob obeyed his father and his mother, and was gone to Padan-aram; 8And Esau seeing that the daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father; 9Then went Esau unto Ishmael, and took unto the wives which he had Mahalath [from root , Cecinit. Delitzsch derives it from , to be sweet] the daughter of Ishmael, Abrahams son, the sister of Nebajoth [heights, nabatha], to be his wife.

GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS

1. Knobel, without regard to verse 46, and notwithstanding the word Elohim, verse 28, regards our section as a Jehovistic narrative. We have only to refer to the prevailing Jehovistic reference. Respecting the origin of our narrative Knobel has given his opinion in a remarkable manner, e.g., he cannot conceive how an old man may hear well, smell well, and yet be unable to see!!

2. The time. Isaac at that time was a hundred and thirty-seven years old, the age at which Ishmael, his half-brother, died, about fourteen years before; a fact which, in consequence of the weakness of old age, may have seriously reminded him of death, though he did not die until forty-three years afterwards. The correct determination of his age, given already by Luther, is based upon the following calculation: Joseph, when he stood before Pharaoh, was thirty years old (Gen 41:46), and at the migration of Jacob to Egypt he had reached already the age of thirty-nine; for seven years of plenty and two years of famine had passed already at that time; nine years had elapsed since the elevation of Joseph (Gen 45:6). But Jacob, at that time, was a hundred and thirty years old (Gen 47:9); Joseph, therefore, was born when Jacob was ninety-one years; and since Josephs birth occurred in the fourteenth year of Jacobs sojourn in Mesopotamia (comp. Gen 30:25 with Gen 29:18; Gen 29:21; Gen 29:27), Jacobs flight to Laban happened in his seventy-seventh year, and in the hundred and thirty-seventh year of Isaac. Comp. Hengstenberg: Beitr. iii. p. 348, etc. Keil.

3. The present section contains the history of the distinction and separation of Esau and Jacob; first introduced by enmity after the manner of man, then confirmed by the divine judgment upon human sins, and established by the conduct of the sons. This narrative conducts us from the history of Isaac to that of Jacob. The separate members of this section are the following: 1. Isaacs project; 3. Rebekahs counter-project; 3. Jacobs deed and blessing; 4. Esaus complaint and Esaus blessing; 5. Esaus scheme of revenge, and Rebekahs counter-scheme; 6. Jacob and Esau in the antithesis of their marriage, or the divine decree.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1. Gen 27:1-4.And his eyes were dim.We construe with the Sept., since we are of the opinion that this circumstance is noticed as an explanation of the succeeding narrative.Thy quiver.The ., (lit. hanging), has by some been explained incorrectly as meaning sword (Onkelos and others).Savory meat., delicious food. But it is rather to be taken in the sense of a feast than of a dainty dish. It is praiseworthy in Isaac to be mindful of his death so long before-hand. That he anticipates his last hours in this manner indicates not only a strong self-will, but also a doubt and a certain apprehension, whence he makes the special pretence, in order to conceal the blessing from Jacob and Rebekah. [Notwithstanding the divine utterance before the children were born, undoubtedly known to him, and the careless and almost contemptuous disposal of his birthright by Esau, and Esaus ungodly connection with the Canaanitish women, Isaac still gives way to his preference to Esau, and determines to bestow upon him the blessing.A. G.]

2. Gen 27:5-17. Rebekahs counter-project.Unto Jacob her son.Her favorite.Two good kids of the goats.The meat was to be amply provided, so as to represent venison.As a deceiver (lit., as a scoffer).He is afraid to be treated as a scoffer merely, but not as an impostor, since he would have confessed only a mere sportive intention. Knobel. It may be assumed, however, that his conscience really troubled him. But from respect for his mother he does not point to the wrong itself, but to its hazardous consequences.Upon me be thy curse.Rebekahs boldness assumes here the appearance of the greatest rashness. This, however, vanishes for the most part, if we consider that she is positively sure of the divine promise, with which, it is true, she wrongfully identifies her project.Goodly raiment.Even in regard to dress, Esau seems to have taken already a higher place in the household. His goodly raiment reminds us of the coat of Joseph.Upon his hands.According to Tuch, the skins of the Eastern camel-goat (angora-goat) are here referred to. The black, silk-like hair of these animals, was also used by the Romans as a substitute for human hair (Martial., xii. 46). Keil.

3. Gen 27:18-29. Jacobs act and Jacobs blessing.Who art thou, my son.The secrecy with which Isaac arranged the preparation for the blessing must have made him suspicious at the very beginning. The presence of Jacob, under any circumstances, would have been to him, at present, an unpleasant interruption. But now he thinks that he hears Jacobs voice. That he does not give effect to this impression is shown by the perfect success of the deception. But perhaps an infirmity of hearing corresponds with his blindness.Arise, I pray thee, sit and eat.They ate not only in a sitting posture, but also while lying down; but the lying posture at a meal differed from that taken upon a bed or couch. It is the solemn act of blessing, moreover, which is here in question.How is it that thou hast found it so quickly.It is not only Jacobs voice, but also the quick execution of his demand, which awakens his suspicion.And he blessed him.

Gen 27:23. This is merely the greeting. Even after having felt his son, he is not fully satisfied, but once more demands the explanation that he is indeed Esau.Come near now, and kiss me.After his partaking of the meat, Isaac wants still another assurance and encouragement by the kiss of his son.And he smelled the smell of his raiment.The garments of Esau were impregnated with the fragrance of the fields, over which he roamed as a hunter. The scent of Lebanon was distinguished (Hos 14:7; Son 4:11). Knobel. The directness of the form of his blessing is seen from the fact that the fundamental thought is connected with the smell of Esaus raiment. The fragrance of the fields of Canaan, rich in herbs and flowers, which were promised to the theocratic heir, perfumed the garments of Esau, and this circumstance confirmed the patriarchs prejudice.And blessed him, and said.The words of his blessing are prophecies (Gen 9:27; Genesis 49)utterances of an inspired state looking into the future, and therefore poetic in form and expression. The same may be said respecting the later blessing upon Esau.Of a field which the Lord hath blessed.Palestine, the land of Jehovahs blessing, a copy of the old, and a prototype of the new, paradise.Because the country is blessed of Jehovah, he assumes that the son whose garments smell of the fragrance of the land is also blessed.Therefore God give thee.Ha–elohim. The choice of the expression intimates a remaining doubt whether Esau was the chosen one of Jehovah; but it is explained also by the universality of the succeeding blessing. [He views Ha-elohim, the personal God, but not Jehovah, the God of the Covenant, as the source and giver of the blessing.A. G.]Of the dew of heaven.The dew in Palestine is of the greatest importance in respect to the fruitfulness of the year during the dry season (Gen 49:25; Deu 33:13; Deu 33:28; Hos 14:6; Sach. viii. 12).And the fatness of the earth.Knobel: Of the fat parts of the earth, singly and severally. Since the land promised to the sons was to be divided between Esau and Jacob, the sense no doubt is: may he give to thee the fat part of the promised land, i.e., Canaan. Canaan was the chosen part of the lands of the earth belonging to the first-born, which were blessed with the dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth. As to the fruitfulness of Canaan, see Exo 3:8. Compare also the Bible Dictionaries; Winer: article Palestine. The antithesis of this grant to that of the Edomitic country appears distinctly, Gen 27:39. A two-fold contrast is therefore to be noticed: 1. To Edom; 2. to the earth in general; and so we have . But to a blessed land belong also blessed seasons, therefore plenty of corn and wine.Let people serve thee.To the grant of the theocratic country is added the grant of a theocratic, i.e., spiritual and political condition of the world.And nations.Tribes of nations. Not only nations but tribes of nations, groups of nations, are to bow down to him, i.e., to do homage to him submissively. This promise was fulfilled typically in the time of David and Solomon, ultimately and completely in the world-sovereignty of the promise of faith.Be Lord over thy brethren.This blessing was fulfilled in the subjection of Edom (2Sa 8:14; 1Ki 11:15; Psa 60:8-9).Thy mothers sons.His prejudice still shows itself in the choice of this expression, according to which he thought to subject Jacob, the mothers son, to Esau.Cursed be every one that curseth thee.Thus Isaac bound himself. He is not able to take back the blessing he pronounced on Jacob. In this sealing of the blessing he afterwards recognizes also a divine sentence (Gen 27:33). His prophetic spirit has by far surpassed his human prejudice. [This blessing includes the two elements of the blessing of Abraham, the possession of the land of Canaan, and a numerous offspring, but not distinctly the third, that all nations should be blessed in him and his seed. This may be included in the general phrase, let him that curseth thee be cursed, and him that blesseth thee be blessed. But it is only when the conviction that he had against his will served the purpose of God in blessing Jacob, that the consciousness of his patriarchal calling is awakened within him, and he has strength to give the blessing of Abraham to the son whom he had rejected but God had chosen (Gen 27:3-4). See Keil.A. G.]

4. Gen 27:30-40. Esaus lamentation and Esaus blessing.And Isaac trembled.If Isaac himself had not intended to deceive in the matter in which he was deceived, or had he been filled with divine confidence in respect to the election of Esau, he would have been startled only at the deception of Jacob. But it is evident that he was surprised most at the divine decision, which thereby revealed itself, and convinces him of the error and sin of his attempt to forestall that decision, otherwise we should hear of deep indignation rather than of an extraordinary terror. What follows, too, confirms this interpretation. He bows not so much to the deception practised upon him as to the fact and to the prophetic spirit which has found utterance through him. Augustine: De Civitate Dei, 16, Genesis 37 : Quis non hic maledictionem potius expectaret irati, si hc non superna inspiratione sed terreno more generentur.Who? where is he?Yet before he has named Jacob, he pronounces the divine sentence: the blessing of the Lord remains with that man who received it.He cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry.Heb 12:17.Bless me, even me also.Esau, it is true, had a vague feeling that the question here was about important grants, but he did not understand their significance. He, therefore, thought the theocratic blessing admitted of division, and was as dependent upon his lamentations and prayers as upon the caprice of his father.Thy brother came with subtilty.With deception. Isaac now indicates also the human error and sin, after having declared the divine judgment. But at the same time he declares that the question is only about one blessing, and that no stranger has been the recipient of this blessing, but Esaus brother.Is not he rightly named. ()?Shall he get the advantage of me because he was thus inadvertently named (Jacob=heel-catcher, supplanter), and because he then acted thus treacherously (with cunning or fraud) shall I acquiesce in a blessing that was surreptitiously obtained?He took away my birthright.Instead of reproaching himself with his own act, his eye is filled with the wrong Jacob has done him.Hast thou not a blessing reserved for me?Esau is perplexed in the mysterious aspect of this matter. He speaks as if Isaac had pronounced a gratuitous blessing. Isaacs answer is according to the truth. He informs him very distinctly of his future theocratic relation to Jacob. As compared with the blessing of Jacob he had no more a blessing for Esau, for it is fundamentally the greatest blessing for him to serve Jacob.Hast thou but one blessing?Esau proceeds upon the assumption that the father could pronounce blessings at will. His tears, however, move the fathers heart, and he feels that his favorite son can be appeased by a sentence having the semblance of a blessing, and which in fact contains every desire of his heart. That is, he now understands him.The fatness of the earth.The question arises whether is used here in a partitive sense (according to Luthers translation and the Vulgate), as in the blessing upon Jacob, Gen 27:28, or in a privative sense (according to Tuch, Knobel, Kurtz, etc.). Delitzsch favors the last view: 1. The mountains in the northeastern part of Iduma (now Gebalene), were undoubtedly fertile, and therefore called Palstina Salutaris in the middle ages (Von Raumer, in his Palstina, p. 240, considers the prophecy, therefore, according to Luthers translation, as fulfilled). But the mountains in the western part of Iduma are beyond comparison the most dreary and sterile deserts in the world, as Seetzen expresses himself. 2. It is not probable that Esaus and Jacobs blessing would begin alike. 3. It is in contradiction with Gen 27:37, etc. (p. 455); Mal 1:3. This last citation is quoted by Keil as proof of the preceding statement. [The is the same in both cases, but in the blessing of Jacob, after a verb of giving, it had a partitive sense; here, after a noun of place, it denotes distance, or separation, e.g., Pro 20:3. Murphy. The context seems to demand this interpretation, and it is confirmed by the prediction, by thy sword, etc. Esaus dwelling-place was the very opposite of the richly-blessed land of Canaan.A. G.] But notwithstanding all this, the question arises, whether the ambiguity of the expression is accidental, or whether it is chosen in relation to the excitement and weakness of Esau. As to the country of Edom, see Delitzsch, p. 455; Knobel, p. 299; Keil, p. 198; also the Dictionaries, and journals of travellers.And by thy sword.This confirms the former explanation, but at the same time this expression corresponds with Esaus character and the future of his descendants. War, pillage, and robbery, are to support him in a barren country. Similar to Ishmael, Gen 16:12, and the different tribes still living to-day in the old Edomitic country (see Burkhardt: Syria, p. 826; Ritter: Erdkunde, xiv. p. 966, etc.). Knobel. See Obadiah, Gen 27:3; Jer 49:16. The land of Edom, therefore, according to Isaacs prophecy, will constitute a striking antithesis to the land of Jacob. Keil.And shalt serve thy brother.See above.And it shall come to pass.As a consequence of the roaming about of Edom in the temper and purpose of a freebooter, he will ultimately shake off the yoke of Jacob from his neck. This seems to be a promise of greater import, but the self-liberation of Edom from Israel was not of long continuance, nor did it prove to him a true blessing. Edom was at first strong and independent as compared to Israel, slower in its development (Num 20:14, etc.). Saul first fought against it victoriously (1Sa 14:47); David conquered it (2Sa 8:14). Then followed a conspiracy under Solomon (1Ki 11:14), whilst there was an actual defection under Joram. On the other hand, the Edomites were again subjected by Amaziah (2Ki 14:7; 2Ch 25:11) and remained dependent under Uzziah and Jotham (2Ki 14:22; 2Ch 26:2). But under Ahaz they liberated themselves entirely from Judah (2Ki 16:6; 2Ch 28:17). Finally, however, John Hyrcanus subdued them completely, forced them to adopt circumcision, and incorporated them into the Jewish state and people (Josephus: Antiq. xiii. 9, 1; xv. 7, 9), whilst the Jews themselves, however, after Antipater, became subject to the dominion of an Iduman dynasty, until the downfall of their state.

5. Esaus scheme of revenge, and Rebekahs counter-scheme (Gen 27:41-46).And Esau said in his heart.Esaus good-nature still expresses itself in his exasperation toward Jacob and in the scheme of revenge to kill him. For he does not maliciously execute the thought immediately, but betrays it in uttered threats, and postpones it until the death of his father.The days of mourning are at hand.Not for my father, but on account of my father; i.e., my father, weak and trembling with age, is soon to die.Then, and not before, he will execute his revenge. He does not intend to grieve the father, but if his mother, his brothers protectress, is grieved by the murder, that is all right, in his view.These words were told.On account of his frank and open disposition, Esaus thoughts were soon revealed; what he thought in his heart he soon uttered in words.And called Jacob.From the herds.Flee thou to Laban.Rebekah encourages him to this flight by saying that it will last but few days, i.e., a short time. But she looked further. She took occasion from the present danger to carry on the thoughts of Abraham, and to unite Jacob honorably in a theocratic marriage. For, notwithstanding all his grief of mind arising from Esaus marriages, Isaac had not thought of this. But still she lets Isaac first express this thought. Nor is Isaac to be burdened with Esaus scheme of revenge and Jacobs danger, and therefore she leads him to her mode of reasoning by a lamentation concerning the daughters of Heth (Gen 27:46).Deprived also of you both.Bunsen: Of thy father and thyself. Others: Of thyself and Esau, who is to die by the hand of an avenger. But as soon as Esau should become the murderer of his brother, he would be already lost to Rebekah. Knobel, again, thinks that in verse 46 the connection with the preceding is here broken and lost, but on the contrary connects the passage with Gen 26:34 and Gen 28:1, as found in the original text. The connection is, however, obvious. If Knobel thinks that the character of Esau appears different in Gen 28:6 etc., than in Gen 27:41, that proves only that he does not understand properly the prevailing characteristics of Esau as given in Genesis.

6. Jacob and Esau in the antithesis of their marriage, or the divine decree (Gen 28:1-9).And Isaac called Jacob and blessed him.The whole dismissal of Jacob shows that now he regards him voluntarily as the real heir of the Abrahamic blessing. Knobel treats Genesis 28ch. 33 as one section (the earlier history of Jacob), whose fundamental utterances form the original text, enlarged and completed by Jehovistic supplements. There are several places in which he says contradictions to the original text are apparent. One such contradiction he artfully frames by supposing that, according to the original text, Jacob was already sent to Mesopotamia immediately after Esaus marriage, for the purpose of marrying among his kindreda supposition based on mere fiction. As to other contradictions, see p. 233, etc.Of the daughters of Canaan.Now it is clear to him that this was a theocratic condition for the theocratic heir.Of the daughters of Laban.These are first mentioned here.And God Almighty.By this appellation Jehovah called himself when he announced himself to Abraham as the God of miracles, who would grant to him a son (Gen 17:1). By this apellation of Jehovah, therefore, Isaac also wishes for Jacob a fruitful posterity. Theocratic children are to be children of blessing and of miracles, a multitude of people (), a very significant development of the Abrahamic blessing. [The word used to denote the congregation or assembly of Gods people, and to which the Greek ecclesia answers. It denotes the people of God as called out and called together.A. G.]The blessing of Abraham.He thus seals the fact that he now recognizes Jacob as the chosen heirAnd Isaac sent away Jacob (see Hos 12:13).When Esau saw that Isaac.Esau now first discovers that his parents regard their sons connection with Canaanitish women as an injudicious and improper marriage. He had not observed their earlier sorrow. Powerful impressions alone can bring him to understand this matter. But even this understanding becomes directly a misunderstanding. He seeks once more to gain the advantage of Jacob, by taking a third wife, indeed a daughter of Ishmael. One can almost think that he perceives an air of irony pervading this dry record. The irony, however, lies in the very efforts of a low and earthly mind, after the glimpses of high ideals, which he himself does not comprehend.To Ishmael.Ishmael had been already dead more than twelve years; it is therefore the house of Ishmael which is meant here.Mahalath.Gen 36:2 called Bshemath.The sister of Nebajoth.As the first-born of the brothers he is named instead of all the others; just as Miriam is always called the sister of Aaron. The decree of God respecting the future of the two sons, which again runs through the whole chapter, receives its complete development in this, that Jacob emigrates in obedience of faith accompanied with the theocratic blessing, to seek after the chosen bride, whilst Esau, with the intention of making amends for his neglect, betrays again his unfitness. The decrees of God, however, develop themselves in and through human plans.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The present section connects a profound tragic family history from the midst of the patriarchal life, with a grand and sublime history of salvation. In respect to the former, it is the principal chapter in the Old Testament, showing the vanity of mere human plans and efforts; in respect to the latter, it holds the corresponding place in reference to the certainty of the divine election and calling, holding its calm and certain progress through all disturbances of human infatuation, folly, and sin.
2. It is quite common, in reviewing the present narrative, to place Rebekah and Jacob too much under the shadows of sin, in comparison with Isaac. Isaacs sin does not consist alone in his arbitrary determination to present Esau with the blessing of the theocratic birthright, although Rebekah received that divine sentence respecting her children, before their birth, and which, no doubt, she had mentioned to him; and although Esau had manifested already, by his marriage with the daughters of Heth, his want of the theocratic faith, and by his bartering with Jacob, his carnal disposition, and his contempt of the birthrightthus viewed, indeed, his sin admits of palliation through several excuses. The clear right of the first-born seemed to oppose itself to the dark oracle of God, Jacobs prudence to Esaus frank and generous disposition, the quiet shepherd-life of Jacob to Esaus stateliness and power, and on the other hand, Esaus misalliances to Jacobs continued celibacy. And although Isaac may have been too weak to enjoy the venison obtained for him by Esau, yet the true-hearted care of the son for his fathers infirmity and age, is also of some importance. But the manner in which Isaac intends to bless Esau, places his offence in a clearer light. He intends to bless him solemnly in unbecoming secrecy, without the knowledge of Rebekah and Jacob, or of his house. The preparation of the venison is scarcely to be regarded as if he was to be inspired for the blessing by the eating of this dainty dish, or of this token of filial affection. This preparation, at least, in its main point of view, is an excuse to gain time and place for the secret act. In this point of view, the act of Rebekah appears in a different light. It is a womans shrewdness that crosses the shrewdly calculated project of Isaac. He is caught in the net of his own sinful prudence. A want of divine confidence may be recognized through all his actions. It is no real presentiment of death that urges him now to bless Esau. But he now anticipates his closing hours and Jehovahs decision, because he wishes to put an end to his inward uncertainty which annoyed him. Just as Abraham anticipated the divine decision in his connection with Hagar, so Isaac, in his eager and hearty performance of an act belonging to his last days, while he lived yet many years. With this, therefore, is also connected the improper combination of the act of blessing with the meal, as well as the uneasy apprehension lest he should be interrupted in his plan (see Gen 27:18), and a suspicious and strained expectation which was not at first caused by the voice of Jacob. Rebekah, however, has so far the advantage of him that she, in her deception, has the divine assurance that Jacob was the heir, while Isaac, in his preceding secrecy, has, on his side, only human descent and his human reason without any inward, spiritual certainty. But Rebekahs sin consists in thinking that she must save the divine election of Jacob by means of human deception and a so-called white-lie. Isaac, at that critical moment, would have been far less able to pronounce the blessing of Abraham upon Esau, than afterward Balaam, standing far below him, could have cursed the people of Israel at the critical moment of its history. For the words of the spirit and of the promise are never left to human caprice. Rebekah, therefore, sinned against Isaac through a want of candor, just as Isaac before had sinned against Rebekah through a like defect. The divine decree would also have been fulfilled without her assistance, if she had had the necessary measure of faith. Of course, when compared with Isaacs fatal error, Rebekah was right. Though she deceived him greatly, misled her favorite son, and alienated Esau from her, there was yet something saving in her action according to her intentions, even for Isaac himself and for both her sons. For to Esau the most comprehensive blessing might have become only a curse. He was not fitted for it. Just as Rebekah thinks to oppose cunning to cunning in order to save the divine blessing through Isaac, and thus secure a heavenly right, so also Jacob secures a human right in buying of Esau the right of the firstborn. But now the tragic consequences of the first officious anticipation, which Isaac incurred, as well as that of the second, of which Rebekah becomes guilty, were soon to appear.

3. The tragic consequences of the hasty conduct and the mutual deceptions in the family of Isaac. Esau threatens to become a fratricide, and this threat repeats itself in the conduct of Josephs brothers, who also believed that they saw in Joseph a brother unjustly preferred, and came very near killing him. Jacob must become a fugitive for many a long year, and perhaps yield up to Esau the external inheritance for the most part or entirely. The patriarchal dignity of Isaac is obscured, Rebekah is obliged to send her favorite son abroad, and perhaps never see him again. The bold expression: Upon me be thy curse, may be regarded as having a bright side; for she, as a protectress of Jacobs blessing, always enjoys a share in his blessing. But the sinful element in it was the wrong application of her assurance of faith to the act of deception, which she herself undertook, and to which she persuaded Jacob; and for which she must atone, perhaps, by many a long year of melancholy solitude and through the joylessness which immediately spread itself over the family affairs of the household.
4. With all this, however, Isaac was kept from a grave offence, and the true relation of things secured by the pretended necessity for her prevarication. Through this catastrophe Isaac came to a full understanding of the divine decree, Esau attained the fullest development of his peculiar characteristics, and Jacob was directed to his journey of faith, and to his marriage, without which the promise could not even be fulfilled in him.

5. Isaacs blindness. That the eyes of this recluse and contemplative man were obscured and closed at an early age, is a fact which occurs in many a similar character since the time of blind Homer and blind Tiresias. Isaac had not exercised his eye in hunting as Esau. The weakness of his age first settles in that organ which he so constantly neglected. With this was connected his weakness in judging individual and personal relations. He was conscious of an honest wish and will in his conduct with Esau, and his secrecy in the case, as well as the precaution at Gerr, was connected with his retiring, peace-loving disposition. Leaving this out of view, he was an honest, well-meaning person (see Gen 27:37, and Gen 26:27). His developed faith in the promise, however, reveals itself in his power or fitness for the vision, and his words of blessing.

6. Rebekah obviously disappears from the stage as a grand or conspicuous character; grand in her prudence, magnanimity, and her theocratic zeal of faith. Her zeal of faith had a mixture of fanatic exaggeration, and in this view she is the grand mother of Simeon and Levi (Genesis 38).

7. It must be especially noticed that Jacob remained single far beyond the age of Isaac. He seems to have expected a hint from Isaac, just as Isaac was married through the care of Abraham. The fact bears witness to a deep, quiet disposition, which was only developed to a full power by extraordinary circumstances. He proves, again, by his actions, that he is a Jacob, i.e., heel-catcher, sup-planter. He does not refuse to comply with the plan of the mother from any conscientious scruples, but from motives of fear and prudence. And how ably and firmly he carries through his task, though his false confidence seems at last to die upon his lips with the brief , Gen 27:24! But however greatly he erred, he held a proper estimate of the blessing, for the security of which he thought he had a right to make use of prevarication; and this blessing did not consist in earthly glory, a fact which is decisive as to his theocratic character. Esau, on the other hand, scarcely seems to have any conception of the real contents of the Abrahamic blessing. The profound agitation of those who surrounded him, gives him the impression that this must be a thing of inestimable worth. Every one of his utterances proves a misunderstanding. Esaus misunderstandings, however, are of a constant significance, showing in what light mere men of the world regard the things of the kingdom of God. Even his exertion to mend his improper marriage relations eventuates in another error.

8. Isaacs blessing. In the solemn form of the blessing, the dew of heaven is connected with the fatness of the earth in a symbolic sense, and the idea of the theocratic kingdom, the dominion of the seed of blessing first appears here. In the parting blessing upon Jacob, the term indicates a great development of the Abrahamic blessing.Ranke: Abraham, no doubt, saw, in the light of Jehovahs promises, on to the goal of his own election and that of his seed, but with regard to the chosen people, however, his prophetic vision extended only to the exodus from Egypt, and to the possession of Canaan. Isaacs prophecy already extends farther into Israels history, reaching down to the subjugation and restoration of Esau.

9. The blessing pronounced upon Esau seems to be a prophecy of his future, clothed in the form of a blessing, in which his character is clearly announced. It contains a recognition of bravery, of a passion for liberty, and the courage of a hunterThe Idumans were a warlike people.

10. When, therefore, Isaac speaks in the spirit, about his sons, he well knew their characters (Heb 11:20). The prophetic blessing will surely be accomplished; but not by the force of a magical efficacy; as Knobel says: A divine word uttered, is a power which infallibly and unchangeably secures what the word indicates. The word of God can never be ineffectual (comp. Gen 9:18; Num 22:6; 2Ki 2:24; Isa 9:7).The word of a prophetic spirit rests upon the insight of the spirit into the profound fundamental principles of the present, in which the future, according to its main features, reflects itself, or exhibits itself, beforehand.

11. The high-souled Esau acted dishonestly in this, that he was not mindful of the oath by which he had sold to Jacob the birthright; and just as Rebekah might excuse her cunning by that of Isaac, so Jacob might excuse his dishonest conduct by pleading Esaus dishonesty.
12. The application of the proverb, The end justifies the means, to Jacobs conduct, is apparently not allowable. The possible mental reservation in Jacobs lie, may assume the following form: 1. I am Esau, i.e., the (real) hairy one, and thy (lawful) first-born. But even in this case the mental reservation of Jacob is as different from that of the Jesuits, as heaven from earth. 2. Thy God brought the venison to me; i.e., the God who has led thee wills that I should be blessed.
13. However plausible may be the deceit, through the divine truth some circumstance will remain unnoticed, and become a traitor. Jacob had not considered that his voice was not that of Esau. It nearly betrayed him. The expression: The voice is Jacobs voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau, has become a proverb in cases where words and deeds do not correspond.
14. The first appearance of the kiss in this narrative presents this symbol of ancient love to our view in both its aspects. The kiss of Christian brother-hood and the kiss of Judas are here enclosed in one.
15. Just as the starry heavens constituted the symbol of the divine promise for Abraham, so the blooming, fragrant, and fruitful fields are the symbol to Isaac. In this also may be seen and employed the antithesis between the first, who dwelt under the rustling oaks, and of the other, who sat by the side of springing fountains. The symbol of promise descends from heaven to earth.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

See the Doctrinal and Ethical paragraphs. Upon the whole the present narrative is both a patriarchal family picture and a religious picture of history.Domestic life and domestic sorrow in Isaacs house.In the homes of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.The blind Isaac: 1. Blind in two respects; and 2. yet a clear-sighted prophet.How Isaac blesses his sons: 1. How he intends to bless them; 2. how he is constrained to bless them.Human guilt and divine grace in Isaacs house: 1. The guilt; Isaac and Rebekah anticipate divine providence. They deceive each other. Esau is led to forget his bargain with Jacob; Jacob is induced to deceive his father. Yet the guilt of all is diminished because they thought that they must help the right with falsehood. Esau obeys the father, Jacob obeys the mother. Isaac rests upon the birthright, Rebekah upon the divine oracle. 2. Gods grace turns everything to the best, in conformity to divine truth, but with the condition that all must repent of their sins.The image of the hereditary curse in the light of the hereditary blessing, which Isaac ministers: 1. How the curse obscures the blessing; 2. how the blessing overcomes the curse.The characteristics mentioned in our narrative viewed in their contrasts: 1. Isaac and Rebekah; 2. Jacob and Esau; 3. Isaac and Jacob; 4. Isaac and Esau; 5. Rebekah and Esau; 6. Rebekah and Jacob.The cunning of a theocratic disposition purified and raised to the prudence of the ecclesiastical spirit.Gods election is sure: 1. In the heights of heaven; 2. in the depths of human hearts; 3. in the providence of grace; 4. in the course of history.The clear stream of the divine government runs through all human errors, and that: 1. For salvation to believers; 2. for judgment to unbelievers.

To Section First, Gen 27:1-4. Isaacs infirmity of age, and his faith: 1. In what manner the infirmity of age obscured his faith; 2. how faith breaks through the infirmities of age.Isaacs blindness.The sufferings of old age.The thought of death: 1. Though beneficial in itself; 2. may yet be premature.The hasty making of wills.We must not anticipate God.Not act in uncertainty of heart.The preference of the parents for the children different in character from themselves.The connection of hunting and the enjoyment of its fruits, with the divine blessing of promise: 1. Incomprehensible as a union of the most diverse things; 2. comprehensible as a device of human prudence; 3. made fruitless by the interference of another spirit.Isaacs secrecy thwarted by Rebekahs cunning device.Human right and divine law in conflict with each other.Isaacs right and wrong view, and conduct.

Starke: It is a great blessing of God, if he preserves our sight not only in youth, but also in old age (Deu 34:7).Cramer: A blind man, a poor man (Tob 5:12).Old age itself is a sickness (2Sa 19:35).If you are deprived of the eyes of your body, see that you do not lose the eye of faith (Psa 39:5-6).A Christian ought to do nothing from passion, but to judge only by the word of God.Bibl. Tub.: Parents are to bless their children before they die; but the blessing must be conformed to the divine will (Gen 48:5). Doubtless Jacob, taught by Isaacs error, learned to bless his children better; i.e., in a less restricted manner.(The Rabbins assert that Jacob desired venison before his pronouncing the blessing, because it was customary that the son about to receive the blessing should perform some special act of love to his father.)Osiander: It is probable that Isaac demanded something better than ordinary, because this was to be also a peculiar day. To all appearance it was a divine providence through which Jacob gains time to obtain and bear away the blessing before him.Schrder: Contemplative men like Isaac easily undermine their health (?).Experience teaches us that natures like that of Isaac are more exposed to blindness than others. Shut in entirely from the external world, their eyes are soon entirely closed to it.The son, by some embodiment of his filial love, shows himself as son, in order that the father on his part also, may, through the act of blessing, show himself to be a father.Love looks for love.Thus the blessing may be considered not so much as belonging to the privilege of the first-born, but rather as constituting a rightful claim to these privileges.

Section Second, Gen 27:15-17. Rebekahs counter-scheme opposed to Isaacs scheme.Rebekahs right and wrong thought and conduct.Rebekah protectress of the right of Jacobs election opposed to Isaac the elect.Jacobs persuasion: 1. The mothers faith and her wrong view of it.The faith of the son and his erroneous view.Jacobs doubt and Rebekahs confidence.The defect in his hesitation (it was not a fear of sin, but a fear of the evil consequences).The defect in the confidence (not in the certainty itself, but its application).The cunning mother and the cunning son.Both too cunning in this case.Their sufferings for itGods commandment is of more weight than the parental authority, than all human commands generally.

Starke: Some commentators are very severe upon Rebekah (Saurin, Discours XXVIII; others on the contrary (Calvin and others), praise her faith, her cunning, her righteousness (because Esau as a bold scoffer, had sold his birthright), her fear of God (abhorrence of the Canaanitish nature). (We must add, however, that Calvin also marks the means which Rebekah uses as evil.)Rebekah, truly, had acted in a human way, striving by unlawful means to attain a good end.Bibl. Wirt: If the Word of God is on our side we must not indeed depart from it, but neither must we undertake to bring about what it holds before us by unlawful means, but look to God, who knows what means to use, and how and when to fulfil his word.Bibl. Tb: God makes even the errors of the pious to work good, if their heart is sincere and upright; yet we are not to imitate their errors.

Gerlach: Though staining greatly, as she did, the divine promise by her deception, yet at the same time her excellent faith shines out through the history. She did not fear to arouse the brothers deadly hatred against Jacob, to bring her favorite son into danger of his life and to excite her husband against her, because the inheritance promised by God stood before her, and she knew God had promised it to Jacob. (Calvin).Schrder: (Michaelis: The kids of the goats can be prepared in such a way as to taste like venison.) Isaac now abides by the rule, but Rebekah insists upon an exception (Luther).The premature grasping bargain of Jacob (Gen 25:29, etc.,) is the reason that God is here anticipated again by Rebekah, and Jacobs sinful cunning, so that the bargain again turns out badly.Luther, holding that the law is annulled by God himself, concludes: Where there is no law, there is no transgression, therefore, she has not sinned (!?)Both (sons) were already 77 years old. The fact, that Jacob, at such an age, was still under maternal control, was grounded deeply in his individuality (Gen 25:27), as well as in the congeniality which existed between Jacob and his mother. Esau, surely, was passed from under Rebekahs control already at the age of ten years.

Section Third, Gen 27:18-29. Isaacs blessing upon Jacob: 1. In its human aspect; 2. in its divine aspect.The divine providence controlling Isaacs plan: Abraham, Isaac and Esau.Jacob, in Esaus garments, betrayed by his voice: 1. Almost betrayed immediately; 2. afterwards clearly betrayed.Isaacs solicitude, or all care in the service of sin and error gains nothing.Jacobs examination.The voice is Jacobs voice, the hands are Esaus hands.Isaacs blessing: 1. According to its external and its typical significance; 2. in its relation to Abrahams promise and the blessing of Jacob.Its new thoughts: the holy sovereignty, the gathering of a holy people, the germ of the announcement of a holy kingdom. Isaacs inheritance: a kingdom of nations, a church of nations.The fulfilment of the blessing: 1. In an external or typical sense: Davids kingdom; 2. in a spiritual sense: the kingdom of Christ.

Starke: Jacob, perhaps, thought with a contrite heart of the abuse of strange raiment, when the bloody coat of Joseph was shown to him. To say nothing of the cross caused by children, which, no doubt, is the most severe cross to pious parents in this world, and with which the pious Jacob often met (Dinahs rape, Benjamins difficult birth, Simeons and Levis bloody weapons, Reubens incest, Josephs history, Judahs history, Genesis 38, etc.). For Jacob sinned: 1. In speaking contrary to the truth, and twice passing himself for Esau; 2. in really practising fraud by means of strange raiment and false pretences; 3. in his abuse of the name of God (Gen 27:20); 4. in taking advantage of his fathers weakness.Yet God bore with his errors, like Isaac, etc.

Gen 27:26 : a collection of different places in which we read of a kiss or kisses (see Concordance).That this uttered blessing is to be received not only according to the letter, but also in a deeper, secret sense, is apparent from Heb 11:20, where Paul says: that by faith Isaac blessed his son, of which faith the Messiah was the theme.

Gerlach: The goal and central point of this blessing is the word: be lord over thy brethren. For this implies that he was to be the bearer of the blessing, while the others should only have a share in his enjoyment.Lisco: Earthly blessing (Deu 33:28).Cursed be, etc. He who loves the friends of God, loves God himself; he who hates them, hates him; they are the apple of his eye.Calwer Handbuch: The more pleasant the fragrance of the flowers and herbs of the field, the richer is the blessing. Earthly blessings are a symbol and pledge to the father of divine grace.Power and sway: The people blessed of the Lord must stand at the head of nations, in order to impart a blessing to all.Isaac, much against his will, blesses him whom Jehovah designs to bless.Schrder: Ah, the voice, the voice (of Jacob)! I should have dropped the dish and run away (Luther).Thus also the servants of God sow the seed of redemption among men, not knowing where and how it is to bring fruits. God does not limit the authority granted to them by other knowledge and wisdom. The virtue and efficacy of the sacraments by no means depend, as the Papists think, upon the intention of the person who administers them (Calvin).(Esaus goodly raiment: Jewish tradition holds these to be the same made by God himself for the first parents (Gen 3:21), and it attributes to the person wearing them the power even of taming wild beasts.The inhabitants of South Asia are accustomed to scent their garments in different ways. By means of fragrant oils extracted from spices, etc. (Michaelis).Smell of a field. Herodotus says, All Arabia exhales fragrant odors.)Thus he wished that the land of Canaan should be to them a pattern and pledge of the heavenly inheritance (Calvin).Dew, corn, wine, are symbols of the blessings of the kingdom of grace and glory (Ramb.).That curseth thee. Here it is made known, that the true church is to exist among the descendants of Jacob. The three different members of the blessing contain the three prerogatives of the first-born: 1. The double inheritance. Canaan was twice as large and fruitful as the country of the Edomites; 2. the dominion over his brethren; 3. the priesthood which walks with blessings, and finally passes over to Christ, the source of all blessing (Rambach).Luther calls the first part of the blessing: the food of the body, the daily bread; the second part: the secular government; the third part: the spiritual priesthood, and places in this last part the dear and sacred cross, and at the same time also, the victory in and with the cross. In Christ, the true Israel of all times, rules the people and nations.

To Section Fourth, Gen 27:30-40. Esau comes too late: 1. Because he wished to obtain the divine blessing of promise by hunting (by running and striving, etc.) (Rom 9:16); 2. he wished to gain it, after he had sold it; 3. he wished to acquire it, without comprehending its significance; and, 4. without its being intended for him by the divine decree, and any fitness of mind for it.Isaacs trembling and terror are an indication that his eyes are opened, because he sees the finger of God and not the hand of man.Esaus lamentation opposed to his fathers firmness: 1. A passion instead of godly sorrow; 2. connected with the illusion that holy things may be treated arbitrarily; 3. referring to the external detriment but not to the internal loss.Esaus misunderstanding a type of the misunderstanding of the worldly-minded in regard to divine things: 1. That the plan of divine salvation was the work of Man 1:2. the blessing of salvation was a matter of human caprice; 3. that the kingdom of God was an external affair.Esaus blessing the type: 1. Of his character; 2. of his choice: 3. of his apparent satisfaction.Here Isaac and Esau are now for the first time opposed to each other in their complete antithesis: Isaac in his prophetic greatness and clearness opposed to Esau in his sad and carnal indiscretion and passionate conduct.

Starke: Gen 27:30. Divine providence is here at work.

Gen 27:33. This exceedingly great amazement came from God.Cramer: God rules and determines the time; the clockwork is in his hands, he can prolong it, and he can shorten it, according to his pleasure, and if he governs anything, he knows how to arrange time and circumstances, and the men who live in that time, in such a way that they do not appear before or after he wishes them to come. Christian, commend to him, therefore, thy affairs (Psa 31:17; Gal 4:4).Hall: God knows both time and means to call back his people, to obviate their sins, and to correct their errors (Heb 12:17).Lange: Isaac did not approve of the manner and means, but the event itself he considers as irrevocable, as soon as he recognizes that God, on account of the unfitness of Esau, has so arranged it. While, therefore, we do not ascribe to God any active working of evil, we concede that, by his wisdom, he knows how to control the errors of men, especially of believers, to a good purpose.

Gen 27:36. Thus insolent sinners roll the blame upon others.

Gen 27:37. The word Lord is rendered remarkably prominent, since it appears only here and Gen 27:29. Just as if, out of Jacobs loins alone would come the mightiest and most powerful lords, princes, and kings, especially the strong and mighty Messiah.Hall: Tears flowing from revenge, jealousy, carnal appetites, and worldly cares, cause death (2Co 7:10). Gods word remains forever, and never falls to the ground.Calwer Handbuch: Ver, 36. And still Esau had sold it.He lamented the misfortune only, not his carelessness; he regretted only the earthly in the blessing, but not the grace.

Schrder: Then cried he a great cry, great and bitter exceedingly. This is the perfectly (?) natural, unrestrained outbreaking of a natural man, to whom, because he lives only for the present, every ground gives way beneath his feet when the present is lost.

To Isaacs explanation that the blessing was gone. Here also a heroic cast is given to the quiet, retiring, and often unobserved love.The aged, feeble, and infirm Isaac celebrates upon his couch a similar triumph of love, just as the faith of his father triumphed upon Mt. Moriah, etc. (i.e., he sacrifices to the Lord his preference for Esau).The world today still preserves the same mode of thinking; it sells the blessing of the new birth, etc., and still claims to inherit this blessing (Roos).Esau, and perhaps Isaac also, thought probably by the blessing to invalidate the fatal bargain as to the birthright.He only bewails the consequences of his sin but he has no tears for the sin itself.The question here was properly not about salvation and condemnation. Salvation was not refused to Esau, but he serves as a warning to us all, by his cries full of anguish, not to neglect the grace of God (Roos).Esaus blessing. Esau appealed to the paternal heart, and with the true objective character of the God of the patriarch, Isaac neither could nor should drop his own paternal character.Now he has no birthright to give away, and therefore no solemn: and he blessed him, occurs here.(Descriptions of the Iduman country and people follow).

Section Fifth. Gen 27:41-46. Esaus hatred of Jacob: 1. In its moral aspect; 2. in its typical significance.Want of self-knowledge a cause of Esaus enmity.Esau inclined to fratricide: 1. Incited by envy, animosity, and revenge; 2. checked by piety toward the father; 3. prevented by his frankness and out-spoken character, as well as by Rebekahs sagacity.Rebekahs repentance changed into an atonement by the heroic valor of her faith.Rebekahs sacrifice.How this sagacious and heroic-minded woman makes a virtue (Jacobs theocratic wooing for a bride) of necessity (the peril of Jacobs life).

Starke: Gen 27:44. These few days became twenty years.

Gen 27:45. That Rebekah did this, is not mentioned in any place. Probably she died soon after, and therefore did not live to see Jacobs return (Gen 49:31; Mat 5:22; 1Jn 3:15; Pro 27:4).Cramer: Whatever serves to increase contention and strife, we are to conceal, to trample upon, and to turn everything to the best (Mat 5:9).Gerlach: Gen 27:41. This trait represents to us Esau most truthfully; the worst thing in his conduct, however, is not the savage desire of revenge, but the entire unbelief in God and the reluctance to subject himself to him. Whilst Isaac submitted unconditionally as soon as God decided, Esau did not care at all for the divine decision.Calwer Handbuch: He did not think of the divine hand in the matter, nor of his own guilt, self-knowledge, or repentance.Schrder: God never punishes his people without correcting grace is made also purifying grace at the same time (Roos).As Esau had only cries and tears at first, he now has only anger and indignation.

Gen 27:41. Repentance and its fruits correspond (Luther).All revenge is self-consolation. True consolation under injustice comes from God (Rom 12:19).And he forgets what thou hast done to him. With this she both acknowledges Jacobs guilt and betrays a precise knowledge of Esaus character.Let us not despair too soon of men. Are there not twelve hours during the day? The great fury and fiery indignation pass away with time (Luther).How sagacious this pious woman: she conceals to her husband the great misfortune and affliction existing in the house so as not to bring sorrow upon Isaac in his old age (Luther).

Section Sixth, Gen 28:1-8. Jacobs mission to Mesopotamia compared with that of Eliezer: 1. Its agreement; 2. its difference.Isaac now voluntarily blesses Jacob.The necessity of this pious house becomes the source of new blessings: 1. The feeble Isaac becomes a hero; 2. the plain and quiet Jacob becomes a courageous pilgrim and soldier; 3. the strong-minded Rebekah becomes a person that sacrifices her most dearly loved.How late the full self-development of both Jacobs and Esaus character appears.Jacobs prompt obedience and Esaus foolish correction of his errors.The church is a community of nations, typified already by the theocracy.

Starke: Concerning the duties of parents and children as to the marriage of their children.The dangers of injudicious marriages.Parents can give to their children no better provision on their way than a Christian blessing (Tob 5:21).Bibl. Tub.: The blessing of ancestors, resting upon the descendants is a great treasure, and to be preserved as the true and the best dowry.Calwer Handbuch: He goes out of spite (or at least in his folly and self-will) to the daughters of Ishmael, and takes a third wife as near of kin to his father as the one Jacob takes was to his mother. (But the distinction was that Ishmael was separated from the theocratic line, while the house in Mesopotamia belonged to the old stock.)Schrder: Rebekah, who in her want of faith could not wait for divine guidance, has now to exercise her faith for long years, and learn to wait.Isaac appears fully reconciled to Jacob.In the eyes of Isaac his father. He does not care about the mother.Thus natural men never find the right way to please God and their fellow-men whom they have offended, nor the true way of reconciliation with them (Berl. Bibel.).

Footnotes:

[1][Gen 27:1.Lange renders when Isaac was old, then his eyes were dim, so that he could not see, as an independent sentence, laying the basis for the following narrative.A. G.]

[2][Gen 27:42.Comforteth, or avengeth. The thought of vengeance was his consolation.A. G.]

[3][Gen 28:3., congregation.A. G.]

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

CONTENTS

No sooner are the people of God brought within the bond of the covenant, than persecution ariseth. Jacob having obtained the blessing, is obliged to flee to Padan-aram, to avoid the fury of his brother. The sacred historian relates in this Chapter, the memorable events of his journey. He is favoured with divine manifestations: God confirms to him the promised blessing: assures him of his gracious favor and protection: impressed with a deep sense of thankfulness for those visions of God, the Patriarch vows to have the Lord for his God, and to dedicate himself to his service forever.

Gen 28:1

Observe how cautious the Patriarchs were of mingling the holy seed: Ezr 9:2-3 ; 2Co 6:14 ; Act 2:40 .

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Dreams

Gen 28

This dream deals with the supernatural, though in one sense all life is supernatural. And what happened to Jacob occurs again and again in your life and mine.

I. Jacob has deceived his father and defrauded his brother: he has fled his home. As he journeyed forward he came to the lonely and rugged hill of Bethel. The darkness overtakes him as he ascends, creeps like a shadowy ghost over him, and then covers with its deep shadow the whole of the mountain from base to summit; and so Jacob is alone in the dark night. Seeking suitable shelter, he takes a stone for his pillow, and, lying down, he is soon fast asleep, a tired, worn man. He dreams, and lo! in his dream the darkness has fled, and the whole air is lit up with supernatural glory, and the mountain-side is busy with supernatural life. The mountain is a great staircase, and ascending and descending upon it appear angel forms; while high up, as on a throne of golden splendour, he seems to see God the great Invisible: and wonderful to tell, he seems to hear a voice, the voice of the Eternal, and the actual words come floating down upon him with an infinite calm. ‘I am with thee, and I will keep thee in all places where thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land.’

II. Dreams sometimes are evidences of the possibilities of our character. The dream may show the mental habit of thought, and the subjects which lie, if not nearest, at least somewhere within the heart of man. Dreams may be a warning to us all. A bad dream may be a revelation of our potential badness. It is the liberation of the evil spirit, the demon within a man. Our evil visions may be revelations of what we may be if left entirely to ourselves, and our good visions manifestations of what God means us to be, prophecies of what we might be, if living close to God in prayer.

III. Of course, from an humanistic point of view, the dream of Jacob gives us a glimpse into his character. He was far from being a perfect man, yet his dreams reveal to us that his failings were not of the essence of his life. His vision, too, was a new revelation to Jacob. It had entered the soul of Jacob and touched chords in his life which never more could be silent. This crisis marked a development in Jacob’s character. Hitherto Jacob, though naturally spiritual, had been proudly self-reliant: he had complete faith in his own resources, cleverness, and strength; felt he was quite a match for most men, a match for life. He wanted to make himself, was going to be his own creator, and so in character he was at heart weak. A man who relies entirely upon himself is not at heart a strong man. Man’s strength comes in the strength of his weakness. The moment a man submits his will to the Almighty he becomes a strong man, because he becomes part of God’s will. The desert experience convinced Jacob of his need. It revealed to him something of his own nothingness and weakness and loneliness, and God’s Almightiness and Strength and so he rises from his pillow of stone a stronger and wiser because a humbler man, and sets up his pillar of consecration while he commits the keeping of his ways to God, the great Guide and great Friend.

M. Gardner, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxxvi. p. 268.

References. XXVIII. F. W. Robertson, Notes on Genesis, p. 101. XXVIII. 10-13. T. Sadler, Sunday Thoughts, p. 14. H. W. Beecher, Sermons, 1870, p. 643. XXVIII. 10-17. F. D. Maurice, The Patriarchs and Lawgivers of the Old Testament, p. 100.

Jacob At Bethel

Gen 28:10-22

Dean Stanley tells us a story of a girl whose grandfather, not believing in the existence of God, had written above his bed, ‘God is nowhere’. But the child was only learning to read. Words of more than one syllable were yet beyond her, so she spelled out in her own way what her grandfather had written, and it read for her ‘God is now here’. It was the great lesson that Jacob learned at Bethel.

References. XXVIII. 10-22. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Genesis, p. 206. C. Perren, Outline Sermons, p. 257. S. A. Brooke, Sermons (2nd Series), pp. 231, 249. XXVIII. 11-16. S. A. Tipple, Echoes of Spoken Words, p. 201.

Jacob’s Dream

Gen 28:12

The vision of Jacob’s ladder is God’s response to two universal longings of the human heart a craving for a Revelation, and a craving for an Incarnation.

I. A Craving for a Revelation. ‘Revelation is a necessity of our thinking mind, a need of our moral nature.’ As a child is born with faculties of speech, yet speech lies dormant in the breast of the child until called into exercise by the words which he hears around him, so man was created to hold communion with God, but God must speak to man before man can speak to Him. God has spoken! Jacob’s seed was the elected channel of the Divine communication. The ‘angels of God’ ascended and descended upon Israel. The vision was a prediction. Hosea says, ‘God spake with us at Bethel’. But Divine revelation was the possession of one nation in order that from thence it might become the possession of all mankind. In ‘thee and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed’. As the light of heaven is adapted to every eye, and the air we breathe to every lung, so the Word of God is adapted to the mental and moral constitution of every child of the human race.

II. A Craving for an Incarnation. ‘Let not God speak with us, lest we die,’ is the voice not only of Israel but of humanity. No ancient religion is without the presentiment of an incarnation. The popular idea of Jacob’s ladder is false. The vision was that of a staircase of rock. The Rock of Israel was to be no inaccessible crag, but a staircase, a means of communication between earth and heaven. This vision was the grand prefiguration of the coming Mediator who was to bridge the chasm between a holy God and sinful man. In the ‘fullness of time’ Christ came. The ultimate end of the Incarnation was atonement. ‘Without shedding of blood is no remission.’ The angels of God cannot ascend and descend upon the body of which Christ is the Head unless sin be removed. ‘He put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.’ Yet something more is needed for communion between God and man. Salvation is not merely pardon of sin it is renewal it is restoration it is a new birth a communication of a Divine life a new nature a new power.

III. The same Lord Who, on the Day of Pentecost, gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Pastors and Teachers, has still Gifts for Men.

( a ) Every minister of Christ, every servant of the Cross, must be ‘endued with power from on high’ if he is to have any real success. ‘Without Me ye can do nothing.’ How did the Apostles receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost? It was vouchsafed in answer to prayer. ‘Ask and ye shall receive.’ Fervent, persevering prayer is the secret of holiness; it is also the secret of power and the prelude of victory. King Alfred has left a memorable passage in which he sets forth the ideas with which he assumed the charge of his distracted realm. He says it is above all things necessary for a king that he hath in his kingdom prayer-men, army-men, workmen. The King of kings needs these three classes of men in every age, and never more than now, and it is in proportion as we, the clergy, and you, the laity, are men of prayer we shall be men of war, bold in our assaults on the strongholds of Satan and the fortresses of sin, and also at the same time workmen needing not to be ashamed as we build up the temple of the living God.

( b ) The vision at Bethel is full of encouragement. Every vision of God, every opened heaven, first humbles and then strengthens, from the vision of Jacob’s ladder, with the accompanying words, ‘I will never leave thee,’ to that revelation vouchsafed to the aged St. John in the Isle of Patmos, so dear to hearts fearful of falling into heresy and sin, in which the Apostle saw the stars, the angels of the churches, held and kept in the strong right hand of the glorified Lord. The heavens are opened today! The gift of Pentecost has never been recalled! The illuminating light of the Spirit is not dim; His fires of love are not chilled; the Sacraments are as valid today as when administered by apostolic hands; the Gospel is still the ‘power of God unto salvation’. The final victory lies with the Cross of Christ.

The Return of the Angels

Gen 28:12 ; Gen 32:1

Wellnigh twenty years had passed away since Jacob had had his vision at Bethel. They had been years of hard and constant labour; they had been years of remarkable prosperity. No longer was Jacob an empty-handed fugitive, leaving his home for an uncertain future. God had been with him, and had advanced him wonderfully, and had blessed him in his basket and his store. And now he was a rich and prosperous man, master of herds and flocks innumerable, and with a host of servants at his call, ready to further him in every venture. There are men who prosper and who pay for prospering by never seeing the angels any more. They win their fortune, but they lose their vision, and so are they poorer than at one-and-twenty. But Jacob, for all his cunning shrewdness, was not the man to lose his hold on God; he had a heart that thirsted after God even in his most worldly and successful days. Now he was on his way home to Canaan, and as he journeyed the angels of God met him. This was the second time, for twenty years before had they not flashed upon his sight at Bethel? And what I want to do to-night is this, I want to take these two angelic visits, and to show you how they differed from one another, and how these differences have their meanings still.

I. First, then, the former angels were seen among the hills; but the latter upon the trodden highway.

We can readily picture the scenery at Bethel, where Jacob saw the ladder to the heavens. It was a place of wild and rugged grandeur, touched with the mystery of highland solitudes. At home, in the pasture-land of rich Beersheba, his eye had looked out upon the rolling downs. There was nothing sublime or awful at Beersheba; it was a sweet and satisfying prospect. But here it was different; here there were rugged cliffs, and rock up-piled on rock in wild confusion; and it was here among the hills of Bethel that Jacob had his first vision of the angels. It was a resting-place of highland grandeur, and the spirit of Jacob was uplifted by it. He was thrilled with the high sense of the sublime, as he lay down amid the loneliness of nature. But it was not amid a grandeur such as that that he had his vision when twenty years were gone he went on his way and the angels of God met him. He was no longer a romantic youth; he was a conventional and unromantic wayfarer. And the road was familiar, and it was hard and dusty, and there was none of the mystery of Bethel here. And yet the angels who had shone at Bethel, in the delicious hour of freedom and of youth, came back again on to the common road, where feet were plodding along wearily.

Now it seems to me that, if we are living wisely, we ought all to have an experience like Jacob. If we have had our hour at Bethel once, we ought also to have our Mahanaim. The man who climbs may have his glimpse of heaven; but so has the man who simply pushes on. And that is the test and triumph of religion, not that it irradiates golden moments, but that it comes, with music and with ministry, into the dusty highroad of today. We all grow weary of the routine sometimes. We are tempted to break away and take our liberty. But it was not when Jacob broke into his liberty that the angels of God met with him again. It was when Jacob went upon his way, and quietly and doggedly pushed on, and took the homeward road and did his duty, although seductive voices might be calling.

II. Again, the former vision came in solitude, but the latter vision in society. That is another difference to be noted between Bethel and Mahanaim. At Bethel Jacob was utterly alone. For the first time in his life he was alone. He was an exile now from the old tent where he had passed the happy days of boyhood. And at that very hour (for it was sundown) his brother Esau would be wending homeward, and his aged father would be waiting him, and his mother would be busy in the tent. It is such memories that make us lonely. It was such memories that made Jacob lonely. He saw his home again, and heard its voices; and it was night, and round him were the hills. And it was then, in such an hour of solitude, when he might cry and there was none to answer, that Jacob had his vision of the angels. Do you see the difference at Mahanaim? Jacob was not solitary now. His wife was there; his family was there; his servants and his shepherds were about him. And the road was noisy with the stir of life shouting of drover and lowing of the herd and now there was a snatch of song, and now the laughter of his merry children. At Bethel there was utter solitude; at Mahanaim was society. At Bethel there was none to answer; at Mahanaim there were happy voices. And the point to note is that the angels who flashed upon the solitude at Bethel came back again amid that intercourse.

III. There is another difference, perhaps the most significant of all. At Bethel the angels were on a shining staircase; at Mahanaim they were armed for war.

And so we learn the old and precious lesson that God reveals Himself just as we need Him. He never gives us what we shall want tomorrow; He gives us richly what we need today. Just as water, poured into twenty goblets, will take the different shape of every goblet, so the grace of God poured into twenty days, will fill the different need of every day.

G. H. Morrison, The Return of the Angels, p. 1.

Nearer, My God, to Thee

Gen 28:12

The Bible asks us to believe that God did occasionally reveal Himself through the vehicle of dreams. Of course it does not follow from this that God must continue for an indefinite period of time such a method of communication with the spirit of man. Many of the dreams recorded in the Scriptures were vouchsafed to individuals outside the covenant made with Israel, and with regard to the rest it may be remarked that they belong to a very early age when the knowledge of God was scanty and ill-defined.

I. While some of the Bible dreams sound the note of warning, others, including Jacob’s at Bethel, are harbingers of blessing. An exile from home, he was not an exile from heaven; for in his sleep he saw the world that is not seen.

II. Hazlitt said: ‘In Jacob’s day there was a ladder between heaven and earth, but now the heavens have gone further off, and become astronomical’. But that is only true in the minds of those who have misunderstood the nature of God. There is no dethronement of man by any theory of astronomy, for he is neither less nor more man than he was before; he is still the creature of God’s love.

W. Taylor, Twelve Favourite Hymns, p. 46.

Jacob’s Ladder

Jacob’s ladder, set up on earth, and reaching to heaven; what does it typify or represent but that new way of approach to God which is opened to us in Jesus Christ?

I. The fact that it is Jacob’s ladder, that so early as his time God gave notice of a Mediator increases our reverence and admiration for His goodness. It shows how far back in God’s counsels the great plan of man’s redemption was prepared.

II. Like Jacob we sometimes in our judgment may light upon a solitary place. We must draw near to God, trusting to nothing but the merits and intercession of His dear son. ‘He is the way.’

III. The particular promise that God made to Jacob. He renewed the covenant that He had made with Abraham, and promised that from him should spring the Messiah.

IV. The effect of this remarkable dream on Jacob. When he awakened his soul was filled with awe. It were well if something of this reverent spirit were to be found among worshippers.

R. D. B. Rawnsley, Village Sermons, Series iii. p. 58.

References. XXVIII. 12. J. W. Bardsley, Many Mansions, p; 20. F. Corbett, The Preacher’s Year, p. 149. Bishop Woodford, Occasional Sermons, p. 242. J. B. Vaux, Sermon Notes (2nd Series), p. 66. XXVIII. 13. G. Matheson, The Scottish Review, vol. iii. p. 49. XXVIII. 15. H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 1921. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvii. No. 1630. XXVIII. 16. J. B. Lightfoot, Cambridge Sermons, p. 300. J. Aspinall, Parish Sermons (1st Series), p. 269. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vii. No. 401.

Jacob At Bethel

Gen 28:17

Jacob had his Bethel, and it came to him just at the moment when we should least have expected it, just at the time when he was smarting under the sense of his own sin, and loneliness, and outlawry. The King of Love Himself appears to him, and says: ‘I will go with thee wherever thou goest’. Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity.

I. What makes our Bethel? Is it not the sense of God’s nearness to us and our need of Him? The churches would all be full if the people felt their need of God, for this is God’s house, and we want it to be the gate of heaven. Now, and here in God’s house; we may look up into heaven and see there our Saviour, Who loves us with an everlasting love, and round about Him those whom we have ‘loved and lost awhile’.

II. Before we leave Jacob, let us look at bis beautiful prayer to God, in which he vows a vow of obedience. This is the use of all Bethels that as God speaks to us we may make our vows back to Him. Church and churchgoing will do us no good unless we hear God speaking to us in the reading of His Word, and in the preaching, and in the prayers, and in the music, and unless, having heard God’s Voice, we do our part and answer back and make our vows that God shall be our God. Will you do this, will you rejoice before God with this blessed vow of Jacob’s, ‘The Lord shall be my God’? Oh, it will help you so all through your life. This is the house of God; we desire that it should be the gate of heaven. You see sometimes little children pointing upwards, but the Book says that heaven is where God is, and if God is here then heaven has begun upon earth. If God is here, then His love is with us, and we shall grow more loving here and now.

References. XXVIII. 17. J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, (9th Series), p. 81. XXVIII. 19. J. Eames, Sermons to Boys and Girls, p. 155. XXVIII. 20-22. H. Allon, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxv. p. 60.

Gen 28:22

Jacob’s vow has been the preacher’s theme in every age, yet its teaching for the Christian Church has never been more greatly needed than it is today. Permit me, therefore, to put before you a few thoughts on giving to God as suggested by our text.

I. How we can Give to God. God, who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, requires us to give to Him in return.

( a ) We give to Him when we give to those whom He has left, or made, poor in worldly substance. The widow, fatherless, unfortunate, incapable, even those who by sin and prodigality have brought themselves to want. As the father leaves little patches in his garden, and says to his children, ‘I leave you to cultivate these; those are your little gardens,’ so does our Heavenly Father leave, in those poor and needy ones, patches in His great garden for us to dress and keep; and he that ‘giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord’.

( b ) We give to him when we promote the great purposes which He has at heart. An earnest man is so bound up with his purposes and work that they are, as it were, but a larger self. We speak of men ’embarking’ in enterprises going into them as the pilot into his ship. The wind that wafts the ship on carries him upon his way. Christ is steering the ship of this world’s destinies and those of individual souls to the shore of safety and purity and bliss, and to help to fill its sails is to waft on Christ Himself on His triumphal way. Give to promote Christ’s cause on the earth, and you are giving to God.

II. The Motive Power. All motive power which constrains men to give to God is from God Himself.

1. A recognition of dependence upon God. ‘All that Thou shalt give me.’ ‘What hast thou that thou hast not received?’ Tenants of God, we owe Him our rent of cheerful giving.

2. Gratitude to God. ‘All that Thou shalt give me.’ How generous is that ‘all’. ‘We are always giving, giving,’ said one. ‘Not quite that,’ was the reply, ‘but we are always getting, getting.’ He gives life and friends; He gave His Son; He giveth the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him. ‘What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits?’

3. Imitation of God. As He gives let us give. Be the children of your Father, Who maketh His sun to shine and His rain to fall on the just and unjust.

4. Response to God. ‘Of all that Thou shalt give I shall give.’ God’s giving to us is the seed which He sows in our hearts and lives, to bring forth from them the fair harvest of kindliness, beneficence, helpfulness. What could He do for His vineyard that He has not done? Surely a ‘tenth’ is but a small return for such bountiful sowing.

III. Practical Rules for Giving.

1. Seize special times of blessing for devising liberal things for God. It was just after Jacob had his wonderful and comforting vision that he made this vow. As the swift current of the stream tells of the height of the mountains in which it took its rise, so if we seize the time of signal blessing from God for opening a fresh spring of devotedness and beneficence, its bountiful and eager flow will be preserved far into the tame plains of our ordinary life.

2. Lay your plans and adapt your expenditure for giving. ‘I shall surely give.’ Out of my abundance, if I have it; out of my poverty, if that is my lot. As the ancient Greeks spilt a little wine from the cup before tasting it, as a libation to the gods, so let us provide first for God. The firstfruits. I may want pictures, books, delicacies, fine clothes, travel, sight-seeing, even ordinary comfort, but ‘I shall surely give’. If you have no other luxury, make sure of the luxury of doing good.

3. Bring system to your aid in giving. Not to check your generous impulses; but still, as the groundwork, there should be system. System as the measure, which, after filling, the heart is free to shake and press together, and make to run over.

Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson

The Dream of Jacob

Gen 28:10-22

Although Isaac lived sixty-three years after his deception, the remainder of the book of Genesis is occupied mainly with the history of Jacob and members of his family. It is wonderful to mark how suddenly, and sometimes almost contemptuously, men are displaced in history, and especially how some lives that opened in marvellousness pass away in commonplace or obscurity. So we cannot calculate the end from the beginning; we cannot say, Given such a dawn and we shall have such a sunset, in human life. God seems to govern to a considerable degree by the element of surprise. Some suns we never see but in their setting; others are never seen after a dazzling dawn, and others seem to shine all the day in cloudless lustre. The disposal of human life is with the Lord. Whether we rise or fall, whether we stand in the sun, like images to be gazed upon by a universe, or perish in the dust under our feet, the whole disposal of our life’s lot and destiny is with the Lord. If we could believe that, we should never be in dejected spirits, we should never lose our strength through our want of faith. Isaac was a passive, rather than an energetic character. He was a despondent person. We thought he would have done otherwise; but that misjudgment upon our part is no discredit to Isaac. We have forgotten that the Lord reigneth. Sometimes we have wondered how the Lord would remove certain characters from the panorama of history. Has he not performed many a miracle herein? We have taxed our poor ingenuity to find methods by which certain men might disappear consistently with the harmony and music of things; and when we have failed, God has wrought out some miracle in providence which has astounded and yet completely satisfied us. We have seen the end and have been contented with it, as the soul is contented with a Divine revelation.

Now we begin with Jacob in earnest. He has, so far, escaped his brother’s anger, which we thought to be just. Life is spared; but is the punishment evaded? The supplanter has apparently succeeded, whereas he has but begun the discipline of purification and refinement; he has gone at his mother’s bidding; but, instead of having escaped God, he has run more consciously and completely into his hands. Herein also is a mystery, black as a night cloud, and yet not without some wealth of stars in all its appalling gloom. Jacob had undertaken this journey on his mother’s advice, with the narrow policy of allowing Esau’s anger to subside. She was minimising Providence into a local incident; she had undertaken too much. We cannot put our arms around the horizon; we are under seven feet at the most. Rebekah little knew how large a door she was opening, when she bade her son good-bye. She opened the universe! The supplanter has gone to meet Laban he will meet the Lord before he meets Laban. God is waiting at the sleeping-place, and the revelation is already prepared. We require the darkness for the revelation of some things; we do not see the stars whilst the sun is blinding us; we speak flippantly of the day; we forget the night.

How goes the great tale of inward experience and consciousness? How beats the storm-music? or is it almost silence? What is it? Notice how large conceptions come in upon the man’s mind. Here is, first of all, larger space. Jacob saw heaven. Enlargement of space has a wonderful influence upon mind and spirit of every degree and quality. Go abroad; climb the hill, and leave your sorrow there. Take in the great revelation of space, and know that God’s government is no local incident, or trifle which the human hand can take up and manage and dispose of. We perish in many an intellectual difficulty for want of room. Things are only big because they are near; in themselves they are little if set up with the firmament domed above them, and numbered along with other things, which give proportion to all the elements which make up the circle of their influence. Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God? Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things. You must bring your little flesh-wound against the mortal bruise of the universe; you must set up your little, little cross against the infinite Cross of Christ. It is possible for a man to live so long in his own house, as to live downwards towards the point of extinction; it is possible for a man to be so consumed with his own little business for the greatest business of earth is but a noise and a spasm; there is nothing in the most stupendous business that is worthy of more than one moment’s consideration, though we are agitated lest we miss the final post it is possible for a man so to live within his own business as to go down into narrowness of thought, despair of soul, utter littleness and vapidity and nothingness. Go into the field, pass over the ways of the seas, pray when the stars are all ablaze like altars that cannot be counted, and at which an infinite universe is offering its evening oblation; take in more space, and many a difficulty which hampers and frets the mind will be thrown off, and manhood will take a bound forwards and upwards. Space is not emptiness; space is a possible Church.

Enlarging space never goes alone; it brings with it enlarging life. Jacob not only beheld heaven: he saw the angels coming down, going up stirred by an urgent business. It is one thing to talk about the angels: it is another to see them. Blind bats! we seldom see any angel; mockers! we are fond of laughing at others who think they do. Herein we need not be too literal. The music is possible of realisation without any debasement of the reason. The great, stimulating, solemn thought is this: that there is more than is visible to the naked and most wakeful eye. There ought to be: we have all friends lost enough to make a heaven. You can treat them in either of two ways: like dead dogs that leave no mark in the universe, no name in all creation’s ample bound: or you can think of them as released persons, emancipated slaves singing songs, saints clothed in white raiment walking on hills of light, or flying or running on errands of mercy and love. Had there been no heaven of any kind without us, I repeat, we have lost enough of old companions to make a good strong heaven of. Let us not flippantly bid them good-bye, and think they have left nothing but a grave; amongst them are “The dead but sceptred monarchs who still rule our spirits from their urns.” We must bear the reproach of believing in a heaven: we cannot consent to wither under the desolating negativism which deprives us of immortality.

Enlarging space brings enlarging life; enlarging life brings an enlarging altar. Jacob said, “Surely the Lord is in this place.” We cannot enter into Jacob’s meaning of that exclamation. He had been reared in the faith that God was to be worshipped in definite and specified localities. There were places at which Jacob would have been surprised if he had not seen manifestations of God. The point is, at the place where he did not expect anything he saw heaven; he saw some form or revelation of God. See how the greater truth dawns upon his opening mind, “Surely the Lord is in this place,” and that is the very end of our spiritual education; to find God everywhere; never to open a rose-bud without finding God; never to see the days whitening the eastern sky without seeing the coming of the King’s brightness; to feel that every place is praying ground; to renounce the idea of partial and official consecration, and stand in a universe every particle of which is blessed and consecrated by the presence of the infinite Creator. We have not yet attained this summit of education. We still draw a line between the Sabbath Day and the day that went before it; we have still a church and a market-place; still we vulgarly distribute the sum-total of things into Church and State. When God has wrought in us all the mystery of his grace, and reared us to the last fruition of wisdom possible below the skies, we shall know that there is no market-place, no State, no business, but one great Church; every speech holy and pure as prayer, every transaction a revelation of justice.

Immediately following these larger conceptions of things, we find a marvellous and instructive instance of the absorbing power of the religious idea. In Jacob’s dream there was but one thought When we see God all other sights are extinguished. This is the beginning of conversion; this is essential to the reality of a new life. For a time the eye must be filled with a heavenly image; for a time the ear must be filled with a celestial message; a complete forgetfulness of everything past, and a new seizure and apprehension of the whole solemn future.

This is the very mystery and the very grace of regeneration. The mind is filled with God; all speech is resolved into one word God, God, GOD. There will be reaction; there is menial work to be done, there are educative processes to be gone through and completed, and therefore the mind will throw off some measure of that complete absorption; but the influence of it will remain for ever. No man can go back from conversion; if he has gone back, he was never converted. When we forget some things, we forget or surrender the reason which makes us men. It we have been regarding regeneration as a mere emotion, a happy frame of mind, a time of gracious weeping, on account of vividly-remembered sin, I wonder not that we have gone back and walked no more with the sons of light. We mistook the occasion; we committed an error of judgment rather than a crime of will. When a man has once had his soul filled with God, he can never be a bad man again slip he may a thousand times a day, but the seed of God abideth in him. From this sight Jacob begins a new life; he will often cheat and supplant, and scheme that is in the man’s queer blood but he will die upwards, heavenwards. We must wait to see how he dies.

Wonderful is the effect of Divine communion. Take it in the case of Jacob. Jacob said he was afraid. We do not know the whole meaning of that word in such circumstances. Jacob said, “How dreadful is this place!” Circumstances are sometimes necessary to the definition of terms. What earthquakes shattered old policies and deceits we cannot tell; what idols of the heart were killed in that mighty awe we know not; what creeping things that defiled the soul were slain by the cold of that stony fear we cannot tell. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” not the intellectual veneration which is sometimes mistaken for fear, but the moral obeisance of the whole man, feeling its littleness and seeing the infinite quality of God.

Jacob was also humbled. His expression is: “I knew it not I never suspected it; this is an enlargement of my imagination; this is a surprise of every faculty.” We must be made to feel our ignorance before we can begin our knowledge. Jacob felt his smallness; Jacob cringed under the sharp bite of self-contempt. This is a necessary process in religious education. So long as there is one pulse of pride left, there is no conversion; so long as the right hand supposes it can do one good thing of itself apart from God, prayer is an impossibility; so long as the soul can say of the Ten Commandments “All these have I kept from my youth,” it cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. It must have received a commandment that slays it with an utter and unsparing blow. The mighty must be brought down, the proud must be humbled, the supposedly wise must be uncrowned. “Ye must be born again.”

What a beautiful moral sequence brings to a close the whole incident. “Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it…. And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will… I will.” The amended translation of Jacob’s vow reads thus: “If Elohim will be with me, and will protect me on this journey that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, and if I come again in peace to my father’s house, and Jehovah will be my Elohim, then this stone which I have set up as a pillar shall be Beth-Elohim; and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely pay thee tithes.” We have all said so, and some of us have never fulfilled the vow. We rose up from the bed of sickness, and said, “Hence on, every pulse is God’s, every breath a prayer.” We have been delivered from danger, from poverty, from despair, and we have written our great vow, and have blasphemously forgotten every word of the covenant.

What has taken place in regard to the transaction with Esau? Everything; we are on the right course. First, be right with God. The time comes when there can be no amendment, no compromise, no arrangement with creditors, no compounding; no givings, takings, strange concessions, but when life becomes a religious agony and interview with God. Hence the two commands which are one “Thou shalt [first] love the Lord thy God; thou shalt [second] love thy neighbour as thyself.” The second is impossible without the first. If you are at enmity with your fellow-creatures, you cannot settle it between you: both of you must first see God. Jacob saw him; Esau beheld him; and, when the men wept upon one another’s neck, they realised, and manifested, and incarnated the love of God.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

XXVI

ISAAC AND JACOB

Gen 25:19-28:9

We take up the story of Isaac and Jacob. The closing paragraphs of Isaac’s history are recorded in Gen 35:28-29 , his death and burial. There is an old saying, “Blessed is the nation which has no history.” History is devoted to extraordinary events. A thousand years of quiet and peace find no description in the pages of history. A few years of wars, pestilences, and earthquakes receive much attention. Isaac may be called the patriarch without a history.

I wish to refer first to his mother. An examination question will be: What New Testament passages refer favorably to Sarah? The answer in Heb 11 says that she is a woman of faith. By faith she was enabled to bear seed. 2Pe 3:6 , places her above the woman of Peter’s time as a model in subjection and obedience to her husband and the laws of maternal relation. The apostle Paul in Gal 4 makes Sarah the type of the Jerusalem which is above the mother of us all.

We have considered in previous lectures the things which went before Isaac’s birth. As early as Gen 12:3 , God had promised that in Abraham’s seed all the families of men should be blessed, but Abraham thought that could apply to an adopted child as well as a real child. When the promise is spoken a second time, it is expressly stated that it should be his own child. Then Abraham did not know who the mother would be. But the third statement was that it was not only to be his own child, but by his wife, Sarah. So according to Paul, Isaac comes into the world the child of promise, and by a miraculous birth. In this respect he is the type of all Christians who are regenerated, born of supernatural power.

In contrasting Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we find Isaac unlike his father and son in the following particulars: He was unlike them in age. He lived to be 180 years old; neither of them lived that long. In the matter of travel: Isaac never got out of the sight of the smoke that went up from the tent where he was born. With a compass you might draw a circle with a radius of 100 miles around his birthplace as a center, and he was never beyond that circle. He was never north of the city of Jerusalem; east of the river Jordan; south of the South country where Beersheba was; never west of the Mediterranean Sea. No man of his age and with his wealth traveled so little. Again, he was unlike both father and son in his marriage relations. He had but one wife, and she bore him only two children, both at one birth. He was as pure a man in the marriage relation as ever lived in the world. He was unlike both father and son in his passiveness, i.e., he had no spirit of aggression or self-assertion. He was never in a battle. There were very few stirring events in his history. But when you read the lives of Abraham and Jacob many mighty and thrilling events come up. Unlike father and son, he became blind in his old age and nearly helpless. You might say that Jacob’s life commenced with a struggle, and was under the clouds the early years, but about the middle of his life the sun shines out, and the sunset is unclouded. Isaac commenced life with laughter and ended with sorrow. The record tells of his building only one altar, though he may have built others. He offered only one prayer, the prayer for his wife. God appeared to him only twice, but to Jacob and Abraham many times. He was like Abraham in one fault, duplicity concerning his wife to the king of the Philistines. He was like both father and son in being a prophet of God.

The record passes over the happy years of his life, most of the 120 years. If you have read Thomson’s Land and the Book, or any modern book about the South country, you have a vivid description of the kind of land where he lived. No perennial streams, scarcely any trees, bleak mountains and plains, in the spring a beautiful country of flowers, but they last only a short time. I have seen at least forty varieties of them gathered from the fields where Isaac lived. The water question was a great question in his life, as of all the patriarchs, there being little rain and the streams entirely dry the greater part of the year. So they had to dig for water. And one may imagine the growing up of this boy under favorable and happy circumstances, loved by his father and mother, scarcely any troubles, quietly Jiving his life in a tent, amid flowers and flocks and herds.

The record does tell about his trials. I give you a list. They commenced when he was weaned, at three years old. At that time he wag very much persecuted by his big brother, Ishmael, who was fourteen years older. That strong wild boy, superseded by the coming of Isaac, persecuted the little fellow, and if I had to say under what sense of wrong my soul was most indignant in my youth, it would be in observing rude, big boys, being cruel to timid little fellows at school. Nobody can tell through what horrors a timid soul passes in going out in public life and coming in contact with rougher beings. Especially is this true in schools, and where hazing is permitted, it is perfectly awful. The next sorrow was when he was offered up. He was then about twenty and had lived in perfect peace about seventeen years. Next when his mother died. He could not be consoled for several years, because she was everything to him. He was the child of his mother. There is a legend I do not call it history that when Abraham took Isaac to offer him up he told Sarah and broke her heart and caused her death. You don’t get that out of the Bible, however. The next trial is one that a good many children come in touch with, the introducing of a stepmother into the family, but the record does not indicate that there was any trouble between Isaac and his wife and Keturah, the second wife of Abraham. The next, a very great sorrow, was that his wife bore no children. He had been married twenty years, and it troubled him much, knowing the promise of God. But instead of seeking to fulfill the prophecy as Abraham and Sarah had done, he carried the case to God in prayer. The Lord heard him and promised that children should be born to him. The next trial was the death of his father. His twin boys, Jacob and Esau, were about fifteen years old. So the grandfather lived long enough to know the boys thoroughly. The next trouble was when the famine came, and he had to go into the land of the Philistines, and he was afraid that Abimelech or some other ungodly man would kill him in order to get his wife. It does not always follow, however, that other people are as anxious to capture our wives as we think they are. But it nearly happened in this case.

We now come to the culminating period of Isaac’s life, Gen 26:12-28 . He is now in the country of Abimelech: “And Isaac sowed in that land . . . and there Isaac’s servants digged a well.” There Abimelech and Phicol made a covenant with him and from now on his sorrows multiply. The next sorrow arises from a little transaction concerning a mess of pottage. You remember the prophecy that the older child of Isaac should serve the younger. The mother was partial to Jacob. Esau, a man of the plains, and a great hunter, was loved by his father. The mother instructed her son to help out God’s prophecy. She watched her chance. The chance came when Esau returned from hunting, tired and hungry, and Jacob had Just made a pot of red pottage. Esau’s own name meant red-headed, and people don’t have red heads for nothing. Esau said to Jacob, “Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage, for I am faint.” And Jacob said, “I will give it to you if you will acknowledge that the birthright belongs to me.” That was driving a hard bargain, but Esau was so hungry that he sold the birthright. Isaac did not say a word, but in his own mind he determined to bestow the blessing on Esau, because he loved him most. The next trouble comes in Esau’s marriage. Esau married two idolatrous women, and the record states that it was a great grief to Rebekah and Isaac. The next calamity is that Isaac begins to go blind. Next the great deception was practiced on him by his wife and Jacob. Feeling that he might soon pass away he determined as a prophet to bestow the blessing on the firstborn, on Esau. So he told Esau to go out and kill venison and fix him a savory dish. Isaac liked Esau’s venison, somewhat of a sensual man. I am told that it is a characteristic of some preachers these days to like savory dishes, and woe to the preacher who has to preach at night after eating a big dinner of mince pie at twelve o’clock! Rebekah seemed to have a listening ear and heard Isaac talking to Esau. Now she is going to help God out. Isaac willed that Esau should have the birthright. Esau ran to kill the venison. Jacob and Rebekah plotted to defeat him. So she put Esau’s clothing on Jacob, as Esau was a hairy man. Rebekah told him to kill and dress a kid and tell the old man it was venison, and that he was Esau. It was a very villainous transaction. Jacob brought the kid and the father said, “Is this my son Esau?” and Jacob said, “Yes, father.” Isaac said, “Come here, let me feel.” He felt of the garment and said, “The touch is like Esau, but the voice is like Jacob.” Anyhow he ate the dish of kid and pronounced the blessing on Jacob. Here is that blessing in poetic form:

See, the smell of my son

Is as the smell of a field which

Jehovah hath blessed;

And God give thee of the dew of heaven,

And of the fatness of the earth,

And plenty of grain and wine:

Let peoples serve thee,

And nations bow down to thee:

Be lord over thy brethren,

And let thy mother’s sons bow down to thee:

Cursed be every one that curseth thee,

And blessed be every one that blesseth thee.

There Isaac gives Jacob power over his brother, thinking he was giving it to Esau. Now the question arises and Paul argues it in Rom 9 , how could God approve such fraud as that? Well, God did not approve it. Paul says, “It is not of him that willeth.” Isaac willed to give it to Esau. “It is not of him that runneth.” Esau ran to get the venison. It was not of Jacob and his mother, but of the election, God having decreed before the children were born, before either one had done good or evil, that the younger should be the one through whom the Messiah should come.

The most touching thing was when Esau came back: “And it came to pass as soon as Isaac had made an end of blessing Jacob, and Jacob was yet scarce gone out of the presence of Isaac, his father, that Esau, his brother, came in from his hunting. And he also made savoury food, and brought it unto his father; and he said unto his father, Let my father arise, and eat of his son’s venison, that thy soul may bless me. And Isaac, his father, said, Who art thou? And he said, I am thy son, thy firstborn, Esau. And Isaac trembled exceedingly, and said, Who then is he that hath taken venison and brought it me, and I have eaten of all before thou earnest, and have blessed him? Yea, and he shall be blessed. When Esau heard the words of his father, he cried, Bless me, even me, O my father. Jacob hath supplanted me these two times: he took away my birthright, and behold he hath taken my blessing.” And Isaac answered:

Behold, of the fatness of the earth shall be thy dwelling,

And of the dew of heaven from above;

And by thy sword shalt thou live, and thou shalt

serve thy brother;

And it shall be as thou rovest at will, thou wilt

shake off thine enemy.

In one of the old prophets it is said, “Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated.” That refers not to the persons of Jacob and Esau, but to the nationalities. Esau was heathen, and Jacob was Israel. None of this work of election in any particular had anything to do with the character of either. None of it with the wishes of the father and mother. It was God’s sovereign disposition of the case and touched the descendants rather than the two persons. Heb 12:16 brings out the character of Esau a little more plainly: “Lest there be any fornicator or profane person, as Esau, who for one mess of meat sold his birthright. For ye know that when he afterward desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected; for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.” That used to trouble me. It looked like Esau wanted to repent of his sin and God would not forgive him. I will read it to you according to the true rendering: “For he found no place for a change of mind in the father.” It was not Esau’s repentance, but Isaac’s repentance. Don’t ever misapply that scripture. That was a great trouble to Isaac. And as for the rascality of Jacob and Rebekah, they had to bear a heavy burden. Esau determined to kill Jacob and his mother seat him away and never saw him again.

The next thing was the death of his brother Ishmael; then the death of his wife; and afterward the departure of Esau. There he was alone, father, wife, brother dead, one son banished and another gone away. Then Jacob came and comforted him in his last illness. I have given you an outline of the sorrows of Isaac, but there are really two that I have not mentioned, viz.: Jacob had gotten to the Holy Land on his return, but had not reached his father’s house when Rachel died. Isaac was living, but he never got to see Rachel. Joseph was sold into slavery and Isaac never saw him, then comes the death of Isaac.

Let us look at the character of this man. He was intensely religious, domestic and peaceful; passive in his resistance to evil and in one event of his life a type of Christ; when he got to the mountain he carried the wood upon which he was to be offered as Christ bore his own cross until he fainted. A type of the Christian is his miraculous birth. When we come to consider Jacob and Esau further attention will be given to these details. In the grave of Machpelah, by the side of his father Abraham, and mother Sarah, Isaac and his wife Rebekah were buried. And to this day the Arabs point to the casket which contains the remains. This is the culminating period of the prosperity in the life of Isaac. So we now pass to the

HISTORY OF JACOB In the first of the chapter on Isaac we have necessarily considered somewhat the incidents of Jacob’s life up to the time that he left his father’s home. It was then said that those incidents would be examined more particularly when we studied Jacob’s own life. Oliver Wendell Holmes, in reply to the question, How early should the education of a child begin? replied, “Commence with his grandmother.” To a great extent certainly most lives are the mixed results of preceding forces. Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, are all in some degree reproduced in Jacob. Oliver Wendell Holmes also says, “A man is an omnibus in which all his ancestors ride.” Don’t forget these two quotations. This thought he embodies and illustrates in his book Elsie Venner. The object of that book was to show how conflicting ancestral traits struggled for supremacy in this girl. We might add that every life is a result of many forces, including the following: (1) God; (2) the devil; (3) heredity; (4) individuality; (5) environment; (6) opportunity; (7) education; (8) habits. We will be little prepared to analyze or comprehend Jacob’s life, if we lose sight of any one of these forces. So far in Jacob’s life individuality has bad but limited place, since he has been under the dominion, or domination, of his mother. Individuality comes most into play when we are thrown upon our own resources, and are responsible for our own decisions and have to make our own way. We will find in this history that Jacob appears to much greater advantage when his own individuality comes into play than when he was under the influence of another. We will find the value of his past habits in his taking care of himself and making a support, and that, too, under very adverse conditions, more adverse than that of any of you boys, hard as you think your lot is. We are going to like Jacob a great deal better as we get on in his history than we do at the start. It has been well said that no hunter is a good businessman. This holds good from Esau to Rip Van Winkle. The domestic habits of Jacob, and his training in caring for flocks and herds, serve him well in after life. From his mother and her family comes his shrewd business sense. Woe to the man who expects to get rich trading with Jacob. He is a prototype of all Yankees and modern Jews in driving close bargains. Hunter Esau was the first victim to “cut his eye-teeth” on that fact.

But before we study the individuality as manifested when thrown upon his own resources, we must refresh our minds with a backward glance at his history as given in previous chapters. His parentage, Isaac, son of Abraham, and Rebekah, granddaughter of Nahor, Abraham’s brother. But a mightier factor than parental influence or heredity touches him. Prophecies and mighty doctrines were on their way toward him before be began to be. God comes before parents. The divine purpose and the divine election touching his life will look far beyond the personal Jacob, and be far above and paramount over affection, will, weakness, or duplicity of parent or child, long after the earthly actors are dead. Yea, into thousands of years of the future the foreknowledge, predestination and election of God will project themselves until the whole human race becomes involved in Jacob, and until eternity and everlasting destiny comes. Deep and wide as may be this shoreless ocean of the divine purpose, we are permitted to look at it, so far as revealed, though it be unnavigable by the human reason. Prophecies: The first prophecy directly affecting. Jacob is God’s answer to the mother’s inquiry concerning the infants in her womb. “Two nations are in thy womb, and two peoples shall be separated therefrom, and one shall be stronger than the other people and the elder shall serve the younger.” This prophecy evidently refers not so much to the boys themselves as to their descendants. Indeed in its wider significance it concerns all nations more than the two nations. So referring, it considers neither parental bias, nor character of either child. It is not a divine decree fixing the eternal destiny of either child. For reasons sufficient to himself, God of his own will selects one of these nations to become his people and through whom he will savingly reach all other peoples. The second relevant prophecy appears in Isaac’s blessing on Jacob: “And God give thee of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth, plenty of grain and new wine.” That is temporal. “Let peoples serve thee and nations bow down to thee.” That is national. That refers to the primogeniture. “Cursed be every one that curseth thee and blessed be every one that blesseth thee.” That is the prophecy of the twenty-seventh chapter. This prophecy is restated and enlarged in the blessing on Esau, as follows: “And thou shalt serve thy brother, but it shall come to pass, when thou shalt break loose, thou shalt shake his yoke off thy neck” (Gen 24:40 ). These two prophecies, like the first, find their real meaning in the descendant nations, rather than in Jacob and Esau personally. Esau himself never served Jacob himself. Their application to the nations rather than to the brothers themselves appears in the last Old Testament book, Mal 1:2-5 : “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? saith Jehovah, yet I loved Jacob, but Esau I hated, and made his mountains a desolation.” It is evident that Malachi in his day, thousands of years after Jacob and Esau, is not discussing the two men personally, but Jacob the people, and Edom, Esau’s people. This national application is also evident from Paul’s use of the Genesis and Malachi quotations in Rom 9:10-13 . He is there discussing God’s election of Israel to be his people, and how that nation, on account of infidelity, was cast off and the Gentiles took their places. He is proving that doctrine from this quotation from Malachi. All this prophecy, Paul says, illustrates God’s sovereign election. But so far it is the election of a nation. Personal election of an individual Christian is not so far discussed. The personal privilege conferred in this is the primogeniture conferred on Jacob. In what did this right consist? I am sure to ask that question on examination. The answer is: (1) Rule in family and tribe; (2) A double portion of the inheritance (Deu 2:17 ); (3) The priesthood of the family and the high priesthood of the tribe. In England the right of primogeniture still prevails to a large extent. The eldest son inherits the father’s estate, and in order to support that property they have the “Law of Entail,” that the property cannot be alienated, but must pass down to each first son. The income may be used in providing a portion for the other children, but the principal must remain intact. That is one of the special privileges our forefathers objected to. Jefferson and his colaborers determined to abolish both of these laws as far as they applied to America. The history of Virginia shows various steps of legislation undertaken by Jefferson, and aided particularly by the Baptists, in destroying these laws. A man may bequeath his property by will, but that will is subject to legal investigations. It can be broken if he unjustly deprive any child of a fair share of the inheritance. The original prophecy that the elder should serve the younger was never forgotten by the mother, and through her it was made known to her favorite son, Jacob. In both of them arose a desire to hasten the fulfillment of that prophecy. Like Sarah, their impatience could not wait for God himself to fulfill his word. Now comes another examination question, What was the first step taken to hasten its fulfillment? That mess of pottage business. I will not recite the history, but I will ask you on examination to analyze Jacob’s sin in that transaction, and Esau’s sin. The analysis of Jacob’s sin is: (1) Presumption toward God by human instrumentality to hurry up God’s purpose. (2) Unfilial toward Isaac. (3) Unfraternal and inhuman toward Esau to take advantage of his extremity by a sharp bargain. (4) It was snatching at a promise before it was ripe. The doctrine involved is: You may do evil to bring about a good thing. That is the doctrine of the Jesuits, abhorrent to God’s Word. This evil rather delayed matters. It brought on Jacob the intense hatred of Esau. The analysis of Esau’s sin is: (1) He was sensual; the satisfaction of present desire seemed greater than future blessing. (2) There was profanity in his sin; he despised the sacred primogeniture. How does the Old Testament characterize Esau’s sin? “He despised the birthright.” How does the New Testament? “He was guilty of profanity.” Any act of irreverence is profanity. There has come a proverb from that transaction: “Don’t sell your birthright.” Who has written a book entitled The Mess of Pottage You will find it in the book stores, but I do not recommend it to you. Ben Franklin has a similar proverb. When he was small, a man had a whistle which he made very attractive. Ben Franklin, so intense in his desire to get that whistle, gave the man everything he had. But when he walked off he felt very much dissatisfied; it did not whistle as well as he thought it would. It taught him this: Never pay too much for a whistle. John Bunyan, in Pilgrim’s Progress, has a picture hanging in the interpreter’s house: Two boys, Patience and Passion. Passion rushes up and says, “Father, give me all my goods right now.” The father gives him the goods and he soon spends all. But Patience waits for the right time. Many people are so governed by appetite that though they may know that the commission of an offense will wreck their future career, they forget the future in their lust.

What was the second step to hasten the fulfillment of the promise? It consists in the concerted action between Rebekah and Jacob to deceive blind old Isaac and have him bless Jacob, confirming the right of primogeniture. I shall now proceed to analyze the sin of Rebekah in this transaction. Rebekah’s sin consisted in presumption toward God in doing an evil thing and in the overweening power over Jacob’s character, who did.. not want to do it. “Honoring the mother,” was carried beyond the legitimate limit. Children ought not to obey their parents in committing a crime. Jacob’s sin consisted in making his mother’s desire greater than the promptings of conscience and regard for God’s will. This did not help the purpose a particle. How does the New Testament show that it did not help the purpose? “It is not to him that willeth, like Isaac, nor to him that runneth, like Esau, but it was of God.” It intensified Esau’s hatred against his brother: “He cheated me out of my birthright by trade, and now out of my father’s blessing. I will kill him.” Esau was the fellow to do it. He would boil over, and in anger would kill anybody. So to save the favorite child the mother sent him away and never saw him again. She did not make anything, “but it is true that both of these evil steps were overruled by the providence of God for good.

QUESTIONS 1. Why may Isaac be called a “patriarch without a history”?

2. What New Testament passages refer favorably to Sarah?

3. What three revelations to Abraham concerning the “child of promise” and of what is this child in his birth a type?

4. In what respects of life and character did Isaac differ from his father, Abraham, and his son, Jacob?

5. For what does the New Testament commend him? (Heb 11:20 .)

6. Describe the land where he lived. What was the great problem of his life?

7. Though the most of Isaac’s life was joyful and peaceful, he had some trials and sorrows. Tell them.

8. Cite scripture showing culmination of Isaac’s prosperity.

9. In which one of the trials was he a type of our Lord?

10. What prophecy was Jacob trying to have fulfilled in the “mess of pottage” translation? Was it right to seek its fulfillment in this way?

11. How did Isaac undertake to nullify the trade between Jacob and Esau and how was his plan defeated?

12. Did God approve such transaction and what Paul’s explanation of it?

13. What pathetic incident followed and what was the blessing upon Esau?

14. What is the meaning of the name “Jacob” and from what incident originated?

15. What is the meaning of “Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated”?

16. Give the character of Esau as interpreted in the New Testament and what other name had Esau?

17. In Heb 12:17 , was the blessing that Esau vainly sought salvation? Explain, then, the passage: “He found no place for repentance, though he sought carefully with tears.”

18. What two sad events after Jacob’s return to the Holy Land before he reached his father’s house?

19. Describe the character of Isaac and in what was he a type of Christ?

20. With whom, according to Oliver Wendell Holmes, must a child’s education begin?

21. What other saying of his bears on heredity?

22. What book did he write on ancestral traits?

23. What forces are factors in every human life?

24. When does individuality come most into play and the application to Jacob?

25. What was the mightiest force that touched Jacob, what was the prophecies concerning him and what is the application of these prophecies?

26. What was Paul’s use of the first of these prophecies together with Mal 1:2-5 ?

27. What was the personal privilege conferred on Jacob in these prophecies and blessings?

28. In what did the right of primogeniture consist and what traces of this in history?

29. Analyze Jacob’s and Esau’s sin in the “mess of pottage” transaction and what was the doctrine involved?

30. How does the Old Testament characterize Esau’s sin? The New Testament?

31. What is profanity and what proverb from the transaction? Illustrate.

32. What were the sins of Isaac, Rebekah, Esau, and Jacob, respectively, in the transaction about the blessing?

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Gen 28:1 And Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, and charged him, and said unto him, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan.

Ver. 1. Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him. ] He doth not rate him, or rail at him. Anger must have an end. The prodigal’s father met him and kissed him, when one would have thought he should rather have kicked him and killed him. Pro peccato magno, paululum supplicii satis est patri . a

a Terent.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Gen 28:1-5

1So Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and charged him, and said to him, “You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan. 2Arise, 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. 3May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples. 4May 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.” 5Then 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.

Gen 28:1 “So Isaac called Jacob and blessed him” The interpretation of this chapter is based on Rebekah’s overhearing the plot of Esau and her plan which is implemented in Gen 27:46. It is significant that Isaac blesses Jacob freely here without being tricked. Possibly he recognized that he was fighting against God’s choice in wanting Esau to receive the blessing. However, in context the “blessing” here is a mere greeting formula (e.g., Gen 47:7; Gen 47:10 and Rth 2:4).

“You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan” This is exactly the statement made by Abraham to his servant for finding a wife for Isaac in Gen 24:3-4. This must be related to the exclusive worship of YHWH. Although Bethuel’s son, Laban, may not be a true YHWHist (i.e., Teraphim, see Special Topic: Teraphim , cf. Gen 31:19; Gen 31:34-35), apparently there was some theological understanding within that family.

Gen 28:2 Isaac gives Jacob several commands.

1. “arise,” BDB 877, KB 1086, Qal IMPERATIVE

2. “go,” BD 229, KB 246, Qal IMPERATIVE

3. “take,” BDB 542, KB 534, Qal IMPERATIVE

“to Paddan-aram” This term (BDB 804 and 74) is later used for the Syrian empire (cf. Gen 25:20) and yet here it seems to refer to the area around Haran (i.e., a city or a district).

“to the house of Bethuel your mother’s father” See also Gen 22:20-24; Gen 24:15.

Gen 28:3 “May God Almighty bless you” This is the title El Shaddai (BDB 42 and 994, see note at Gen 17:1). This was a common patriarchal title for God (cf. Gen 17:1; Gen 28:3; Gen 35:11; Gen 43:14; Gen 48:3; and possibly Gen 49:25). We learn from Exo 6:2-3 that this was the name or title that the Patriarchs used for God. See Special Topic: NAMES FOR DEITY .

“a company of peoples” This is the first use of the Hebrew term Qahal (BDB 874, cf. Deu 5:22; Deu 9:10; Deu 10:4; Deu 23:2-9; Deu 31:30), which is translated by the Septuagint as ekklesia. The NT believers used this term to describe their own new fellowship of covenant believers. It was their way of saying that they felt they were one with the OT people of God.

Gen 28:3-4 These verses have several IMPERFECTS used in a JUSSIVE sense.

1. bless, Gen 28:3, BDB 138, KB 159, Piel IMPERFECT

2. make fruitful, Gen 28:3, BDB 826, KB 963, Hiphil IMPERFECT

3. make you multiply, Gen 28:3, BDB 915, KB 1176, Hiphil IMPERFECT

4. give you the blessing of Abraham, Gen 28:4, BDB 678, KB 733, Qal IMPERFECT, cf. Gen 15:7-8

Gen 28:4 “the blessing of Abraham” This becomes a standard phrase for the Abrahamic promise (cf. Gen 28:13; Gen 12:7; Gen 13:15; Gen 13:17; Gen 15:7-8; Gen 17:8; Gen 26:3-4; Exo 6:4).

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

blessed. This blessing God endorses (verses: Gen 28:13-15), by sending Jacob to Haran, as he had blessed Abraham to bring him from Haran (Gen 12:1-3).

Thou shalt not take. See Gen 24:3.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Chapter 28

So Isaac called Jacob, and he blessed him, and he charged him, and he said unto him, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan. Arise, and go to Padanaram, to the house of Bethuel thy mother’s father; and take thee a wife from there of the daughters of Laban thy mother’s brother ( Gen 28:1-2 ).

Now evidently, they were able to keep some kind of a communication perhaps by the caravans that would travel. You’d give a letter and it will be carried and you’d-and they would probably deliver mail back and forth because he knew that Laban had had some daughters at this point. “So you go back and take one of Laban’s daughters for your wife”.

And God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that you may be a multitude of people ( Gen 28:3 );

And so actually he is continuing now to bless Jacob, even giving further blessing, the blessing of God upon thee, the fruitfulness and becoming a multitude of people.

And give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with them; that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave unto Abraham ( Gen 28:4 ).

So notice that now Isaac is adding to the previous blessing, adding unto Jacob the blessings that God had given unto Abraham, and unto Jacob and his seed this land that God had promised unto Abraham. And so there is an extension of the earlier blessing where when Esau said, “Isn’t there anything left?” Jacob couldn’t think of anything. But now-I mean, Isaac couldn’t think of anything. But now when Jacob comes before him, there is the added blessing, the blessing of Abraham to be passed upon to Jacob and his descendants.

And Isaac sent Jacob away: and he went to Padanaram unto Laban, the son of Bethuel the Syrian, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob’s and Esau’s mother. When Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob, and sent him away to take a wife from Padanaram; and that as he blessed him he gave him a charge, saying, You will not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan; And that Jacob obeyed his father and his mother, and was gone to Padanaram; And Esau seeing that the daughters of Canaan did not please Isaac his father; Then went Esau to Ishmael, and took unto the wives which he had Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife ( Gen 28:5-9 ).

Realizing that his two wives were not pleasing to his parents, he took a third wife and this one from the descendants of Ishmael who were, of course, Abraham’s descendants through Hagar the handmaid.

Now Jacob went out from Beersheba, and he went towards Haran. And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took the stones of the place, put them for his pillows, and he laid down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, behold 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. And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am Jehovah God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: and the land where you lie, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and you shalt spread abroad to the west, to the east, to the north, to the south: and in thee and thy seed [seed singular there] shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of ( Gen 28:10-15 ).

So he’s had a hard journey traveling to Bethel some thirty miles or so from the area around Beersheba, a little more than that, thirty-five miles. Tired, he gets to this rocky wilderness, barren area. He’s tired, the sun is going down, he puts some rocks together for a pillow, he goes to sleep. He starts to dream. An interesting dream indeed, a ladder from earth reaching up into heaven. The angels of God are ascending and descending. And the Lord is standing there.

The Lord talks to him and the Lord promises to give him, first of all, the area where he’s lying. Promises to bless him. Promises to go with him. Promises to give to the north, east, south and west the land and to his seed. And so the Lord is actually repeating unto Jacob the promises that He made to Abraham and then in verse fifteen, “And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither you go.”

Now he didn’t know where he was going at this point except back to Haran but he really didn’t know where it was or anything else about it. “I will bring thee again into this land; I will not leave thee, until I have done all that which I have spoken to thee about.” So here this dream of Jacob could very well have been prompted by his lying there under the starry sky, looking up into the heavens and thinking, “Well, God is up there somewhere” as we so often think as we look up into the starlit sky. “Well, God dwells in heaven”.

But you know, if you think of God dwelling in heaven it seems like God is very far off. There’s something about looking up in the desert skies that brings almost a consciousness of not the nearness, but the distance of God as we have come to a knowledge of the vastness of the universe. And somehow through the heavens, there is a consciousness of the unapproachableness of God because He is so vast. His universe is so vast. You see, looking up into the heavens gives to us a true awareness and a consciousness of ourself. I’m so nothing. I’m so small when I think of the universe. Oh man, what am I when I think, I compare myself to the universe?

One of the smaller planets around, around one of the small stars is a small corner of the vast Milky Way galaxy, which has a billion stars in it. But the Milky Way galaxy is just one of the galaxies of the billions of galaxies out there in space. When Job was looking at the heavens, he came to an awareness not of the nearness of God, but of how far God was and how unapproachable God was, so that when his friends said, “Hey, if you’ll just make peace with God everything will be okay, buddy”. He says, “Thanks a lot but how am I going to make peace with God? He’s so vast. I look up in the heavens and He’s so great. Who am I that I can stand before God and plead my cause?”

So though the heavens make us aware of the glory of God and the power of God and the greatness of God, somehow the viewing of the heavens makes us feel distant from God, as though God is dwelling there in the heavens. And here am I, the insignificant little me down here on this little planet earth. And I’m so insignificant among those that dwell upon the planet earth.

And thus looking at heaven always makes us feel that need of some help in reaching God. When Job looked at the heavens and realized the vastness of God and saw how nothing he was, he said, “I need someone to stand between us who will lay his hand on us both. God’s too vast. I can’t reach Him. I’m too small, I can’t touch Him. I need someone who would go between and lay his hand on God and lay his hand on me. The vastness between God and myself is too great, it can’t be bridged”.

And as Jacob was lying there and looking up and thinking about God and thinking about his life, in his heart there came that desire to reach God. But how can you reach God? The universe is so vast. And so when he went to sleep, from his subconscious there came forth a concept on how to reach God; a ladder that would reach into heaven. And so he dreamed of a ladder. And it was reaching up into heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on this ladder. All right, climb a ladder. And the Lord stood by the ladder and began to speak to him.

As we turn to the New Testament and we find Philip coming to Nathanael and saying, “Behold, we have found the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth”. Nathanael said, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” And when Nathanael came to Jesus, Jesus said, “Well, it’s nice to meet an Israelite in whom there is no guile”. And then he said, “How did you know me?” And he said, “Well, when you were over under the fig tree and Philip called you, I saw you there”. Well he knew that Jesus was nowhere around. And he said, “Truly you are the Messiah, the King of Israel”( Joh 1:45-49 ).

And Jesus said, “Do you believe that ’cause I told you I saw you under the fig tree? You stick around; you’re going to see a lot more than that. For from henceforth you are going to see the heavens open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of man”. What is Jesus saying? I have come to be the ladder whereby man can reach heaven, whereby man can come to God. The ladder of Jacob’s dream was none other than Jesus Christ. He is the access whereby men can come to God. And so Jacob saw it. He saw it in a dream and when he awoke from his dream, verse sixteen,

he said, Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not ( Gen 28:16 ).

When I came here last night, I was so tired and kicked those rocks for a pillow and laid down, I didn’t know God was here. I felt so far away from God. As I looked up in the sky and I thought, “Oh, God, You’re so far away”. But God isn’t far away. He’s in this place. Right here in this place of testing, this place of barrenness. The rocky places of life. God is there. Those hard places of life, God is there. Those uncertain places of life, God is there. When the future seems to be so cloudy and you don’t know which way to go, God is there. “Surely the LORD is in this place.” He’s not in heaven only; He’s in this place.

And it is so important for us that we become aware of the presence of God. That we come into this consciousness of the presence of God, that truly is in this place. I don’t care what that place may be; a place of discouragement, a place of defeat, a place of hopelessness, a place of despair. God is there. Learn to recognize the presence of God. It’ll change a place of barrenness and defeat into an altar, into a place of worship, as you become present, aware of the presence of God. It will dispel the fear and it becomes now a place of confidence, rather than uncertainty. “Surely the LORD is in this place.”

Notice he didn’t say, “The LORD was in this place.” Last night the Lord came down here and was in this place. His consciousness was now a prevailing attitude; “The LORD is in this place”. I don’t see the ladder right now. I don’t see the Lord standing but He’s here, I know He’s here. The LORD is in this place. And again he said, “I knew it not.” I know it now. “The LORD is in this place,” I know it now. I knew it not. Last night I didn’t know it. But now I do. I knew it not.

And he was afraid, and he said, How awesome is this place! this is none other than the house of God; this is the gate to heaven. And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and he set it up for a pillar, and he poured oil on the top of it. And he called the name of the place the House of God: because it used to be called Luz, that city at the first ( Gen 28:17-19 ).

So he made the pillar, poured oil on it. The place of barrenness, a place of despair, hopelessness became an altar unto the Lord, a place where he became aware and conscious of the presence of God.

And Jacob vowed 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 clothes to wear, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace; then shall Jehovah be my God: and this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee ( Gen 28:20-22 ).

Now Jacob is not really striking a bargain here with God saying, “well, if you do all this for me, then You’ll be my God, I will serve You”. “If” here is not in the indicative but in the subjunctive case. As in the New Testament when Satan came to Jesus and said, “If thou be the Son of God”. Satan wasn’t questioning the fact that He was the Son of God, but “if’ is in the subjunctive case which should be translated “Since thou art the Son of God.” It isn’t indicative; it isn’t questioning the deity of Christ in an indicative case but the declaration “Since thou art the Son of God.”

And the same is true here in the case. He is saying actually, “And since God will be with me”, believing the promise of God of the night before, “I will be with you wherever you go. I’m going to bless you. I’m going to bring you back”. “And since God is going to do this for me, He will be my God”. It is his declaration of commitment, of himself and of his life to God. And a promise to give a tenth of whatever God had blessed him with unto the Lord. “

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

Here Jacob is seen exiled from his home, flying from Beersheba. In this connection we have the account of the first of the direct divine communications to him. Tired and weary, he reached Luz and during a dream he had a vision which suggested communication between heaven and earth. What impressed Jacob, however, seems not to have been that part of the vision, but the fact that Jehovah was there in that distant place and that He spoke to him. On waking, Jacob declared his new consciousness of the presence of God. It is not to be wondered at that such a revelation filled him with a sense of awe as he cried, “How dreadful is this place.”

On the following morning he showed the two sides of his nature. His deep religious conviction and faith were indicated by the erection of a stone and naming the place Beth-el, the House of God. His restless activity was manifested in the bargaining spirit in which he expressed himself. In the vision of the night God had promised to be with him and now he says that if that will be so, he will give a tenth of all he possesses to God.

That is faith but on a low level. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that the memory of the midnight vision remained with him through all the coming days. It is evident that by this appearance he was arrested, and the spirit of his coming to the house of Laban was changed.

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

Jacob Sent Away from Home

Gen 27:46; Gen 28:1-9

Esau deferred the execution of his murderous purpose, because of the near approach, as he supposed, of his fathers death. But Isaac lived for forty years after this. His secret purpose, however, became known to Rebekah. See Pro 29:11. The ostensible reason for Jacobs expatriation which Rebekah gave her husband was not the real one. He was sent to Haran, not primarily for a wife, but to escape his brother. Does not this constant duplicity explain the reason of Rebekahs heart-weariness? It seems probable that she never saw her favorite son again. The benediction already pronounced on Jacob was repeated with greater amplitude and tenderness as he left his fathers tent. Sad as he was in the inevitable wrench, the star of hope shone in the sky, beckoning him onward. It was necessary that he should be taken from under his mothers influence into that greater world, where, through pain and disappointment, he should become a prince with God. Often our nest is broken up that we may learn to fly.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Gen 28:10-13

In his dream Jacob saw three things:

I. A way set up between earth and heaven, making a visible connection between the ground on which he slept and the sky.

II. The free circulation along that way of great powers and ministering influences.

III. He saw God, the supreme directing and inspiring force, eminent over all. From these we learn: (1) that every man’s ladder should stand upon the ground: no man can be a Christian by separating himself from his kind; (2) along every man’s ladder should be seen God’s angels; (3) high above all a man’s plans, high above all his heroic moral resolves, there is to be a living trust in God.

H. W. Beecher, Sermons, 1870, p. 643.

Gen 28:10-15

I. Consider the circumstances under which the vision here described was granted to Jacob. He had left his home and was suffering trial and hardship; he was a friendless and unprotected man.

II. Look at the nature of his vision. From this glimpse into the secrets of the unseen world, it appears: (1) that the angels are interested in the well-being of God’s people; (2) that heaven is a place of activity; (3) that there is a way of communication open between heaven and earth. This way represents the mediation of Christ.

III. Look at the promises which on this occasion were made to Jacob: (1) God promised to be with Jacob; (2) God promised His protection and guidance to Jacob; (3) God promised him final deliverance from all trouble.

A. D. Davidson, Lectures and Sermons, p. 108.

I. God is near men when they little think it. He is near (1) when we are not aware of it; (2) when sin is fresh upon us; (3) when we are in urgent need of Him.

II. God is near men to engage in their religious training (1) God assured Jacob of His abiding presence with him. (2) Jacob was taught to recognise God in all things. (3) He was taught to feel his entire dependence upon God throughout the journey of life.

III. God is always near men to effect their complete salvation. Intercourse has been established between earth and heaven; the whole process of man’s salvation is under the superintendence of God.

D. Rhys Jenkins, The Eternal Life, p. 347

Reference: Gen 28:10-16.-Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 98.

Gen 28:10-17

Jacob makes his brother’s hunger an occasion for bargaining with him for his birthright. Esau says, “What profit shall this birthright do to me?” Neither one nor the other knew what good it would do. The vision of something to be realised now or hereafter dawned upon Jacob-a vision probably mixed with many sensual and selfish expectations, still of a good not tangible, a good which must come to him as a gift from God. The absence of all want, all discontent with the present and the visible, is the feeling which exhibits itself in the acts and utterances of Esau.

I. The vision at Bethel was the first step in Jacob’s Divine education-the assurance which raised him to the feelings and dignity of a man. He knew that though he was to be chief of no hunting tribe, there might yet come forth from him a blessing to the whole earth.

II. Jacob’s vision came to him in a dream. But that which had been revealed was a permanent reality, a fact to accompany him through all his after-existence. The great question we have to ask ourselves is, Was this a fact for Jacob the Mesopotamian shepherd, and is it a phantasm for all ages to come? or was it a truth which Jacob was to learn that it might be declared to his seed after him, and that they might be acquainted with it as he was, but in a fuller and deeper sense? If we take the Bible for our guide we must accept the latter conclusion and not the former. The Son of Man is the ladder between earth and heaven, between the Father above and His children upon earth-which explains and reconciles all previous visions, and shows how angels and men can meet and hold converse with each other.

F. D. Maurice, The Patriarchs and Lawgivers of the Old Testament, p. 100.

References: Gen 28:10-18.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. v., p. 25. Gen 28:10-22.-S. A. Brooke, Sermons, 2nd series, pp. 231, 249; E. Irving, Collected Works, vol. iii., p. 500; Parker, vol. i., p. 274; Sermons for Boys and Girls (1880), p. 116; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., p. 537; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. i., p. 181.

Gen 28:11-13

I. The ladder whose top reached to heaven while its base rested on the earth is the Son of Man who was also the Son of God. If we attempt to approach God otherwise than through the humanity of Christ, utter failure and disappointment shall be the end of our efforts. But the access which we could not ourselves obtain, God has provided in Christ. He is the ladder set up on the earth.

II. The ascending and descending angels represent the communications which, through His mediation, are constantly passing to and fro between God and man.

III. Our churches are our Bethels, where the eye of the mind is opened spiritually to discern the true Ladder and the innumerable company of angels who throng its shining stair.

E. M. Goulburn, Occasional Sermons, p. 83.

Gen 28:11-16

Sleeping to see. One may be too wide-awake to see. There are things which are hidden from us until we lie down to sleep. Only then do the heavens open and the angels of God disclose themselves.

I. It does not follow that God is not because we cannot discern Him, because we are not aware of Him. Little do we dream of the veiled wonders and splendours amidst which we move. To Jacob’s mental fret and confusion, the wilderness where God brooded was a wilderness and nothing more. But in sleep he grew tranquil and still; he lost himself-the flurried, heated, uneasy self that he had brought with him from Beersheba, and while he slept the hitherto unperceived Eternal came out softly, largely, above and around him. We learn from this the secret of the Lord’s nearness.

II. No man is ever completely awake; something in him always sleeps. There is a sense in which it may be said with truth that were we less wakeful, more of God and spiritual realities might be unveiled to us. We are always doing-too much so for finest being; are always striving-too much so for highest attaining. Our religion consists too much in solicitude to get; it is continually “The Lord, the Father of mercies,” rather than “The Lord, the Father of glory.” We require to sleep from ourselves before the heavens can open upon us freely and richly flow around us.

S. A. Tipple, Echoes of Spoken Words, p. 201.

Reference: Gen 28:11-22.-Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., p. 529.

Gen 28:12.

I. Jesus, the Ladder, connects earth with heaven.

II. This ladder comes to sinners.

III. God is at the top, speaking kind words down the ladder.

IV. Advice to climbers: (1) Be sure to get the right ladder; there are plenty of shams. (2) Take firm hold; you will want both hands. (3) Don’t look down or you will be giddy. (4) Don’t come down to fetch any one else up. If your friends will not follow you, leave them behind.

T. Champness, New Coins from Old Gold, p. 91.

I. The ancient heathens told in their fables how the gods had all left the earth one by one; how one lingered in pity, loath to desert the once happy world; how even that one at last departed. Jacob’s dream showed something better, truer than this; it showed him God above him, God’s angels all about him.

II. The intercourse between God and man has been enlarged and made perpetual in Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son.

III. When Jacob awoke he consecrated a pillar, and vowed to build a sanctuary there and give tithes. We cannot altogether commend the spirit in which he made his vow. He tried to make a good bargain with the Almighty; yet God accepted him. The place was holy to him, because he knew that God was there.

R. Winterbotham, Sermons and Expositions, p. 31.

References: Gen 28:12.-M. Nicholson, Communion with Heaven, p. 77; J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes, 2nd series, p. 66; W. Meller, Village Homilies, p. 86; R. D. B. Rawnsley, Village Sermons, 3rd series, p. 53; Bishop Woodford, Occasional Sermons, p. 242. Gen 28:12-22.-Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 272; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. vi., p. 99. Gen 28:13.-Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvii., p. 129.

Gen 28:15

Jacob’s life began in moral confusion. There was no great moral flaw, such as we find in the life of David; but there was a want of perfect openness, frankness, generosity, in carrying out his aims. And yet, to such a soul, God in His goodness came-and came quietly-and comforted him with the assurance of His presence and of His love-nay, of His companionship and of His abundant blessing.

I. In what does the treasure of God’s companionship consist? It consists: (1) in the consciousness of God’s personality; (2) in the precious possessions He gives us-love, reason, conscience, will. To our conscience new light is given; to our love new spheres are open; our will receives new strength from the new example of His love and grace.

II. While these faculties are taken up the companionship of God becomes a reality of our daily life and our “exceeding great reward.” And then, besides, and with all this, we have the consciousness of communion with the Incarnate Word-“Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever”; we know what to do and where to find Him. In this life we are to walk by faith. Our capacities are not intended to be satisfied here, but they shall be satisfied hereafter.

Bishop King, Contemporary Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 193.

There are two very observable facts which may be gathered from the joint study of the Bible and our own hearts. The first is, that we are prone to distrust the promises of God though we know Him to be unchangeable; the second is, that God so condescends to our weakness that He reduplicates His pledges, in order, as it were, to compel us into confidence.

I. God speaks to His people of sin blotted out; He speaks of the thorough reconciliation which Christ has effected between Himself and the sinner; He speaks of His presence as accompanying the pilgrim through the wilderness; of His grace as sufficient for every trial which may or can be encountered. The things of which God speaks to His people spread themselves through the whole of the unmeasured hereafter, and it must follow that the pledge of our not being left until the things spoken of are done is tantamount to an assurance that we shall never be left and never forsaken.

II. The text is thus a kind of mighty guarantee, giving such a force to every declaration of God, that nothing but an unbelief the most obstinate can find ground for doubt or perplexity. It does not stand by itself, but comes in as an auxiliary in declaring God’s glorious intention. It is a provision against human faithlessness, words which may well be urged when a man is tempted with the thought that, after all, a thing spoken of is not a thing done, and which bid him throw from him the thought that God is not bound to perform whatever He has promised.

H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 1921.

These words teach us: (1) that God has a plan or scheme of life for every one of us, and that His purposes embrace every part of that plan; (2) that no words of God about our life will be left unfulfilled; (3) that there is no unfinished life. The promise is a promise of presence, intercourse, and fellowship.

S. Martin, Comfort in Trouble, p. 181.

Reference: Gen 28:15.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvii., No. 1630.

Gen 28:16

At Bethel Jacob gained the knowledge for himself of the real presence of a personal God. He felt that he a person, he a true living being, he a reasonable soul, stood indeed before an infinite but still a true personal being-before the Lord Almighty. Then it was that the patriarch entered into the greatness of his calling, and felt for himself the true blessedness of his inheritance.

I. This living sense of God’s presence with us is a leading feature of the character of all His saints under every dispensation. This is the purpose of all God’s dealings with every child of Adam-to reveal Himself to them and in them. He kindles desires after Himself; He helps and strengthens the wayward will; He broods with a loving energy over the soul; He will save us if we will be saved. All God’s saints learn how near He is to them, and they rejoice to learn it. They learn to delight themselves in the Lord-He gives them their hearts’ desire.

II. Notice, secondly, how this blessing is bestowed on us. For around us, as around David, only far more abundantly, are appointed outward means, whereby God intends to reveal Himself to the soul. This is the true character of every ordinance of the Church: all are living means of His appointment, whereby He reveals Himself to those who thirst after Him. We use these means aright when through them we seek after God. Their abuse consists either in carelessly neglecting these outward things or in prizing them for themselves and so resting in them, by which abuse they are turned into especial curses.

S. Wilberforce, Sermons, p. 66.

References: Gen 28:16.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vii., No. 401; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., p. 548. Gen 28:16, Gen 28:17.-J. B. Mozley, Parochial and Occasional Sermons, p. 28; W. F. Hook, Sermons on Various Subjects, p. 152; Archbishop Thomson, Life in the Light of God’s Word, p. 143. Gen 28:16-22.-R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis, vol. ii., p. 10.

Gen 28:17

I. It must have been the freshness of Jacob’s sense of recent sin that made a spot so peaceful and so blessed seem to him a “dreadful” place. Everything takes its character from the conscience. Even a Bethel was awful, and the ladder of angels terrible, to a man who had just been deceiving his father and robbing his brother. The gates of our heaven are the places of our dread.

II. Strange and paradoxical as is this union of the sense of beauty, holiness, and fear, there are seasons in every man’s life when it is the sign of a right state of mind. There is a shudder at sanctity which is a true mark of life. The danger of the want of reverence is far greater than the peril of its excess. Very few, in these light and levelling days, are too reverent The characteristic of the age is its absence.

III. Our churches stand among us to teach reverence. There are degrees of God’s presence. He fills all space, but in certain spots He gives Himself or reveals Himself, and therefore we say He is there more than in other places. A church is such a place. To those who use it rightly it may be a “gate of heaven.”

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 9th series, p. 81.

References: Gen 28:18.-Expositor, 2nd series, vol. i., p. 169, and vol. vii., p. 66, Gen 28:19.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. v., p. 108.

Gen 28:20-22

Jacob and Esau are very like men that we meet every day-commonplace, ordinary men, neither of them distinguished in character or ability. They were children of a weak father and of a crafty mother. Neither of them has any special religiousness. In the case of Esau the sensuous half of the man is all that could be desired, the spiritual half is altogether wanting. The natural half of Jacob’s character is far less noble than that of Esau, but there were also in him certain religious susceptibilities-a religious imagination and sentiment and personal purity-which constituted the possibility of religious development. The difference between them is the difference between the good things in a bad man and the bad things in a good man, with their contrasted issues. Both of these youths began with the somewhat feeble religiousness of Isaac’s tent. It took no hold upon Esau the profane, and he became Edom. It did take some hold upon Jacob the crafty, and he became Israel.

I. The night at Bethel was clearly a crisis in Jacob’s religious character. He lay down a desolate, smitten, remorseful lad; the swift retribution of his sin had overtaken him. His vision was a revelation of the spiritual world and a teaching of the vital connection of God’s providence with our human life. A wanderer of whom no human eye took cognisance, he was still under the eye of God; an exile for whom no one cared, God’s angels ministered to him. Like Peter, his fall had been the means of his rising to a new spiritual life.

II. And then Jacob vowed his vow. It sounds somewhat carnal and bargain-making, but I do not think it was. Jacob simply takes up the words which God had spoken to him. They were the ideas of his day: he would be devout and benevolent, serve God and man according to his opportunity. He would offer to God all that he could offer. His history is a great parabolic lesson for young men-not in its details of wrong-doing and remorse, but in its departure from home, in the loneliness of a new life, and in its new sense of God and consecration to Him.

H. ALLON, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxv., p. 60.

Reference: Gen 28:20-22.-W. Bull, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxii., p. 100.

Genesis 28

I. If there be little poetic or romantic charm in the history of Isaac, what a wealth of it there is in that of Jacob! A double deceit, followed by banishment from his country; this expulsion relieved and brightened, first by a glorious vision and then by unexampled prosperity in the strange land whither he had gone; long toils, travails, disappointments, and quarrels; and, at last, light at eventime in Egypt, and the spirit of prophecy resting upon his soul. Jacob’s love for Rachel is the most pleasing trait in his character, as the prophecy from his deathbed is the most sublime.

II. The story of Joseph has often and truly been called a romantic one, as marvellous as anything in the “Arabian Nights,” and yet alive all over with truth and nature. It combines the charms of the most finished fiction and of the simplest truth. It is at once the strangest and the most likely of stories. The character of Joseph, so mild, yet so determined, so wise and so affectionate, yet so astute and pious, develops before you as naturally as a bud into a flower or a slip into a tree. The subordinate characters in this drama of life are all drawn by brief but most powerful strokes, from the wife of Potiphar with her mock cry, to the chief butler with his tardy admission, “I do remember my faults this day”; from the kindness of Reuben to the cruelty of Simeon; from the tenderness of Benjamin to the pleading eloquence of the repentant Judah.

III. From the history of Jacob and Joseph we may gather these additional thoughts. (1) Let us learn to admire even the eddies of life, and to respect even the weaker members of the Church of God (Isaac). (2) Sometimes, though seldom, policy and piety are found in the same character (Jacob). (3) Let us rejoice that, even in this world of dull injustice and leaden law, there are again and again opened up to aspiring spirits sudden opportunities of rising, like Jacob’s ladder stretched along the sky. (4) Let us remember that we, too, in our turn, must be gathered, like the patriarchs, to our fathers.

G. Gilfillan, Alpha and Omega, vol. ii., p. 21.

References: Gen 28.-F. W. Robertson, Notes on Genesis, p. 101; M. Dods, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph; Old Testament Outlines, pp. 13, 16, 18; Wells, Bible Children, p. 43. Gen 29.-Expositor, 2nd series, vol. vi., p. 267; F. W. Robertson, Notes on Genesis, p. 110; R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis, vol. ii., pp. 17, 28, 36. Gen 29:20.-W. Meller, Village Homilies, p. 142. Gen 29:26.-Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 321. Gen 29-31.-Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., p. 539; Parker, vol. i., p. 280.

Fuente: The Sermon Bible

CHAPTER 28 Jacobs Departure to Padan-Aram and His Vision

1. Isaac sends Jacob away and gives his blessing (Gen 28:1-5)

2. Esaus action (Gen 28:6-9)

3. Jacobs vision and vow (Gen 28:10-22)

We enter with this upon the interesting wanderings of the third patriarch, Jacob. God was pleased to reveal Himself to the three illustrious men, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as He did not before. In Exo 3:4-15 Jehovah reveals Himself to Moses and Jehovah calls Himself the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. This is My name forever. In Abraham, as we have seen, we have the type of the Father; in Isaac the type of the Son and now in Jacob we shall find the type of the work of the Holy Spirit. Jacob in his history foreshadows the history of Jacobs sons.

Jacobs departure stands for Israels expulsion from their own land to begin their wanderings and suffering, till they are brought back again to the land sworn to the heads of the nation. In the chastening which passed over him we see Gods governmental dealings with Israel.

The vision at Bethel is mentioned by our Lord in Joh 1:51. The Jehovah who stood above the ladder Jacob saw is the same who spoke to Nathaniel, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. It is the vision of the future. Jehovah in that vision gave the promise of the land to Jacob and told him that his seed shall be as the dust of the earth. Notice while to Isaac the promise is of a heavenly seed to Jacob a seed as the stars of heaven is not mentioned. Still more was promised to Jacob. Read Gen 28:15. I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee about. Here again is Sovereign Mercy. What did Jacob do to merit all this? Why should God meet him thus? Did he think of the Lord and call on Him for mercy before he slept on the stone? Nothing whatever. And Jehovah kept His promise and did all He had promised. I will not leave thee is a repeated promise. See Deu 31:6; Jos 1:5; 1Ch 28:20; Heb 13:5-6. Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in Jehovah his God (Psa 146:5). And He is our God and our Lord and in His grace keeps and leads us and does all He has promised. Thus God met Jacob at Bethel (the house of God), assured him of His watching care over him and of a return home in peace. Though Israel is now nationally set aside and they are dispersed, yet God watches over them, keeps them and will lead them back in his own time.

The ridiculous claim that the coronation stone in London is the stone upon which Jacob slept needs no refutation. Leading geologists declare unanimously that this stone did not come from Palestine.

Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)

life Gen 26:34; Gen 26:35.

Heth was ancestor of the Hittites.

Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes

blessed: Gen 28:3, Gen 28:4, Gen 27:4, Gen 27:27-33, Gen 48:15, Gen 49:28, Deu 33:1, Jos 22:7

Thou shalt: Gen 6:2, Gen 24:3, Gen 24:37, Gen 26:34, Gen 26:35, Gen 27:46, Gen 34:9, Gen 34:16, Exo 34:15, Exo 34:16, 2Co 6:14-16

Reciprocal: Gen 21:21 – a wife Gen 25:1 – General Gen 28:6 – Thou Gen 28:8 – the daughters Gen 31:55 – blessed Gen 46:10 – Canaanitish Pro 19:14 – and a Jer 29:6 – take wives Hos 12:12 – Jacob Heb 7:7 – the less

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Jacob Left Canaan

Isaac agreed with Rebekah in the matter of a wife for Jacob. He sent him to Laban’s house to find a wife. Isaac also gave Jacob the blessing of Abraham from God. When Esau realized how unhappy his parents were with his marriages, he immediately married a daughter of Ishmael ( Gen 28:1-9 ).

On his way to Haran, Jacob spent the night at Luz. In a dream, he saw angels going up and down a ladder which reached up into heaven. God repeated the promised blessing which he had given Abraham. Jacob’s seed would receive the promised land. They would be numberless. In his seed, all nations of the earth would be blessed.

When Jacob awakened, he realized the Lord was in that place. He renamed it Bethel, which means House of God. Jacob vowed he would make the Lord his God if God would provide for him and bring him back in peace to his father’s house. He also set up the stone he had used for a pillow to be a pillar in a true house of God. Further, he promised to give a tenth of all his blessings to the Lord ( Gen 28:10-22 ).

Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books

Gen 28:1. Isaac blessed him That is, purposely and designedly, and in faith now confirmed that blessing to him, which before he had given him unknowingly. And hereby God confirmed Jacobs faith against doubts and fears, and comforted him against future troubles that might befall him. And charged him Those that have the blessing must keep the charge annexed to it, and not think to separate what God has joined.

Gen 28:3-4. God Almighty bless thee Two great promises Abraham was blessed with, and Isaac here entails them both upon Jacob. 1st, The promise of heirs; God make thee fruitful and multiply thee. Through his loins that people should descend from Abraham which should be numerous as the stars of heaven; and through his loins should descend from Abraham that person in whom all the families of the earth should be blessed. 2d, The promise of an inheritance for those heirs, Gen 28:4. That thou mayest inherit the land of thy sojournings (So the Hebrew.) Canaan was hereby entailed upon the seed of Jacob, exclusive of the seed of Esau. Isaac was now sending Jacob away into a distant country to settle there for some time; and lest this should look like disinheriting him, he here confirms the settlement of it upon him. This promise looks as high as heaven, of which Canaan was a type. That was the better country which Jacob, with the other patriarchs, had in his eye when he confessed himself a stranger and pilgrim on the earth, Heb 11:16.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Gen 28:1. Isaac called Jacob and blessed him. A heart-rending business to be forced away from his fathers house in the 58th year of his age. He went not with a train of ten camels, as were sent to his mother when brought to Isaac, but as a pilgrim with his staff in his hand to learn to trust in the Lord. Isaac, in the charge respecting Jacobs marriage, kept his eye constantly on the promises, and in this he is an example to believers, for the Lord is ever mindful of his faithful word. Young men, on leaving their fathers house, should carefully preserve their religion.

Gen 28:9. The daughter of Ishmael. Had he not taken two wives before, this would not have been reprehensible; but a motive merely to please man, spoils the best of actions in Gods account.

Gen 28:11. Lighted upon a certain place. Luz or Beth-el was forty-eight miles from Beer-sheba. Men on an average, encumbered with provisions, &c., would not be able to walk so far now in one day, the stature and strength of man being much diminished since Jacobs time. He probably travelled in this private way with a staff in his hand, to avoid the pursuit or ambuscade of Esau; and he thought it no hardship to sleep as a shepherd, barely sheltered with trees from the dew.

Gen 28:12. Dreamed. God did not think proper now to honour Jacob, as he did Abraham, with a visit of his angelic presence. He sees it good not to exalt man too much at the first. The ladder has had many comments upon it; and some of those by the ancient fathers and critics have been highly amusing, rather than edifying. The vision seems at first to have been designed to comfort Jacob, by a view of the care of heaven over him; but on comparing the passage with Joh 1:49, where our Saviour promised the disciples that they should see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of man, it would seem that this ladder was figurative of more than Jacobs safety. Jesus Christ has descended from heaven to earth by many steps of lineage from Adam to Mary; and he has approached man at sundry times and in divers manners, by visions and revelations of his will. He has by his cross joined heaven and earth, God and man. He also manifested himself to St. Stephen, with heaven open, and himself standing at the right hand of God.Ascending. The angels return to heaven, as accountable beings, when they have fulfilled their mission; and it is by many steps of faith and piety that we ascend to God, and by many steps and movements that providence accomplishes its designs.

Gen 28:13. I am the Lord God of Abraham. This vision, and hearing these words, afforded the most seasonable consolation to our exiled patriarch, who probably went on his way with many fears, and bedewing his path with frequent tears. It manifested the presence of his covenant God, pointed out his mode of life, wandering from place to place, and promised protection in all his peregrinations and removals of residence. It conferred upon him the whole land, far as the most distant hills his eye could reach, and promised him a posterity numerous as the dust under his feet. Above all, it discovered the invisible world, and a future state, connecting heaven and earth by an angelic ministry. He saw the Lord at the top of the ladder; and of course the cherubim and seraphim, dreadful to behold with eyes of sinful flesh. The prophet Ezekiel admits when he saw the magnitude of those celestial figures, and the wide strake of their wings, that their movements were dreadful. Thus the covenant of God with the fathers is the covenant with their children, to which every individual is called, like Jacob, to subscribe with all his heart. Nor should it escape remark, that the Lord made this covenant sure by the superinduction of the grand promise, In thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

Gen 28:16. I knew it not. Jacob did not expect visions. He thought himself in this journey exiled from the presence of the Lord; but good men often find him in times and places when and where they did not expect.

Gen 28:17. House of God, where he reveals his glory, and unfolds his covenant; where he comforts the distressed with marks of his special regard.The gate of heaven. Christ is the gate or door by which we enter into the kingdom of heaven, and faith in him the only way that leads to it.

REFLECTIONS.

In Jacobs flight from his fathers house we may remark, that he went out with the benediction and counsel of his aged Sire: he did not abscond, and abandon him in the advanced period of life. It is good for a son, about to seek his fortune in the wide world, to have the good wishes and blessings of his parents. He should regard these as the best of gifts; abruptly to leave home without this, is a strange defect of filial piety. The first and great object of Isaacs counsel respecting the marriage of his son, that he must not connect himself with any woman except she feared the Lord, was solely in these hopes, that Isaac confirmed to Jacob the blessings of the covenant; and it must be with the same hopes and purposes that all young men must look for a share in the same temporal and spiritual blessings.

Esau, seeing that his brother went off in the highest favour of his father, becomes half a convert to the maxims of the patriarchs respecting religious marriages. But God looketh at the heart, and unless every action be done with a single eye to his glory, and proceed from faith in Jesus Christ, it cannot be approved, however laudable it may appear in the eyes of men.

The Lord will guide the poor afflicted wanderer in seeking rest and bread. Jacob seems to have left home with a heavy heart, and to have invoked the divine protection; and God showed him the communication which subsists between heaven and earth, the guard of angels, and his ever watchful eye looking down on man, whether waking or asleep. What then has he to fear? No evil shall happen to him while God is his guardian and strong defence. The Lord, in this dream completely dispelled the fears of Jacob, by confirming to him the covenant and promises made to Abraham, and renewed with Isaac. In like manner, when God makes a discovery to young men of his truth and love, they are personally called to enter into covenant with him, and to devote their lives from that period to his glory.

Jacob did this in a way becoming the blessed vision with which his soul had been favoured. He took the stones of the place and set them up for a memorial, and called it Bethel, or Gods house. He poured oil upon it, which was all the oblation his situation afforded. He, on this occasion, modestly asked only food and raiment, for we tempt God when we ask for riches and hurtful things. Those elevated to opulence and distinction in life, find themselves assailed with a thousand cares, anxieties and griefs, which never troubled them when labouring for their bread.If God would grant him these, in his pastoral life, he vowed to devote in return the tenth of his small substance to the Lord. Let us also learn to cherish and support the cause of God. His ministers who serve us should never want food and raiment, the blessing which we ask of God for ourselves and our children.

Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Genesis 27 – 35

These chapters present to us the history of Jacob-at least, the principal scenes in that history. The Spirit of God here sets before us the deepest instruction, first, as to God’s purpose of infinite grace; and, secondly, as to the utter worthlessness and depravity of human nature.

There is a passage in Gen. 25 which I purposely passed over, in order to take if up here, so that we might have the truth in reference to Jacob fully before us “And Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord was entreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived. And the children struggled together within her: and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of the Lord. And the Lord said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.” This is referred to in Malachi, where we read, “I have loved you, saith the Lord: yet ye say, wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? saith the Lord: yet I have loved Jacob, and hated Esau.” This is again referred to in Rom. 9: “For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God, according to election, might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth; it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger, as it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.”

Thus we have very distinctly before us, God’s eternal purpose, according to the election of grace. There is much involved in this expression. It banishes all human pretension from the scene, and asserts God’s right to act as He will. This is of the very last importance. The creature can enjoy no real blessedness until he is brought to bow his head to sovereign grace. It becomes him so to do, inasmuch as he is a sinner, and, as such, utterly without claim to act or dictate. The great value of finding oneself on this ground is, that it is then no longer a question of what we deserve to get, but simply of what God is pleased to give. The prodigal might talk of being a servant, but he really did not deserve the place of a servant, if it were to be made a question of desert; and, therefore, he had only to take what the father was pleased to give – and that was the very highest place, even the place of fellowship with himself. Thus it must ever be. “Grace all the work shall crown, through everlasting days.” Happy for us that it is so. As we go on, day by day, making fresh discoveries of ourselves, we need to have beneath our feet the solid foundation of God’s grace: nothing else could possibly sustain us in our growing self-knowledge. The ruin is hopeless, and therefore the grace must be infinite: and infinite it is, having its source in God Himself, its channel in Christ, and the power of application and enjoyment in the Holy Ghost. The Trinity is brought out in connection with the grace that saves a poor sinner. “Grace reigns through righteousness, unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord.” It is only in redemption that this reign of grace could be seen. we may see in creation the reign of wisdom and power; we may see in providence the reign of goodness and long-suffering; but only in redemption do we see the reign of grace, and that, too, on the principle of righteousness.

Now, we have, in the person of Jacob, a most striking exhibition of the power of divine grace; and for this reason, that we have in him a striking exhibition of the power of human nature. In him we see nature in all its obliquity, and therefore we see grace in all its moral beauty and power. From the facts of his remarkable history, it would seem that, before his birth, at his birth, and after his birth, the extraordinary energy of nature was seen. Before his birth, we read, “the children struggled together within her.” At his birth, we read, “his hand took hold on Esau’s heel.” And, after his birth – yea to the turning point of his history, in Gen. 32, without any exception – his course exhibits nothing but the most unamiable traits of nature; but all this only serves, like a drab background, to throw into relief the grace of Him who condescends to call Himself by the peculiarly touching name, “the God of Jacob” – a name most sweetly expressive of free grace.

Let us now examine the chapters consecutively. Gen. 27 exhibits a most humbling picture of sensuality, deceit, and cunning; and when one thinks of such things in connection with the people of God, it is sad and painful to the very last degree. Yet how true and faithful is the Holy Ghost! He must tell all out. He cannot give us a partial picture. If he gives us a history of man, he must describe man as he is, and not as he is not. So, if He unfolds to us the character and ways of God, He gives us God as He is. And this, we need hardly remark, is exactly what we need. We need the revelation of one perfect in holiness, yet perfect in grace and mercy, who could come down into all the depth of man’s need, his misery and his degradation, and deal with Him there, and raise him up out of it into full, unhindered fellowship with Himself in all the reality of what He is. This is what scripture gives us. God knew what we needed, and He has given it to us, blessed be His name!

And, be it remembered, that in setting before us, in faithful love, all the traits of man’s character, it is simply with a view to magnify the riches of divine grace, and to admonish our souls. It is not, by any means, in order to perpetuate the memory of sins, for ever blotted out from His sight. The blots, the failures, and the errors of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, have been perfectly washed away, and they have taken their place amid “the spirits of just men made perfect;” but their history remains, on the page of inspiration, for the display of God’s grace, and for the warning of God’s people in all ages; And, moreover, that we my distinctly see that the blessed God has not been dealing With perfect men and women, but with those of “like passions as we are” that He has been walking and bearing with the same failures, the same infirmities, the same errors, as those over which we mourn every day. This is peculiarly comforting to the heart; and it may well stand in striking contrast with the way in which the great majority of human biographies are written, in “which, for the most part, we find, not the history of men, but of beings devoid of error and infirmity. histories have rather the effect of discouraging than of edifying those who read them. They are rather histories of what men ought to be, than of what they really are, and they are, therefore, useless to us, yea, not only useless, but mischievous.

Nothing can edify save the presentation of God dealing with man as he really is; and this is what the word gives us. The chapter before us illustrates this very fully. Here we find the aged patriarch Isaac, standing, as it were, at the very portal of eternity, the earth and nature fast fading away from his view, yet occupied about “savoury meat,” and about to act in direct opposition to the divine counsel, by blessing the elder instead of the younger. Truly this was nature, and nature with its “eyes dim.” If Esau had sold his birthright for a mess of pottage, Isaac was about to give away the blessing for a mess of venison, How very humiliating!

But God’s purpose must stand, and He will do all His pleasure. Faith knows this; and, in the power of that knowledge, can wait for God’s time. This nature never can do, but must set about gaining its own ends, by its own inventions. These are the two grand points brought out in Jacob’s history – God’s purpose of grace, on the one hand; and on the other, nature plotting and scheming to reach what that purpose would have infallibly brought about, without any plot or scheme at all. This simplifies Jacob’s history amazingly, and not only simplifies it, but heightens the soul’s interest in it also. There is nothing, perhaps, in which we are so lamentably deficient, as in the grace of patient, self-renouncing dependence upon God. Nature will be working in some shape or form, and thus, so far as in it lies, hindering the outshining of divine grace and power. God did not need the aid of such elements as Rebekah’s cunning and Jacob’s gross deceit, in order to accomplish His purpose. He had said, “the elder shall serve the younger.” This was enough – enough for faith, but not enough for nature, which must ever adopt its own ways, and know nothing of what it is to wait on God.

Now, nothing can be more truly blessed than the position of hanging in child-like dependence upon God, and being entirely content to wait for His time. True, it will involve trial; but the renewed mind learns some of its deepest lessons, and enjoys some of its sweetest experiences, while waiting on the Lord; and the more pressing the temptation to take ourselves out of His hands, the richer will be the blessing of leaving ourselves there. It is so exceedingly sweet to find ourselves wholly dependent upon one who finds infinite joy in blessing us. It is only those who have tasted, in any little measure, the reality of this wondrous position that can at all appreciate it. The only one who ever occupied it perfectly and uninterruptedly was the Lord Jesus Himself. He was ever dependent upon God, and utterly rejected every proposal of the enemy to be anything else. His language was, “In thee do I put my trust;” and again, “I was cast upon thee from the womb.” Hence, when tempted by the devil to make an effort to Satisfy His hunger, His reply was, “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” When tempted to cast Himself from the pinnacle of the temple, His reply was, “It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” When tempted to take the kingdoms of the world from the hand of another than God, and by doing homage to another than Him, His reply was, “It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” In a word, nothing could allure the perfect man from the place of absolute dependence upon God. True, it was God’s purpose to sustain His Son; it was His purpose that He should suddenly come to His temple; it was His purpose to give Him the kingdoms of this world; but this was the very reason why the Lord Jesus would simply and uninterruptedly wait on God for the accomplishment of His purpose, in His own time, and in His own way. He did not set about accomplishing His own ends. He left Himself thoroughly at God’s disposal. He would only eat when God gave Him bread; He would only enter the temple when sent of God; He will ascend the throne when God appoints the time. “Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thy foes thy footstool.” (Ps. 110)

This profound subjection of the Son to the Father is admirable beyond expression. Though entirely equal with God, He took, as man, the place of dependence, rejoicing always in the will of the Father; giving thanks even when things seemed to be against Him; doing always the things which pleased the Father; making: it His grand and uvarying object to glorify the Father; and finally, when all was accomplished, when He had perfectly finished the work which the Father had given, He breathed His spirit into the Father’s hand, and His flesh rested in hope of the promised glory and exaltation. Well, therefore, may the inspired apostle say, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus; who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”

How little Jacob knew, in the opening of his history, of this blessed mind! How little was he prepared to wait for God’s time and God’s way! He much preferred Jacob’s time and Jacob’s way. He thought it much better to arrive at the blessing and the inheritance by all sorts of cunning and deception, than by simple dependence upon and subjection to God, whose electing grace had promised, and whose almighty power and wisdom would assuredly accomplish all for him.

But, oh! how well one knows the opposition of the human heart to all this! Any attitude for it save that of patient waiting upon God. It is almost enough to drive nature to distraction to find itself bereft of all resource but God. This tells us, in language not to be misunderstood, the true character of human nature. In order to know what nature is, I need not travel into those scenes of vice and crime which justly shock all refined moral sense. No; all that is needful is just to try it for a moment in the place of dependence, and see how it will carry itself there. It really knows nothing of God, and therefore cannot trust Him; and herein was the secret of all its misery and moral degradation. It is totally ignorant of the true God, and can therefore be nought else but a ruined and worthless thing. The knowledge of God is the source of life – yea, is itself life; and until a man has life, what is he? or, what can he be?

Now, in Rebekah and Jacob, we see nature taking advantage of nature in Isaac and Esau. It was really this. There was no waiting upon God whatever. Isaac’s eyes were dim, he could therefore be imposed upon, and they set about doing so, instead of looking off to God, who would have entirely frustrated Isaac’s purpose to bless the one whom God would not bless – a purpose? founded in nature, and most unlovely nature, for “Isaac loved Esau,” not because he was the first-born, but “because he did eat of his venison.” How humiliating!

But we are sure to bring unmixed sorrow upon ourselves, when we take ourselves, our circumstances, or our destinies, out of the hands of God.* Thus it was with Jacob, as we shall see in the sequel. It has been observed by another, that whoever observes Jacob’s life, after he had surreptitiously obtained his father’s blessing, will perceive that he enjoyed very little worldly felicity. His brother purposed to murder him, to avoid which he was forced to flee from his father’s house; his uncle Laban deceived him, as he had deceived his father, and treated him with great rigor; after a servitude of twenty-one years, he was obliged to leave him in a clandestine manner, and not without danger of being brought back or murdered by his enraged brother; no sooner were these fears over, than he experienced the baseness of his son Reuben, in defiling his bed; he had next to bewail the treachery and cruelty of Simeon and Levi towards the Shechemites; then he had to feel the loss of his beloved wife; he was next imposed upon by his own sons, and had to lament the supposed untimely end of Joseph; and, to complete all, he was forced by famine to go into Egypt, and there died in a strange land. So just, wonderful, and instructive are all the ways of providence.”

{*We should ever remember, in a place of trial, that what we want is not a change of circumstances, but victory over self.}

This is a true picture, so far as Jacob was concerned; but it only gives us one side, and that the gloomy side. Blessed be God, there is a bright side, likewise, for God had to do with Jacob; and, in every scene of his life, when Jacob was called to reap the fruits of his own plotting and crookedness, the God of Jacob brought good out of evil, and caused His grace to abound over all the sin and folly of His poor servant. This we shall see as we proceed with his history.

I shall just offer a remark here upon Isaac, Rebekah, and Esau. It is very interesting to observe how, notwithstanding the exhibition of nature’s excessive weakness, in the opening of Genesis 27, Isaac maintains, by faith, the dignity which God had conferred upon him. He blesses with all the consciousness of being endowed with power to bless! He says, “I have blessed him; yea, and he shall be blessed.. Behold, I have made him thy lord, and all his brethren have I given to him for servants; and with corn and wine have I sustained him; and what shall I do now unto thee, my son?” He speaks as one who, by faith, had at his disposal all the treasures of earth. There is no false humility, no taking a low ground by reason of the manifestation of nature. True, he was on the eve of making a grievous mistake – even of moving right athwart the counsel of God; still, he knew God, and took his place accordingly, dispensing blessings in all the dignity and power of faith. “I have blessed him; yea, and he shall be blessed.” “With corn and wine have I sustained him.” It is the proper province of faith to rise above all one’s own failure and the consequences thereof, into the place where God’s grace has set us.

As to Rebekah, she was called to feel all the sad results of her cunning actings. She, no doubt, imagined she was managing matters most skillfully; but, alas! she never saw Jacob again: so much for management! How different it would have been had she left the matter entirely in the hands of God. This is the way in which faith manages, and it is ever a gainer. “Which of you by taking thought, can add to his stature one cubit?” We gain nothing by our anxiety and planning; we only shut out God, and that is no gain. It is a just judgement from the hand of God to be left to reap the fruits, of our own devices; and I know of few things more sad than to see a child of God so entirely forgetting his proper place and privilege, as to take the management of his affairs into his own hands. The birds of the air, and the lilies of the field, may well be our teachers when we so far forget our position of unqualified dependence upon God.

Then, again, as to Esau, the apostle calls him “a profane person, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright,” and “afterwards, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected; for he found no place of change of mind, though he sought it carefully with tears.” Thus we learn what a profane person is, viz. one who would like to hold both worlds; one who would like to enjoy the present, without forfeiting his title to the future. This is, by no means, an uncommon case. It expresses to us the mere worldly professor, whose conscience has never felt the action of divine truth, and whose heart has never felt the influence of divine grace.

We are now called to trace Jacob in his movement from under his fathers roof, to view him as a homeless and lonely wanderer on the earth. It is here that God’s special dealings with him commence. Jacob now begins to realise, in some measure, the bitter fruit of his conduct, in reference to Esau; while, at the same time, God is seen rising above all the weakness and folly of His servant, and displaying His own sovereign grace and profound wisdom in His dealings with him. God will accomplish His own purpose, no matter by what instrumentality; But if His child, in impenitence of spirit, and unbelief of heart, will take himself out of His hands, he must expect much sorrowful exercise and painful discipline. Thus it was with Jacob: he might not have had to flee to Haran, had he allowed God to act for him. God would, assuredly, have dealt with Esau, and caused him to find his destined place and portion; and Jacob might have enjoyed that sweet peace which nothing can yield save entire subjection in all things to the hand and counsel of God.

But here is where the excessive feebleness of our hearts is constantly disclosed. We do not lie passive in God’s hand; we will be acting; and, by our acting, we hinder the display of God’s grace and power on our behalf. “Be still and know that I am God,” is a precept which nought, save the power of divine grace, can enable one to obey. “Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. (eggus) Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God.” What will be the result of this activity? “The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall garrison (phrouresei) your hearts and minds by Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 4: 5-7)

However, God graciously overrules our folly and weakness, and while we are called upon to reap the fruits of our unbelieving and impatient ways, He takes occasion from them to teach our hearts still deeper lessons of His own tender grace and perfect wisdom. This, while it, assuredly, affords no warrant whatever for unbelief and impatience, does most wonderfully exhibit the goodness of our God, and comfort the heart even while we may be passing through the painful circumstances consequent upon our failure. God is above all; and, moreover, it is His special prerogative to bring good out of evil; to make the eater yield meat, and the strong yield sweetness; and hence, while it is quite true that Jacob was compelled to be an exile from his father’s roof in consequence of his own restless and deceitful acting, it is equally true that he never could have learnt the meaning of “Bethel” had he been quietly at home. Thus the two sides of the picture are strongly marked in every scene of Jacob’s history. It was when he was driven, by his own folly, from Isaac’s house, that he was led to taste, in some measure, the blessedness and solemnity of “God’s house.”

“And Jacob went out from Beersheba, and went toward Haran. and he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep.” Here we find the homeless wanderer just in the very position in which God could meet him, and in which He could unfold His purposes of grace and glory. Nothing could possibly be more expressive of helplessness and nothingness than Jacob’s condition as here set before us. Beneath the open canopy of heaven, with a pillow of stone, in the helpless condition of sleep. Thus it was that the God of Bethel unfolded to Jacob His purposes respecting him and his seed. “And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. 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. And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.”

Here we have, indeed, “grace and glory.” The ladder “set on the earth” naturally leads the heart to meditate on the display of God’s grace, in the Person and work of His Son. On the earth it was that the wondrous work was accomplished which forms the basis, the strong and everlasting basis, of all the divine counsels in reference to Israel, the Church, and the world at large. On the earth it was that Jesus lived laboured. and died; that, through His death, He might remove out of the way every obstacle to the accomplishment of the divine purpose of blessing to man.

But “the top of the ladder reached to heaven.” It formed the medium of communication between heaven and earth; and “behold the angels of God ascending and descending upon it” – striking and beautiful picture of Him by whom God has come down into all the depth of man’s need, and by whom also He has brought man up and set him in His own presence for ever, in the power of divine righteousness! God has made provision for the accomplishment of all His plans, despite of man’s folly and sin; and it is for the everlasting joy of any soul to find itself, by the teaching of the Holy Ghost, within the limits of God’s gracious purpose.

The prophet Hosea leads us on to the time when that which was foreshadowed by Jacob’s ladder shall have its full accomplishment. “And in that day I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow, and the sword, and the battle, out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely. And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgement, and in loving-kindness, and in mercies; I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness; and thou shalt know the Lord. And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth; and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel. And I will sow her unto me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God.” (Hosea 2: 18-23) There is also an expression in the first chapter of John, bearing upon Jacob’s remarkable vision; it is Christ’s word to Nathanael, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.” (Ver. 51)

Now this vision of Jacob’s is a very blessed disclosure of divine grace to Israel. We have been led to see something of Jacob’s real character, something, too, of his real condition; both were evidently such as to show that it should either be divine grace for him, or nothing. By birth he had no claim; nor yet by character. Esau might put forward some claim on both these grounds; i.e., provided God’s prerogative were set aside; but Jacob had no claim whatsoever; and hence, while Esau could only stand upon the exclusion of God’s prerogative, Jacob could only stand upon the introduction and establishment thereof. Jacob was such a sinner, and so utterly divested of all claim, both by birth and by practice, that he had nothing whatever to rest upon save God’s purpose of pure, free, and sovereign grace. Hence, in the revelation which the Lord makes to His chosen servant, in the passage just quoted, it is a simple record or prediction of what He Himself would yet do. “I am…. I will give…. I will keep …. I will bring….. I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of” It was all Himself. There is no condition whatever. No if or but; for when grace acts there can be no such thing. Where there is an if, it cannot possibly be grace. Not that God cannot put man into a position of responsibility, in which He must needs address him with an ‘if.’ We know He can; but Jacob asleep on a pillow of stone was not in a position of responsibility, but of the deepest helplessness and need; and therefore he was in a position to receive a revelation of the fullest, richest, and most unconditional grace.

Now, we cannot but own the blessedness of being in such a condition, that we have nothing to rest upon save God Himself; and, moreover, that it is in the most perfect establishment of God’s own character and prerogative that we obtain all our true joy and blessing. According to this principle, it would be an irreparable loss to us to have any ground of our own to stand upon, for in that case, God should address us on the ground of responsibility, and failure would then be inevitable. Jacob was so bad, that none but God Himself could do for him.

And, be it remarked, that it was his failure in the habitual recognition of this that led him into so much sorrow and pressure. God’s revelation of Himself is one thing, and our resting in that revelation is quite another. God shows Himself to Jacob, in infinite grace; but no sooner does Jacob awake out of sleep, than we find him developing his true character, and proving how little he knew, practically, of the blessed One who had just been revealing Himself so marvellously to him. “He was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” His heart was not at home in the presence of God; nor can any heart be so until it has been thoroughly emptied and broken. God is at home, blessed be His name, with a broken heart, and a broken heart at home with Him. But Jacob’s heart was not yet in this condition; nor had he yet learnt to repose, like a little child, in the perfect love of one who could say, “Jacob have I loved.” “Perfect love casteth out fear;” but where such love is not known and fully realised, there will always be a measure of uneasiness and perturbation. God’s house and God’s presence are not dreadful to a soul who knows the love of God as expressed in the perfect sacrifice of Christ. such a soul is rather led to say,” Lord, I have loved the habitation of thy house, and the place where thine honour dwelleth.” (Ps. 26: 8) And, again, “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in his temple.” (Ps. 27: 4) and again, “How amiable are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth, for the courts of the Lord.” (Ps. 84) When the heart is established in the knowledge of God, it will assuredly love His house, whatever the Character of that house may be, whether it be Bethel, or the temple at Jerusalem, or the Church now composed of all true believers, “builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.” However, Jacob’s knowledge, both of God and His house, was very shallow, at that point in his history on which we are now dwelling.

We shall have occasion, again, to refer to some principles connected with Bethel; and shall, now, close our meditations upon this chapter, with a brief notice of Jacob’s bargain with God, so truly characteristic of him, and so demonstrative of the truth of the statement with respect to the shallowness of his knowledge of the divine character. “And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this may that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my Father’s house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God; and this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that thou shalt give me, I will surely give the tenth unto thee.” Observe, “if God will be with me.” Now, the Lord had just said, emphatically, “I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land,” &c. And yet poor Jacob’s heart cannot get beyond an “if” nor, in its thoughts of God’s goodness, can it rise higher than “bread to eat, and raiment put on.” Such were the thoughts of one who had just seen the magnificent vision of the ladder reaching from earth to heaven, with the Lord standing above, and promising an innumerable seed, and an everlasting possession. Jacob was evidently unable to enter into the reality and fullness of God’s thoughts. He measured God by Himself, and thus utterly failed to apprehend Him. In short, Jacob had not yet verily got to the end of himself; and hence he had not really begun with God.

“Then Jacob went on his journey, and came into the land of the people of the east.” As we have just seen, in Gen. 28 Jacob utterly fails in the apprehension of God’s real character, and meets all the rich grace of Bethel with an “if” and a miserable bargain about food and raiment. We now follow him into a scene of thorough bargain-making. “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” There is no possibility of escaping from this. Jacob had not yet found his true level in the presence of God; and, therefore, God uses circumstances to chasten and break him down.

This is the real secret of much, very much, of our sorrow and trial in the world. Our hearts have never been really broken before the Lord; we have never been self-judged and self-emptied; and hence, again and again, we, as it were, knock our heads against the wall. No one can really enjoy God until he has got to the bottom of self, and for this plain reason, that God has begun the display of Himself at the very point at which the end of flesh is seen. If, therefore, I have not reached the end of my flesh, in the deep and positive experience of my soul, it is morally impossible that I can have anything like a just apprehension of God’s character. But I must, in some way or other, be conducted to the true measure of nature. To accomplish this end, the Lord makes use of various agencies which, no matter what they are, are only effectual when used by Him for the purpose of disclosing, in our view, the true character of all that is in our hearts. How often do we find as in Jacob’s case, that even although the Lord may come near to us, and speak in our ears, yet we do not understand His voice, or take our true place in His presence. “The Lord is in this place, and I knew it not ….. How dreadful is this place!” Jacob learnt nothing by all this, and it, therefore, needed twenty years of terrible schooling, and that, too, in a school marvellously adapted to his flesh; and even that, as we shall see, was not sufficient to break him down.

However, it is remarkable to see how he gets back into an atmosphere so entirely suited to his moral constitution. The bargain-making Jacob, meets with the bargain-making Laban, and they are both seen, as it were, straining every nerve to outwit each other. Nor can we wonder at Laban, for he had never been at Bethel: he had seen no open heaven, with a ladder reaching from thence to earth; he had heard no magnificent promises from the lips of Jehovah, securing to him all the land of Canaan, with a countless seed: no marvel, therefore, that he should exhibit a grasping grovelling spirit; he had no other resource. It is useless to expect from worldly men ought but a worldly spirit, and worldly principles and ways; they have gotten nought superior; and you cannot bring a clean thing out of an unclean. But to find Jacob, after all he had seen and heard at Bethel, struggling with a man of the world, and endeavouring, by such means, to accumulate property, is peculiarly humbling.

And yet, alas! it is no uncommon thing to find the children of God thus forgetting their high destinies and heavenly inheritance, and descending into the arena with the children of this world, to struggle there for the riches and honours of a perishing, sin-stricken earth. Indeed, to such an extent is this true, in many instances, that it is often hard to trace a single evidence of that principle which St. John tells us “overcometh the world.” Looking at Jacob and Laban, and judging of them upon natural principles, it would be hard to trace any difference. One should get behind the scenes, and enter into God’s thoughts about both, in order to see how widely they differed. But it was God that had made them to differ, not Jacob; and so it is now. Difficult as it may be to trace any difference between the children of light and the children of darkness, there is, nevertheless, a very wide difference indeed – a difference founded on the solemn fact that the former are “the vessels of mercy, which God has before prepared unto glory,” while the latter are “the vessels of wrath, fitted (not by God, but by sin) to destruction.” Rom 9: 22, 23)* This makes a very serious difference. The Jacobs and the Labans differ materially, and have differed, and will differ for ever, though the former may so sadly fail in the realization and practical exhibition of their true character and dignity.

{*It is deeply interesting to the spiritual mind to mark how sedulously the Spirit of God, in Rom. 9 and indeed throughout all scripture, guards against the horrid inference which the human mind draws from the doctrine of God’s election – when He speaks of “vessels of wrath,” He simply says, “fitted to destruction.” He does not say that God “fitted” them.

Whereas, on the other hand, when He refers to “the vessels of mercy” he says, “whom he had afore prepared unto glory.” This is most marked.

If my reader will turn for a moment to Matt 25: 34-41, he will find another striking and beautiful instance of the same thing.

When the king addresses those on His right hand, he says, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” (Verse 34) But when He addresses those on His left, He says, “Depart from me ye cursed.” He does not say, “cursed of My Father.” And, further, He says, “into everlasting fire, prepared,” not for you, but “for the devil and his angels.” (Verse 41)

In a word, then, it is plain that God has “prepared’ a kingdom of glory, and “vessels of mercy’ to inherit that kingdom; but He has not prepared” everlasting fire” for men, but for the “devil and his angels” nor has He fitted the “vessels of wrath,” but they have fitted themselves.

The word of God as clearly establishes “election” as it sedulously guards against “reprobation.” Everyone who finds himself in heaven will have to thank God for it; and everyone that finds himself in hell will have to thank himself.}

Now, in Jacob’s case, as set forth in the three chapters now before us, all his toiling and working, like his wretched bargain before, is the result of his ignorance of God’s grace, and his inability to put implicit confidence in God’s promise. The man that could say, after a most unqualified promise from God to give him the whole land of Canaan, “IF God will give me food to eat and raiment to put on,” could have had but a very faint apprehension of who God was, or what His promise was either; and because of this, we see him seeking to do the best he can for himself. This is always the way when grace is not understood: the principles of grace may be professed, but the real measure of our experience of the power of grace is quite another thing. One would have imagined that Jacob’s vision had told him a tale of grace; but God’s revelation at Bethel, and Jacob’s actings at Haran, are two very different things; yet the latter tell out what was Jacob’s sense of the former. Character and conduct prove the real measure of the soul’s experience and conviction, whatever the profession may be. But Jacob had never yet been brought to measure himself in God’s presence, and therefore he was ignorant of grace, and he proved his ignorance by measuring himself with Laban, and adopting his maxims and ways.

One cannot help remarking the fact that inasmuch as Jacob failed to learn and judge the inherent character of his flesh before God, therefore he was, in the providence of God, led into the very sphere in which that character was fully exhibited in its broadest lines. He was conducted to Haran, the country of Laban and Rebekah, the very school from whence those principles, in which he was such a remarkable adept, had emanated, and where they were taught, exhibited, and maintained. If one wanted to learn what God was, he should go to Bethel; if to learn what man was, he should go to Haran. But Jacob had failed to take in God’s revelation of Himself at Bethel, and he therefore went to Haran, and there showed what he was – and oh, what scrambling and scraping! what shuffling and shifting! There is no holy and elevated confidence in God, no simply looking to and waiting on Him. True, God was with Jacob – for nothing can hinder the outshining of divine grace. Moreover, Jacob in a measure owns God’s presence and faithfulness. Still nothing can be done without a scheme and a plan. Jacob cannot allow God to settle the question as to his wives and his wages, but seeks to settle all by his own cunning and management. In short, it is “the supplanter” throughout. Let the reader turn, for example, to Gen. 30: 37-42, and say where he can find a more masterly piece of cunning. It is verily a perfect picture of Jacob. In place of allowing God to multiply “the ringstraked, speckled, and spotted cattle,” as be most assuredly could have done, had He been trusted, he sets about securing their multiplication by a piece of policy which could only have found its origin in the mind of a Jacob. So in all his actings, during his twenty years’ sojourn with Laban; and finally, he, most characteristically, “steals away,” thus maintaining, in everything, his consistency with himself.

Now, it is in tracing out Jacob’s real character, from stage to stage of his extraordinary history, that one gets a wondrous view of divine grace. None but God could have borne with such an one, as none but God would have taken such an one up. Grace begins at the very lowest point. It takes up man as he is, and deals with him in the full intelligence of what he is. It is of the very last importance to understand this feature of grace at one’s first starting; it enables us to bear, with steadiness of heart, the after discoveries of personal vileness, which so frequently shake the confidence and disturb, the peace of the children of God.

Many there are who, at first, fail in the full apprehension of the utter ruin of nature, as looked at in God’s presence, though their hearts have been attracted by the grace of God, and their consciences tranquillised, in some degree, by the application of the blood of Christ. Hence, as they get on in their course, they begin to make deeper discoveries of the evil within, and, being deficient in their apprehensions of God’s grace, and the extent and efficiency of the sacrifice of Christ, they immediately raise a question as to their being children of God at all. Thus they are taken off Christ, and thrown on themselves, and then they either betake themselves to ordinances, in order to keep up their tone of devotion, or else fall back into thorough worldliness and carnality. These are disastrous consequences, and all the result of not having “the heart established in grace.”

It is this that renders the study of Jacob’s history so profoundly interesting and eminently useful. No one can read the three chapters now before us, and not be struck at the amazing grace that could take up such an one as Jacob, and not only take him up, but say, after the full discovery of all that was in him, “He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel.” (Num. 23: 21) He does not say that iniquity and perverseness were not in him. This would never give the heart confidence – the very thing, above all others, which God desires to give. It could never assure a poor sinner’s heart, to be told that there was no sin in him; for, alas! he knows too well there is; but to be told there is no sin on him, and that, moreover, in God’s sight, on the simple ground of Christ’s perfect sacrifice, must infallibly set his heart and conscience at rest. Had God taken up Esau, we should not have had, by any means, such a blessed display of grace; for this reason, that he does not appear before us in the unamiable light in which we see Jacob. The more man sinks, the more God’s grace rises. As my debt rises, in my estimation, from the fifty pence up to the five hundred, so my sense of grace rises also, my experience of that love which, when we “had nothing to pay, could “frankly forgive” us all. (Luke 7: 42) Well might the apostle say, “it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace: not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.” (Heb. 13: 9)

Fuente: Mackintosh’s Notes on the Pentateuch

Gen 27:46 to Gen 28:9. Jacob is Sent from Home to Marry into his Mothers Family.The reader may readily suppose that Rebekah uses the unfortunate marriage of Esau as a pretext to hide her real reason for sending Jacob away, which was to baulk Esau of his revenge. But this section comes from P and links on to Gen 26:34 f. Intermarriage with Canaanites was contrary to the ideals of Judaism; Edom may do such things, but not Israel. When Esau learnt that his father was not pleased with his wives, and in sending Jacob to Laban had given him the blessing of Abraham, he married the daughter of Ishmael, his cousin, though not so pure in breed as his own family, since her grandmother was Egyptian. It is noteworthy that if Genesis is a unity, Jacob is sent off to marry at the age of seventy-seven, when Rebekah had put up with her unwelcome daughters-in-law thirty-seven years. He is eighty-four when he actually marries! The documentary analysis saves us from such absurdities.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

JACOB SENT TO PADAN-ARAM

Though scripture tells us that Isaac loved Esau, he had not done as Abraham had in making sure that Isaac’s wife was of his own kindred. Rebekah’s words to him now evidently awaken him out of such laxity, and he called Jacob and charged him that he must not take a wife of the Canaanites, but must rather go to Padan-aram and take a wife from the kindred of his grandfather, in fact one of the daughters of Jacob’s uncle Laban (v.2). Today a marriage of cousins is not wise because weaknesses have multiplied greatly since sin was introduced into the human family, and special weaknesses attach to each family. Those weaknesses would be doubled by the marriage of two who are closely related, and the children therefore likely to be badly affected. In early history this was not a problem at all.

Isaac again gives Jacob his blessing in verses 3 and 4, desiring that God Almighty might make him fruitful and multiply his descendants, and that through him God’s promise to Abraham should be fulfilled, both as to his descendants and as to the possession of the land of promise. It seems clear in this passage that Isaac’s thoughts had been corrected, for he did not speak this way to Esau. When God had overruled him in having the blessing given to Jacob, then at least Isaac stayed by this action, and here confirms it in no uncertain terms.

Isaac then sends Jacob away (v.5). Possibly this was some relief to Esau, for he did not have to kill Jacob, yet would have him far removed from him. But when Esau knew that Isaac had given Jacob his blessing and sent him away with a charge not to take a wife from the Canaanites, and that Jacob had obediently accepted the charge of his parents (vs.6-7), then Esau was stirred up about the fact that his two wives had not pleased his father (v.8). Yet how sad was his effort to remedy the situation! Apparently he thought his parents would be more pleased by his adding another wife, just so long as she had some relationship to Abraham! So he took the daughter of Ishmael, the son of the bondwoman (v.9). This is of course the foolish reasoning of the flesh. He knew his father had only one wife: how could he expect him to be pleased with Esau’s having three! In fact, even the third one alone would not be pleasing to Isaac, who had been persecuted by his half brother Ishmael. But “they that are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom 8:8).

JACOB’S DREAM

Jacob goes out from Beersheba (v.10). This is a striktng picture of the nation Israel, the sons of Jacob; for Beersheba means “the well of the oath” and Haran means “mountaineer.” Israel has practically left the ground of the unconditional promise of God and has chosen rather the mountain of law-keeping, as though this could ever bring the blessing of God! Just as Jacob, all the time he was in Haran, retained a character of selfish bargaining, so Israel at present remains in a state of self-righteousness, professing to believe and obey the law, but not submitting to the righteousness of God (Rom 10:3).

We are told only of one of the nights Jacob spent on his way to Haran. He laid down to sleep with a stone for a pillow. No doubt he found the law of God rather a hard resting place also, for it is as hard as the stones upon which it was written.

Though Jacob was not walking in communion with God, yet God was not stopped from communicating with him. When God sends a dream He has a captive audience (v.12), and this dream given to Jacob was of particular significance. He saw a ladder set up on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God ascending and descending on it. Some have imagined that this intimates that man by his spiritual energy is able to climb up to heaven, gradually ascending by human effort, into favor with God. But it has nothing to do with man’s ascending, just as is true when the Lord tells Nathanael he would “see the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” (Joh 1:51).

This is a prophetic picture of the future restoration of communication between heaven and earth, once interrupted by Adam’s sin. The fulfilment of this will be during the 1000 years of peace introduced by the coming of the Lord in power and glory. God gave this dream to Jacob in order to assure him that, in spite of Jacob’s failure and wandering, God’s purposes remained absolutely certain.

The Lord stood above the ladder and told Jacob, “I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac.” There was to be no mistaking the fact that Jacob’s blessing did not depend on Jacob’s faithfulness. The source of it went back, not only to his father and his grandfather, but to the living God, who had revealed Himself in grace to both Abraham and Isaac, and who would not change His purpose even though Jacob was a failing vessel, just as is true as regards God’s purposes as to the nation Israel, whom Jacob represents.

In this dream of Jacob the Lord’s initial message to him is that He would give him the land on which he was lying. Though Jacob was in a poor state of soul, the Lord did not reprove him, but emphasized the grace of His own heart. He promised the land to Jacob and his descendants. This has nothing to do with heavenly blessing, but is plainly earthly, so that natural blessings in earthly places is all that is promised to the children of Israel, in contrast to “all spiritual blessings in heavenly places” that are today the possession of all the saints of God, members of the body of Christ, the church (Eph 1:3).

Consistently therefore, Jacob’s seed would be “as the dust of the earth” (v.14), not “as the stars of heaven” (ch.26:4), which was a promise to Isaac because he is a type of Christ in connection with the church, the bride, as typified in Rebekah. The Lord further emphasizes the earthly character of Jacob’s blessing in saying that his descendants would spread “to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south.” There are no such directions in heaven. More than this, in Jacob and his seed all the families of the earth will be blessed. Israel will be the center of blessing on earth in the coming day of millennial glory, and in identification with Israel all the Gentile nations will be blessed. This is a firm, absolute declaration.

Added to this is the Lord’s promise to Jacob personally, that he would be with him and keep him everywhere he went, and would bring him back to the land of promise (v.15). He would not leave him till his promises were fulfilled completely. This promise is totally unconditional. This is all the more striking when we consider that Jacob was not enjoying a good state of soul. Nothing therefore depended on Jacob’s faithfulness.

Jacob was not really going with God at this time, but God was going in pure grace with Jacob. This is typical also of God’s preserving hand being over the nation Israel even at a time when they have failed miserably and are in a state of wandering and self seeking. Though for centuries they have been dispersed in this condition of self-will, God “has not cast off His people whom He fore knew,” and He will yet restore them affliction not to depend on themselves, but on their God who cannot fail.

Jacob’s soul was stirred to its depths by the dream. In waking up he was alarmed by the fact that the Lord was in that place and he had not realized it (v.16). Did he think it might have been better to go on to another place? Could the Lord not meet him wherever he went? However, it is good that the fear of God was deeply impressed on him to such an extent that he called the place “the house of God” and “the gate of heaven” (v.17), and after 20 years absence he did not forget that place.

JACOB’S FIRST PILLAR AND HIS VOW

Now Jacob sets up the first of four pillars that were landmarks in his eventful life. He set up the stone he had used as a pillow and poured oil on it, calling the place Bethel, “the house of God.” Abraham had before dwelt between Bethel and Ai (ch.12:8), and Jacob simply renames the place. “The name of the city had been Luz previously” (v.19). This name means “separation,” and reminds us that the house of God must be given a place of holy separation from all the principles of man’s civilization.

Though Jacob appreciated God’s blessing, yet his faith as to God’s promise was pathetically weak. Rather than simply thanking God for the absolute truth of His word, Jacob considered that he also should make a promise to God! But Jacob’s promise is conditional, not unconditional, as God’s was. Abraham had been “strong in faith, giving glory to God, – being firmly persuaded that what He had promised, He was able also to perform” (Rom 4:20-21), but Jacob was not so sure. He said, “If God will be with me” (v.20). But what God promises, faith simply believes.

However, did Jacob desire God’s presence because he wanted to enjoy fellowship with God? This does not seem to be his motive. Rather, he realized that God was able to bless him and keep him in the way he had chosen to go, as well as supplying his food and clothing. Jacob did not ask for God’s way (as Moses did in Exo 33:13), but rather desired God’s blessing in the way Jacob decided to go! But God had told him He would bless him and bring him back to his homeland. All he needed to do was to believe this and therefore be concerned about enjoying the Lord Himself. If this had been his object, how much trouble he would have been spared!

He promises that, on condition the Lord will fulfil all His promises, then when this is accomplished the Lord would be his God. Who would be his God in the meantime? Also he promises that the stone he set would be God’s house. How many there are like Jacob who think that in the future they will be concerned about the truth of God’s house, but at present think their own house more important!

He vows too that he would surely give to God one tenth of all that God gave to him! Did he seriously think he was being very generous? God had said, “I will,” but Jacob said, “I will surely.” Of course God’s promise is perfectly fulfilled, but there is no record of Jacob’s having ever carried out his promise to give God one tenth of all.

Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible

28:1 And Isaac called Jacob, and {a} blessed him, and charged him, and said unto him, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan.

(a) This second blessing was to confirm Jacob’s faith, lest he should think that his father had given it without God’s leading.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

6

JACOBS FLIGHT AND DREAM

Gen 27:41 – Gen 28:1-22

“So foolish was I and ignorant: I was as a beast before Thee. Nevertheless I am continually with thee.”- Psa 73:22

IT is so commonly observed as to be scarcely worth again remarking, that persons who employ a great deal of craft in the management of their affairs are invariably entrapped in their own net. Life is so complicated, and every matter of conduct has so many issues, that no human brain can possibly foresee every contingency. Rebekah was a clever woman, and quite competent to outwit men like Isaac and Esau, but she had in her scheming neglected to take account of Laban, a man true brother to herself in cunning. She had calculated on Esaus resentment, and knew it would last only a few days, and this brief period she was prepared to utilise by sending Jacob out of Esaus reach to her own kith and kin, from among whom he might get a suitable wife. But she did not reckon on Labans making her son serve fourteen years for his wife, nor upon Jacobs falling so deeply in love with Rachel as to make him apparently forget his mother.

In the first part of her scheme she feels herself at home. She is a woman who knows exactly how much of her mind to disclose, so as effectually to lead her husband to adopt her view and plan. She did not bluntly advise Isaac to send Jacob to Padan-aram, but she sowed in his apprehensive mind fears which she knew would make him send Jacob there; she suggested the possibility of Jacobs taking a wife of the daughters of Heth. She felt sure that Isaac did not need to be told where to send his son to find a suitable wife. So Isaac called Jacob, and said, Go to Padan-aram, to the house of thy mothers father, and take thee a wife thence. And he gave him the family blessing-God Almighty give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee-so constituting him his heir, the representative of Abraham.

The effect this had on Esau is very noticeable. He sees, as the narrative tells us, a great many things, and his dull mind tries to make some meaning out of all that is passing before him: The historian seems intentionally to satirise Esaus attempt at reasoning, and the foolish simplicity of the device he fell upon. He had an idea that Jacobs obedience in going to seek a wife of another stock than he had connected himself with would be pleasing to his parents; and perhaps he had an idea that it would be possible to steal a march upon Jacob in his absence, and by a more speedily affected obedience to his parents desire, win their preference, and perhaps move Isaac to alter his will and reverse the blessing. Though living in the chosen family, he seems to have had not the slightest idea that there was any higher will than his fathers being fulfilled in their doings. He does not yet see why he himself should not be as blessed as Jacob; he cannot grasp at all the distinction that grace makes; cannot take in the idea that God has chosen a people to Himself, and that no natural advantage or force or endowment can set a man among that people, but only Gods choice. Accordingly, he does not see any difference between Ishmaels family and the chosen family; they are both sprung from Abraham, both are naturally the same, and the fact that God expressly gave His inheritance past Ishmael is nothing to Esau-an act of God has no meaning to him. He merely sees that he has not pleased his parents as well as he might by his marriage, and his easy and yielding disposition prompts him to remedy this.

This is a fine specimen of the hazy views men have of what will bring them to a level with Gods chosen. Through their crass insensibility to the high righteousness of God, there still does penetrate a perception that if they are to please Him there are certain means to be used for doing so. There are, they see, certain occupations and ways pursued by Christians, and if by themselves adopting these they can please God, they are quite willing to humour Him in this. Like Esau, they do not see their way to drop their old connections, but if by making some little additions to their habits, or forming some new connection, they can quiet this controversy that has somehow grown up between God and His children, -though, so far as they see, it is a very unmeaning controversy, -they will very gladly enter into any little arrangement for the purpose. We will not, of course, divorce the world, will not dismiss from our homes and hearts what God hates and means to destroy, will not accept Gods will as our sole and absolute law, but we will so far meet Gods wishes as to add to what we have adopted something that is almost as good as what God enjoins: we will make any little alterations which will not quite upset our present ways. Much commoner than hypocrisy is this dim-sighted, blundering stupidity of the really profane worldly man, who thinks he can take rank with men whose natures God has changed, by the mere imitation of some of their ways; who thinks, that as be cannot without great labour, and without too seriously endangering his hold on the world, do precisely what God requires, God may be expected to be satisfied with a something like it. Are we not aware of endeavouring at times to cloak a sin with some easy virtue, to adopt some new and apparently good habit, instead of destroying the sin we know God hates; or to offer to God, and palm upon our own conscience, a mere imitation of what God is pleased with? Do you attend Church, do you come and decorously submit to a service? That is not at all what God enjoins, though it is like it. What He means is, that you worship Him, which is a quite different employment. Do you render to God some outward respect, have you adopted some habits in deference to Him, do you even attempt some private devotion and discipline of the spirit? Still what He requires is something that goes much deeper than all that; namely, that you love Him. To conform to one or two habits of godly people is not what is required of us; but to be at heart godly.

As Jacob journeyed northwards, he came, on the second or third evening of his flight, to the hills of Bethel. As the sun was sinking he found himself toiling up the rough path which Abraham may have described to him as looking like a great staircase of rock and crag reaching from earth, to sky. Slabs of rock, piled one upon another, form the whole hillside, and to Jacobs eye, accustomed to the rolling pastures of Beersheba, they would appear almost like a structure built for superhuman uses, well founded in the valley below, and intended to reach to unknown heights. Overtaken by darkness on this rugged path, he readily finds as soft a bed and as good shelter as his shepherd-habits require, and with his head on a stone and a corner of his dress thrown over his face to preserve him from the moon, he is soon fast asleep. But in his dreams the massive staircase is still before his eyes, and it is no longer himself that is toiling up it as it leads to an unexplored hill-top above him, but the angels of God are ascending and descending upon it, and at its top is Jehovah Himself.

Thus simply does God meet the thoughts of Jacob, and lead him to the encouragement he needed. What was probably Jacobs state of mind when he lay down on that hill-side? In the first place, and as he would have said to any man he chanced to meet, he wondered what he would see when he got to the top of this hill; and still more, as he may have said to Rebekah, he wondered what reception he would meet with from Laban, and whether he would ever again see his fathers tents. This vision shows him that his path leads to God, that it is He who occupies the future; and, in his dream, a voice comes to him: “I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land.” He had, no doubt, wondered much whether the blessing, of his father was, after all, so valuable a possession, whether it might not have been wiser to take a share with Esau than to be driven out homeless thus. God has never spoken to him; he has heard his father speak of assurances coming to him from God, but as for him, through all the long years of his life he has never heard what he could speak of as a voice of God. But this night these doubts were silenced-there came to his soul an assurance that never departed from it. He could have affirmed he heard God saying to him: “I am the Lord God of thy father Abraham. and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it.” And lastly, all these thoughts probably centred in one deep feeling, that he was an outcast, a fugitive from justice. He was glad he was in so solitary a place, he was glad he was so far from Esau and from every human eye; and yet-what desolation of spirit accompanied this feeling: there was no one he could bid good-night to, no one he could spend the evening hour with in quiet talk; he was a banished man, whatever fine gloss Rebekah might put upon it, and deep down in his conscience there was that which told him he was not banished without cause. Might not God also forsake him-might not God banish him, and might he not find a curse pursuing him, preventing man or woman from ever again looking in his face with pleasure? Such fears are met by the vision. This desolate spot, unvisited by sheep or bird, has become busy with life, angels thronging the ample staircase. Here, where he thought himself lonely and outcast, he finds he has come to the very gate of heaven. His fond mother might at that hour, have been visiting his silent tent and shedding ineffectual tears on his abandoned bed, but he finds himself in the very house of God. cared for by angels. As the darkness had revealed to him the stars shining overhead, so, when the deceptive glare of waking life was dulled by sleep, he saw the actual realities which before were hidden.

No wonder that a vision which so graphically showed the open communication between earth and heaven should have deeply impressed itself on Jacobs descendants. What more effectual consolation could any poor outcast, who felt he had spoiled his life, require than the memory of this staircase reaching from the pillow of the lonely fugitive from justice up into the very heart of heaven? How could any most desolate soul feel quite abandoned so long as the memory retained the vision of the angels thronging up and down with swift service to the needy? How could it be even in the darkest hour believed that all hope was gone, and that men might but curse God and die, when the mind turned to this bridging of the interval between earth and heaven?

In the New Testament we meet with an instance of the familiarity with this vision which true Israelites enjoyed. Our Lord, in addressing Nathanael, makes use of it in a way that proves this familiarity. Under his fig-tree, whose broad leaves were used in every Jewish garden as a screen from observation, and whose branches were trained down so as to form an open-air oratory, where secret prayer might be indulged in undisturbed, Nathanael had been declaring to the Father his ways, his weaknesses, his hopes. And scarcely more astonished was Jacob when he found himself the object of this angelic ministry on the lonely hill-side, than was Nathanael when he found how one eye penetrated the leafy screen, and had read his thoughts and wishes. Apparently he had been encouraging himself with this vision, for our Lord, reading his thoughts, says: “Because I said unto thee, When thou wast under the fig-tree I saw thee, believest thou? Thou shalt see greater things than these-thou shalt see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.”

This, then, is a vision for us even more than for Jacob. It has its fulfilment in the times after the Incarnation more manifestly than in previous times. The true staircase by which heavenly messengers ascend and descend is the Son of man. It is He who really bridges the interval between heaven and earth, God and man. In His person these two are united. You cannot tell whether Christ is more Divine or human, more God or man-solidly based on earth, as this massive staircase, by His real humanity, by His thirty-three years engagement in all human functions and all experiences of this life, He is yet familiar with eternity, His name is “He that came down from heaven,” and if your eye follows step by step to the heights of His person, it rests at last on what you recognise as Divine. His love it is that is wide enough to embrace God on the one hand, and the lowest sinner on the other. Truly He is the way, the stair, leading from the lowest depth of earth to the highest height of heaven. In Him you find a love that embraces you as you are, in whatever condition, however cast down and defeated, however embittered and polluted-a love that stoops tenderly to you and hopefully, and gives you once more a hold upon holiness and life, and in that very love unfolds to you the highest glory of heaven and of God.

When this comes home to a man in the hour of his need, it becomes the most arousing revelation. He springs from the troubled slumber we call life, and all earth wears a new glory and awe to him. He exclaims with Jacob, “How dreadful is this place. Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not.” The world, that had been so bleak and empty to him, is filled with a majestic vital presence. Jacob is no longer a mere fugitive from the results of his own sin, a shepherd in search of employment, a man setting out in the world to try his fortune; he is the partner with God in the fulfilment of a Divine purpose. And such is the change that passes on every man who believes in the Incarnation, who feels himself to be connected with God by Jesus Christ; he recognises the Divine intention to uplift his life and to fill it with new hopes and purposes. He feels that humanity is consecrated by the entrance of the Son of God into it: he feels that all human life is holy ground since the Lord Himself has passed through it. Having once had this vision of God and man united in Christ, life cannot any more be to him the poor, dreary, commonplace, wretched round of secular duties and short-lived joys and terribly punished sins it was before: but it truly becomes the very gate of heaven; from each part of it he knows there is a staircase rising to the presence of God, and that out of the region of pure holiness and justice there flow to him heavenly aids, tender guidance, and encouragement.

Do you think the idea of the Incarnation too aerial and speculative to carry with you for help in rough, practical matters? The Incarnation is not a mere idea, but a fact as substantial and solidly rooted in life as anything you have to do with. Even the shadow of it Jacob saw carried in it so much of what was real that when he was broad awake he trusted it and acted on it. It was not scattered by the chill of the morning air, nor by that fixed staring reality which external nature assumes in the gray dawn as one object after another shows itself in the same spot and form in which night had fallen upon it. There were no angels visible when he opened his eyes: the staircase was there, but it was of no heavenly substance, and if it had any secret to tell, It coldly and darkly kept it. There was no retreat for the runaway from the poor common facts of yesterday. The sky seemed as far from earth as it did yesterday, his track over the hill as lonely, his brothers wrath as real; -but other things also had become real; and as he looked back from the top of the hill on the stone he had set up, he felt the words, “I am with thee in all places whither thou goest,” graven on his heart, . and giving him new courage; and he knew that every footfall of his was making a Bethel, and that as he went he was carrying God through the world. The bleakest rains that swept across the hills of Bethel could never wash out of his mind the vision of bright-winged angels, as little as they could wash off the oil or wear down the stone he had set up. The brightest glare of this worlds heyday of real life could not outshine and cause them to disappear; and the vision on which we hope is not one that vanishes at cockcrow, nor is He who connects us with God shy of human handling, but substantial as ourselves. He offered Himself to every kind of test, so that those who knew Him for years could say, with the most absolute confidence, “That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of Lifedeclare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.”

Jacob obeyed a good instinct when he set up as a monumental stone that which had served as his pillow while he dreamt and saw this inspiring vision. He felt that, vivid as the impression on his mind then was, it would tend to fade, and he erected this stone that in after days he might have a witness that would testify to his present assurance. One great secret in the growth of character is the art of prolonging the quickening power of right ideas, of perpetuating just and inspiring impressions. And he who despises the aid of all external helps for the accomplishment of this object is not likely to succeed. Religion, some men say, is an inward thing: it does not consist of public worship, ordinances, and so forth, but it is a state of spirit. Very true; but he knows little of human nature who fancies a state of spirit can be maintained without the aid of external reminders, presentations to eye and ear of central religious truths and facts. We, have all of us had such views of truth, and such? corresponding desires and purposes, as would transform us were they only permanent. But what a night has settled on our past, how little have we found skill to prolong the benefit arising from particular events or occasions. Some parts of our life, indeed, require no monument, there is nothing there we would ever again think of, if possible; but, alas! these, for the most part, have erected monuments of their own, to which, as with a sad fascination, our eyes are ever turning-persons we have injured, or who, somehow, so remind us of sin, that we shrink from meeting them-places to which sins of ours have attached a reproachful meaning. And these natural monuments must be imitated in the life of grace. By fixed hours of worship, by rules and habits of devotion, by public worship, and especially by the monumental ordinance of the Lords Supper, must we cherish the memory of known truth, and deepen former impressions.

To the monument Jacob attached a vow, so that when he returned to that spot the stone might remind him of the dependence on God he now felt, of the precarious situation he was in when this vision appeared, and of all the help God had afterwards given him. He seems to have taken up the meaning of that endless chain of angels ceaselessly coning down full of blessing, and going up empty of all but desires, requests, aspirations. And if we are to live with clean conscience and with heart open to God, we must so live that the messengers who bring Gods blessings to us shall not have an evil report to take back of the manner in which we have received and spent His bounty.

This whole incident makes a special appeal to those who are starting in life. Jacob was no longer a young man, but he was unmarried, and he was going to seek employment with nothing to begin the world with but his shepherds staff, the symbol of his knowledge of a profession. Many must see in him a very exact reproduction of their own position. They have left home, and it may be they have left it not altogether with pleasant memories, and they are now launched on the world for themselves, with nothing but their staff, their knowledge of some business. The spot they have reached may seem as desolate as the rock where Jacob lay, their prospects as doubtful as his. For such a one there is absolutely no security but that which is given in the vision of Jacob-in the belief that God will be with you in all places, and that even now on that life which you are perhaps already wishing to seclude from all holy influences, the angels of God are descending to bless and restrain you from sin. Happy the man who, at the outset, can heartily welcome such a connection of his life with God; unhappy he who welcomes whatever blots out the thought of heaven, and who separates himself from all that reminds him of the good influences that throng his path. The desire of the young heart to see life and know the world is natural and innocent, but how many fancy that in seeing the lowest and poorest perversions of life they see life-how many forget that unless they keep their hearts pure they can never enter into the best and richest and most enduring of the uses and joys of human life. Even from a selfish motive and the mere desire to succeed in the world, every one starting in life would do well to consider whether he really has Jacobs blessing and is making his vow. And certainly every one who has any honour, who is governed by any of those sentiments that lead men to noble and worthy actions, will frankly meet Gods offers and joyfully accept a heavenly guidance and a permanent connection with God.

Before we dismiss this vision, it may be well to look at one instance of its fulfilment, that we may understand the manner in which God fulfils His promises. Jacobs experience in Haran was not so brilliant and unexceptionable as he might perhaps expect. He did, indeed, at once find a woman he could love, but he had to purchase her with seven years toil, which ultimately became fourteen years. He did not grudge this; because it was customary, because his affections were strong, and because he was too independent to send to his father for money to buy a wife. But the bitterest disappointment awaited him. With the burning humiliation of one who has been cheated in so cruel a way, he finds himself married to Leah. He protests, but he cannot insist on his protest, nor divorce Leah; for, in point of fact, he is conscious that he is only being paid in his own coin, foiled with his own weapons. In this veiled bride brought in to him on false pretences he sees the just retribution of his own disguise when, with the hands of Esau he went in and received his fathers blessing. His mouth is shut by the remembrance of his own past. But submitting to this chastisement, and recognising in it not only the craft of his uncle, but the stroke of God, that which he at first thought of as a cruel curse became a blessing. It was Leah much more than Rachel that built up the house of Israel. To this despised wife six of the tribes traced their origin, and among these was the tribe of Judah. Thus he learned the fruitfulness of Gods retribution-that to be humbled by God is really to be built up, and to be punished by Him the richest blessing. Through such an experience are many persons led: when we would embrace the fruit of years of toil God thrusts into our arms something quite different from our expectation-something that not only disappoints, but that at first repels us, reminding us of acts of our own we had striven to forget. Is it with resentment you still look back on some such experience, when the reward of years of toil evaded your grasp, and you found yourself bound to what you would not have worked a day to obtain?-do you find yourself disheartened and discouraged by the way in which you seem regularly to miss the fruit of your labour? If so, no doubt it were useless to assure you that the disappointment may be more fruitful than the hope fulfilled, but it can scarcely be useless to ask you to consider whether it is not the fact that in Jacobs case what was thrust upon him was more fruitful than what he strove to win.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary