And Jacob went out from Beer-sheba, and went toward Haran.
10 22. This section taken from J and E follows upon Gen 27:45. Observe the mention of Haran in Gen 28:10 (cf. Gen 27:43), and the mention of Beer-sheba as the dwelling-place of Isaac in Gen 28:10 (cf. Gen 26:23). Gen 28:10 ; Gen 28:13-16 ; Gen 28:19 are probably from J; Gen 28:11-12 ; Gen 28:17-18 ; Gen 28:20-22 from E.
This passage, recording Jacob’s dream at Bethel, and the passage in Gen 32:22-32, recording Jacob’s wrestling with the Angel, relate the most famous and significant events in the narrative of the patriarch Jacob. The present passage is in some respects one of the most suggestive and impressive in religious literature. The distinctive features of the narrative have been an inspiration in the poetry and prose of religious literature, e.g. the hymn “Nearer, my God, to Thee.”
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Gen 28:10-15
And he dreamed, and behold, a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven
Jacob at Bethel
I.
THE WANDERER. It had been a desolate day, and there was only desolation at night. In his weariness he slept, and as he slept, he dreamed. If dreams reflect the thoughts of the day, a new life must have begun within him. It was not Esau, or the plotting mother, or the aged father, upon whom he looked. The old tent was not over him, nor did he long for the pillows of home. It was a new experience, and the story of his vision has been told all down the centuries for more than three and a half thousand years. What does it mean?
II. THE MEETING-PLACE. It was upon the barren mountainside. Tier on tier of rocks reaching to the mountain-summit were the stairs of natures cathedral. The winds of the mountains roused him not. The audience of that night was asleep. If the beasts came forth from their retreats, they did not disturb him. His own sin had driven him into solitude. Voice of friend or foe, there was none. He was alone; but God was there even when he knew it not. What meetings there have been alone with God I What night-scenes of grandeur and awe! Amid sufferings from sin, in deepest trials and in roughest places, many a soul has exclaimed with the waking Jacob, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.
III. THE VISION AND THE DIVINE COVENANT. Two thoughts are suggested at the outset by this vision: the reaching up of earth to heaven, and the reaching down of heaven to earth.
IV. THE PILLAR OF REMEMBRANCE. Gratitude should be the very first fruit of religion. What less has God reason to expect? What else can man prefer to give? (D. O. Mears, D. D.)
Jacob at Bethel
I. THE DREAMER.
1. A lonely faith.
2. An exile from home.
3. A fugitive from his brother.
II. THE DREAM.
1. The ladder. Heaven not closed to man.
2. Angels of God ascending and descending. Ministry.
3. God at the summit of the ladder.
III. THE IMPRESSION OF HIS DREAM.
1. An overpowering sense of the presence of God.
2. His sin rose before him. (G. R. Leavitt.)
Jacobs vision
I. IT WAS VOUCHSAFED TO HIM IN A TIME OF INWARD AND OUTWARD TROUBLE.
II. IT SATISFIED ALL HIS SPIRITUAL NECESSITIES.
1. It assured him that heaven and earth were not separated by an impassable gulf.
2. It assured him that there was a way of reconciliation between God and man.
3. It assured him that the love of God was above all the darkness of human sin and evil.
4. It imparted to him the blessings of a revelation from God.
III. IT REVEALED THE AWFUL SOLEMNITY OF HUMAN LIFE,
IV. IT RESULTED IN JACOBS CONVERSION,
1. He erected a memorial of the event.
2. He resolved to make God supreme in all his thoughts and actions. (T. H.Leale.)
Jacobs vision
I. CONSIDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES under which the vision was granted.
II. LOOK AT THE NATURE of the vision.
1. The angels are interested in the well-being of Gods people.
2. Heaven is a place of activity.
3. 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.)
Jacobs dream
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. God, the supreme directing and inspiring force, eminent over all. Lessons:
1. Every mans ladder should stand upon the ground. No man can be a Christian by separating himself from his kind.
2. Along every mans ladder should be seen Gods angels.
3. High above all a mans plans and resolves, there must beta living trust in God. (H. W. Beecher.)
The vision at Bethel
I. The vision at Bethel was the first step in Jacobs 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. Jacobs 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. Now 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 just as he was to learn the truth of birth, the truth of marriage, the truth of death, that it might be declared to his seed after him; and that they might be acquainted with it as he was, only 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 on earth. (F. D. Maurice, M. A.)
What Jacob saw in sleep
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. Little do we dream of the veiled wonders and splendours amid which we move. To Jacobs 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 Beer-sheba; and while he slept the hitherto unperceived Eternal came out softly, largely, above and around him. We learn from this the secret of the Lords 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.)
A ladder between heaven and earth
I. JESUS, THE LADDER, CONNECTS EARTH WITH HEAVEN.
II. THIS LADDER COMES TO SINNERS.
III. GOD IS AT THE TOP, SPEARING 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. Dont look down, or you will be giddy.
4. Dont come down to fetch any one else up. If your friends will not follow you, leave them behind. (T. Champness.)
Intercourse between earth and heaven
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. Jacobs dream showed something better, truer than this; it showed him God above him, Gods 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, M. A.)
The nearness of God to men
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 recognize 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 mans salvation is under the superintendence of God. (D. Rhys Jenkins.)
Jacobs conversion
I. JACOBS IMPRESSIONS. First time of leaving his fathers home. When night came on, and there was no tent to repose under, and no pillow but a stone on which to lay his weary head, then a feeling of loneliness came over him, then tender thoughts awoke. He felt remorse, tears came unbidden. He felt, I shall never be in my fathers house the boy I was. In all this observe–
1. A solemn conviction stealing over Jacob of what life is, a struggle which each man must make in self-dependence.
2. But beside this conviction of what life is, Jacob was impressed in another way at this time. God made a direct communication to his soul. He lay down to sleep, and he dreamed. We know what dreams are. They are strange combinations of our waking thoughts in fanciful forms, and we may trace in Jacobs previous journey the groundwork of his dream. He looked up all day to heaven as he trudged along, the glorious expanse of an Oriental sky was around him, a quivering trembling mass of blue; but he was alone, and, when the stars came out, melancholy sensations were his, such as youth frequently feels in autumn time. Deep questionings beset him. Time he felt was fleeting. Eternity, what was it? Life, what a mystery! And all this took form in his dream. Thus far all was natural; the supernatural in this dream was the manner in which God impressed it on his heart. Similar dreams we have often had; but the remembrance of them has faded away. Conversion is the impression made by circumstances, and that impression lasting for life; it is God the Spirits work upon the soul.
3. Jacob felt reconciliation with God. There is a distance between man and God. It is seen in the restlessness of men, in the estrangement which they feel from Him. Well, Jacob felt all this. He had sinned, overreached his brother, deceived his father. Self-convicted he walked all day long; the sky as brass; a solemn silence around him; no opening in the heaven; no sign nor voice from God; his own heart shut up by the sense of sin, unable to rise. Then came the dream in which he felt reconciliation with God. Do not mind the form but the substance. It contains three things:
(1) The ladder signifying heaven and earth joined, the gulf bridged over.
(2) The angels signifying the communication which exists between earth and heaven.
(3) The voice which told him of Gods paternal care.
(4) The last impression made on Jacob was that of the awfulness of life.
II. THE RESOLUTIONS WHICH HE MADE.
1. The first of these was a resolution to set up a memorial of the impressions just made upon him. He erected a few stones, and called them Bethel. They were a fixed point to remind him of the past.
2. Jacob determined from this time to take the Lord for his God. He would worship from henceforth not the sun, or the moon, not honour, pleasure, business, but God. With respect to this determination, observe first that it was done with a kind of selfish feeling; there was a sort of stipulation, that if God would be with him to protect and provide for him, that then he would take Him for his God (Gen 28:20-21). And this is too much the way with us; there is mostly a selfishness in our first turning to God. A kind of bargain is struck. If religion makes me happy then I will be religious. God accepted this bargain in Jacobs case; He enriched him with cattle and goods in the land whither he went (Gen 31:18): for godliness has the promise of the life that now is. Disinterested religion comes later on. Observe, secondly, what taking God for our God implies. It is not the mere repetition of so many words; for as our Lord has said, Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of God. To have God for our God is not to prostrate the knee but the heart in adoration before Him. God is truth: to persist in truth at a loss to ourselves, that is to have God for our God. God is purity: resolve to shut up evil books, turn a countenance of offended purity to the insult of licentious conversation; banish thoughts that conjure up wicked imaginations; then you have God for your God. God is love: you are offended; and the world says, resent; God says, forgive. Can you forgive? Can you love your enemy, or one whose creed is different from your own? That is to have God for your God. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)
The heavenly pathway and the earthly heart
I. CONSIDER THE VISION AND ITS ACCOMPANYING PROMISE. We are to conceive of the form of the vision as a broad stair or sloping ascent, rather than a ladder, reaching right from the sleepers side to the far-off heaven, its pathway peopled with messengers, and its summit touching the place where a glory shone that paled even the lustrous constellations of that pure sky. Jacob had thought himself alone; the vision peoples the wilderness. He had felt himself defenceless; the vision musters armies for his safety. He had been grovelling on earth, with no thoughts beyond its fleeting goods; the vision lifts his eyes from the low level on which they had been gazing. He had been conscious of but little connection with heaven; the vision shows him a path from his very side right into its depths. He had probably thought that he was leaving the presence of his fathers God when he left his fathers tent; the vision burns into his astonished heart the consciousness of God as there, in the solitude and the night. The Divine promise is the best commentary on the meaning of the vision. The familiar ancestral promise is repeated to him, and the blessing and the birthright thus confirmed. In addition, special assurances, the translation of the vision into word and adapted to his then wants, are given–Gods presence in his wanderings, his protection, Jacobs return to the land, and the promise of Gods persistent presence, working through all paradoxes of providence, and sins of his servant, and incapable of staying its operations, or satisfying Gods heart, or vindicating his faithfulness, at any point short of complete accomplishment of his plighted word. Jacobs vision was meant to teach him, and is meant to teach us, the nearness of God, and the swift directness of communication, whereby His help comes to us and our desires rise to Him. These and their kindred truths were to be to him, and should be to us, the parents of much nobleness. Here is the secret of elevation of aim and thought above the mean things of sense. It is the secret of purity too. It is also the secret of peace.
II. NOTICE THE IMPERFECT RECEPTION dream indicates a very low level both of religious knowledge and feeling. Nor is there any reason for taking the words in any but their most natural sense; for it is a mistake to ascribe to him the knowledge of God due to later revelation, or, at this stage of his life, any depth of religious emotion. He is alarmed at the thought that God is near. Probably he had been accustomed to think of Gods presence as in some special way associated with his fathers encampment, and had not risen to the belief of His omnipresence. There seems no joyous leaping up of his heart at the thought that God is here. Dread, not unmingled with the superstitious fear that he had profaned a holy place by laying himself down in it, is his prevailing feeling, and he pleads ignorance as the excuse for his sacrilege. He does not draw the conclusion from the vision that all the earth is hallowed by a near God, but only that he has unwittingly stumbled on His house; and he does not learn that from every place there is an open door for the loving heart into the calm depths where God is throned, but only that here he stands at the gate of heaven. So he misses the very inner purpose of the vision, and rather shrinks from it than welcomes it. Was that spasm of fear all that passed through his mind that night? Did he sleep again when the glory died out of the heaven? So the story would appear to suggest. But, in any ease, we see here the effect of the sudden blitzing in upon a heart not yet familiar with the Divine Friend, of the conviction that He is really near. Gracious as Gods promise was, it did not dissipate the creeping awe at His presence. It is an eloquent testimony of mans consciousness of sin, that whensoever a present God becomes a reality to a man, he trembles. This place would not be dreadful, but blessed, if it were not for the sense of discord between God and me. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The angel-ladder
I. THE CIRCUMSTANCES IN WHICH THIS REVELATION WAS MADE TO HIM.
1. Jacob was lonely.
2. Jacob was standing on the threshold of independence.
3. Jacob was also in fear.
II. THE ELEMENTS OF WHICH THIS REVELATION CONSISTED.
1. The ladder.
2. The angels.
3. The voice of God. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
Bethel: a picture and its lesson
I. THE PICTURE.
1. A solitary man.
2. A guilty man. Sin pierced his hand more than his staff did.
3. An injured man. A child may have more of his mother than her blessing.
4. A fugitive man. He had, like a maltreated animal, the fear of man habitually before his eyes. He cringes one moment, and dodges the next; deprecating the blow he invites, expects, and gets.
5. He is a weary man. There he lies. Now look at him. Mark these–the nameless spot, the shelterless couch, the comfortless pillow, the restless slumber.
II. THE LESSON.
1. In this world wicked success is real failure. No security after sin save in repenting of it.
2. In this world God pays in kind, but blesses sovereignly. That is to say, retribution is often like crime, but grace is a surprise.
3. Turning over a new leaf does not always show a fresh page. It does no good to take up a journey from Beer-sheba to Padan-aram when one means to do the same thing right along. God demands a change in the heart, not in the habit; not so much in the record and show of the life as in the life itself.
4. Sometimes unhappiness is our chief felicity. Jacob has one good, valuable characteristic–he cannot sleep soundly when the angels of covenant grace are coming for him. It was a grand thing for this fugitive that he was restless while the ladder of love was unfolding over him.
5. Retribution is lifted only by redemption. Gods mercy gave Jacob chance of becoming a new man that night. It would have saved him Penuel and a forty years wreck had he accepted it. He might have beckoned an ascending angel to his side, and sent by him a prayer up the ladder; and then an angel descending along the shining rounds would have instantly brought him a message of pardon. Surely any man can show some sign of a penitent heart. We can be sorry we do not sorrow. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
A man asleep
I. Jacob is the type ISRAELITE Of his lineage. From this night Jacob becomes the pattern Jew. All that is good or bad in his descendants has its natural beginning in him.
II. Jacob is the type MAN of his race. Far from God. Homesick. What man wants is God.
III. Jacob is the type CHRISTIAN of the Church.
1. He was chosen even before he was born.
2. He is now in the thick of the conflict between nature and grace.
3. He will eventually be saved in the kingdom of heaven. (C. S.Robinson, D. D.)
The ladder of doctrine
I. THE PROPHETIC SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SCENE.
1. It could not have been exclusively personal to Jacob.
3. Furthermore, the vision is not exhausted in any mere engagement of Gods providential care.
3. Hence the vision must be interpreted as belonging to the kingdom of grace.
4. This vision, therefore, is discharged of its full weight of meaning only when we admit it to be a fine, high symbol of Jesus Christ.
II. ITS DOCTRINAL REACH. The plan of redemption comes out in this symbol. Jesus Christ became the medium of grace and restoration. If, now, no mistake has been made in our inquiry thus far, the conclusion we have attained will be fairly corroborated from the disclosures presented of Jesus person and work.
1. Begin with His Person. Surely no more felicitous image could have been presented. Christs double nature is well shown. It would have been only a mockery to Jacob to disclose a ladder coming almost to this earth, yet falling short by a round or two, so as to be just out of reach. Then the angels could not have alighted, and no human foot could have risen. Nor would the case have been anywise better if he had been made to see that his ladder reached nearly to heaven, not quite. For then the angels would have had as great need as he, and an uncrossed gulf would have been beyond them in the air.
2. As to the work of Christ, furthermore, we may remark the same exquisite aptness of this figure in Jacobs vision. Examining it closely, we find that it teaches the sovereign assumption, the perfect completion, the evident display, and the free offer, of the plan of grace. (C. S.Robinson, D. D.)
The ladder of life
I. RECONCILIATION IS NOW OFFERED IN GOOD FAITH TO EVERY INDIVIDUAL OF THE HUMAN RACE.
II. THE NECESSITY OF AN INSTANT AND DETERMINATE DECISION IN OUR DEALING WITH THE OFFERS OF GRACE.
III. HOW ESSENTIAL IT IS FOR EVERY SOUL THUS ADDRESSED BY THE GOSPEL OFFER TO MEASURE ALTERNATIVES.
IV. WHAT FELICITOUS DISPOSAL THIS VISION MAKES OF THE VEXED QUESTION CONCERNING THE CONNECTION BETWEEN FAITH AND WORKS.
V. GROWTH IN GRACE IS ALSO GROWTH IN EXPERIENCE.
VI. RESPONSIBILITY BEGINS THE MOMENT THE FIRST STEP OF DUTY IS DISCLOSED TO AN INTELLIGENT MAN.
VII. PERSONAL ACCEPTANCE OF JESUS CHRIST AS OUR SAVIOUR AND SURETY. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
The vision of God
I. ANALYSIS.
1. It is evident that God Himself was the sum and substance, the centre and glory, of that entire vision. The Almighty was disclosed in presence and purpose, in prediction and promise, as standing up over the ladder of grace for a fallen world.
2. See the effect of this discovery upon Jacob.
(1) The first thing it did was to frighten him.
(2) The next effect seems to have been some sort of sense of guilt. He vaguely feels the need of propitiation.
II. LESSONS. The truest way to produce conviction of sin is to make a disclosure of Divine holiness.
2. The uselessness of mere religious emotion without establishment of principle.
3. God really offers a chance of salvation to every man who will enter upon the new life. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
A turn in the tide
I. THAT ERRING MEN NEED DIVINE HELP.
II. THAT THIS SPECIAL HELP WAS GRANTED TO JACOB IN VIEW OF THE FUTURE. Lessons:
1. The presence of God comes closer than we often think.
2. The earthly may be in unison with the heavenly.
3. Avoid bargain-making with God. Do not say, I could believe I am saved if only I felt happy! Say, He calls me to come; and as He will in no wise cast me out, I must be accepted by Him. What more dare I ask for? Do not say, If only I had more time, if I were not so pressed with poverty, if I had but some friend to direct me, I would serve God! What I You do not need God because you are moneyless, friendless! What! You would walk with God in a calm, but not when a storm was yelling and dashing! Oh, foolish people and unwise! Away with all reserves! God is for us: Christ is with us. Receive what He proffers. Do as far as you know of His will, and leave all consequences with Him, sure that He will secure everlasting blessings. (D. G. Watt, M. A.)
Jacob at Bethel
I. THE VISION GRANTED TO JACOB.
1. This dream taught Jacob that there is a close connection between this world and the next.
2. It taught him that God rules over all.
3. It taught him the solemnity of life.
II. THE PROMISES MADE TO JACOB.
1. That he should be greatly blessed.
2. That he should be a blessing.
3. That God would watch over him.
III. THE RESOLUTIONS FORMED BY HIM.
1. He resolved to make a memorial of the night vision and the promises.
2. He resolved to accept the Lord as his God.
3. He also resolved to give back to God a tenth. (W. J. Evans.)
Divine providence
I. THERE IS A DIVINE PROVIDENCE.
II. THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT IS VEILED AND SILENT IN ITS OPERATION.
III. THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT IS ACCOMPLISHED BY MANY AGENTS.
IV. THE DIVINE PURPOSE IS ACCOMPLISHED AMID MUCH APPARENT CONFUSION.
V. THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT IS CONTINUED WITHOUT INTERRUPTION OR HINDRANCE.
VI. THE GRAND DESIGN OF THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT IS MORAL AND SAVING. (W. L. Watkinson.)
Bethel
I. THE PILGRIM. The way of transgressors is hard. He is without a guide, friendless, defenceless.
II. THE PILGRIMS VISION. In Me is thy help. Lo, I am with you alway.
III. THE PILGRIMS VOW. (T. S. Dickson.)
I. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS VISION.
1. The close connection between earth and heaven; between things unseen and things seen.
2. The ministry of heaven to earth; the communication between things unseen and things seen.
3. The assurance of Divine love and care.
The dreamer
II. WHAT THIS VISION AND REVELATION OF GOD TAUGHT JACOB.
1. The universal presence of God.
2. The sacredness of common things.
III. WHAT THIS VISION AND REVELATION LED JACOB TO DO.
1. TO set up a memorial of that night.
2. To consecrate himself to God. (A. F. Joscelyne, B. A.)
Bethel; or, the true vision of life
I. IN THE TRUE VISION OF LIFE THERE IS A RECOGNITION OF OUR CONNECTION WITH OTHER WORLDS.
II. IN THE TRUE VISION OF LIFE THERE IS A RECOGNITION OF GODS RELATION TO ALL.
1. As the Sovereign of all.
2. As the Friend of man. Two things show this.
(1) Mans continuation as a sinner in such a world as this.
(2) The special means introduced for his moral restoration.
III. IN THE TRUE VISION OF LIFE THERE IS THE RECOGNITION OF A DIVINE PROVIDENCE OVER INDIVIDUALS.
1. This Biblical doctrine agrees with reason.
2. It agrees with consciousness.
IV. IN THE TRUE VISION OF LIFE THERE IS THE RECOGNITION OF THE SOLEMNITY OF OUR EARTHLY POSITION. How dreadful is this place!
1. Jacobs discovery introduced a new epoch into his history.
2. Jacobs discovery introduced a memorable epoch in his life. (Homilist.)
Mans spiritual capacity
I. THE EXISTENCE OF A SPIRITUAL CAPACITY IN MAN.
1. Jacob saw angels, and God Himself.
2. He heard the voice of the Infinite.
3. He felt emotions which mere animal existence could not experience.
II. THE AWAKENING OF THIS SPIRITUAL CAPACITY IN MAN.
1. It is sometimes unexpected.
2. It is always Divine.
3. It is ever glorious.
4. It is ever memorable. (Homilist.)
Jacobs vision
I. TAKE NOTE OF THE SURROUNDINGS OF THE VISION.
1. The ambitious schemings of Jacob and his mother to supplant his brother Esau.
2. Jacob is an illustration of a man in whose soul faith struggles with ambition.
II. EMPHASIZE THE REVELATION WHICH THE VISION CONTAINS.
1. God as the God of providence.
2. The intimate union of the seen and unseen.
III. NOTICE ITS EFFECT UPON THE MIND OF HIM TO WHOM IT WAS GIVEN.
1. A sense of the universal presence of God.
2. A sense of awe which possesses the sinning soul at the revelation of Gods presence.
3. A sense of penitence at the revelation of Gods goodness. (R. Thomas, M. A.)
Jacobs dream
I. THAT THE MORAL DISTANCE BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH IS GREAT.
1. Heaven is distant from the thoughts of the ungodly.
2. The conceptions of man prove the same thing.
3. The conduct of sinners seems to confirm this statement.
II. THAT THERE IS A SPIRITUAL COMMUNICATION BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH.
1. This confers dignity upon our globe.
2. This imparts honour to man.
3. This communication is of Divine origin.
4. Heavenly communications are not dependent on the outward circumstances of man.
III. THAT THROUGH THIS COMMUNICATION ALONE MAN CAN HAVE A TRUE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD.
1. Because the human and divine are united.
2. Because through it a covenant relationship is formed between us and God.
3. It secures to us the protection of God.
4. It provides for the consummation of our highest conceptions of felicity.
IV. THAT TRUE COMMUNION WITH GOD PRODUCES REVERENTIAL FEAR IN THE HEART. (Homilist.)
The spirit world
I. THIS VISION SUGGESTS THE IDEA OF A SPIRIT WORLD.
1. We think of a spirit–
(1) As a self-modifying agent or being.
(2) As a religious being.
(3) As a reflecting being.
(4) As a self-conscious being.
(5) As a self-complete being.
(6) As a personally responsible being.
2. That a world of such beings exists may be argued from–
(1) The structure of the visible universe.
(2) The concurrent impressions of mankind.
(3) Our own individual consciousness.
(4) The Word of God.
II. THIS VISION SUGGESTS THAT MAN IS CONNECTED WITH THE SPIRIT WORLD.
1. He is a member of it.
2. He is amenable to its laws.
3. He is now forming a character that will determine his position in it.
III. THIS VISION SUGGESTS THAT THERE IS ONE MASTER. (Homilist.)
The solitary one and his visitation
I. THE SITUATION AND CIRCUMSTANCES IN WHICH JACOB WAS PLACED when he received this visitation from heaven.
1. He was solitary.
2. He had a weary body.
3. He had an anxious mind.
4. He was asleep. The Almighty can visit and bless at a time and in a manner which we little expect.
II. THE GRACIOUS VISITATION WHICH JACOB HAD FROM GOD.
1. It was in a dream.
2. It was an encouraging visit.
3. It was a glorious visit.
4. It was a gracious visit.
III. THE EFFECTS PRODUCED ON JACOBS MIND AND THE LINE OF CONDUCT WHICH HE WAS INDUCED TO PURSUE.
1. He was afraid.
2. He set up a pillar.
3. He changed the name of the place.
4. He entered into a solemn covenant with God.
IV. APPLICATION.
1. In our journey through life we may sometimes be solitary, dejected, and perplexed; but we often have gracious visits from the Lord.
2. The vows of God are upon us, viz., those of baptism and good resolution.
3. Do we offer unto God thanksgiving and pay our vows unto the Most High? (Benson Bailey.)
Jacobs vision
I. WHAT JACOB SAW ON THIS OCCASION.
1. A ladder
2. Its position.
3. Its base.
4. The top of it.
5. Above it.
6. Upon it.
II. WHAT JACOB HEARD.
1. Jehovah proclaimed Himself the God of his fathers.
2. Jehovah promised him the possession of the country where he then was.
3. He promised him a numerous progeny; and that of him should come the illustrious Messiah, in whom all the families of the earth should be blessed.
4. He promised him His Divine presence and protection.
III. WHAT JACOB FELT.
1. He felt the influence of the Divine presence.
2. He felt a sacred and solemn fear.
3. He felt himself on the precincts of the heavenly world.
IV. WHAT JACOB DID.
1. He expressed his solemn sense of the Divine presence (Gen 28:16-17).
2. He erected and consecrated a memorial of the events of that eventful night.
3. He vowed obedience to the Lord.
4. He went on his way in peace and safety.
Application:
1. The privileges of piety. Divine manifestations, promises.
2. The duties of piety.
3. The delights of public worship. Gods house is indeed the gate of heaven.
4. How glorious a place is heaven! (J. Burns, D. D.)
The dream of Jacob
I. 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 Gods 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. Go into the field, pass over the waves 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.
II. 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: itis another to see them.
III. Enlarging. space brings enlarging life; enlarging life brings AN ENLARGING ALTAR. Jacob said, Surely the Lord is in this place. We cannot enter into Jacobs 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 Kings brightness; so 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.
IV. Immediately following these larger conceptions of things, we find a marvellous and instructive instance of THE ABSORBING POWER OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEA. In Jacobs 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 eye must be filled with a celestial message; a complete forgetfulness of everything past, a new seizure and apprehension of the whole solemn future. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Christ typified by Jacobs ladder
A beautiful emblem of the Saviour. It may typify–
1. The person of the Saviour.
2. The mediatorial work of Christ.
3. Christ as the only way to the Father.
4. The accessibility of Christ to the perishing sinner.
5. The connection of angels with the work and Kingdom of Christ.
6. The heavenly state to which Christ will exalt His people. (J. Burns, D. D.)
Jacob at Bethel
1. The office of sorrow–even of remorse, the sorrow of sin–is to drive us from the visible to the invisible, from earth to heaven, from ourselves to God.
2. There is a ladder between earth and heaven on which angel messengers carry up our prayers to God and bring His answers down. Nay! this is but the hope of our dreams; the reality transcends it; for God is here, and needs neither ladder nor angel to communicate with us or open to us communication with Him: here in our hours of sorest need, of bitterest loneliness, of self-inflicted sorrow, of well-deserved penalty, of more poignant remorse; here as He was in the burning bush to Moses, and in the mysterious visitor to Gideon, and in the still, small voice to Elijah, and in the child wrapped in the swaddling clothes to the stable guests; and still by most of us unseen and to most of us unknown.
3. But when the veil is taken from our faces and we see Him, then the ground becomes consecrated ground, the stable a sacred place, the lowing of the cattle an anthem, Horeb a sanctuary, the land of Midian a holy land, our pile of stones a Bethel.
4. Yea! more than this; not places only but persons are transformed by this vision of the invisible, by this awakening to the truth, Lo, God is here. It here changes Abram, Chaldean worshipper, into Abraham, Friend of God; Jacob, the supplanter, into Israel, Prince of God; Moses, the impetuous murderer of the Egyptian, into the meekest man of sacred history; David, the sensual king, into the sweet singer of spiritual experiences; Jeremiah, the prophet of lamentation, into the hope and courage of Israel; Saul, the persecuting Pharisee, into Paul, the self-sacrificing Apostle; John, the son of thunder, into John the beloved disciple.
5. Finally, the poorest consecration–the gift of ourselves with even Jacobs if–is accepted by God as a beginning. Whosoever cometh unto Him He will in no wise cast out. (Lyman Abbott, D. D.)
Jacob at Bethel
I. THE SEVERITY OF GOD. The pitiable condition of Jacob when he arrived at Bethel illustrates this. A homeless, helpless, despondent wanderer.
II. THE GOODNESS OF GOD.
1. In its suggestive symbol (Gen 28:12).
2. In its encouraging revelation of the Divine presence (Gen 28:13).
3. In its encouraging promises (Gen 28:13-15). Inheritance, guidance, protection, companionship.
III. THE EFFECT UPON JACOB.
1. It awoke him of his sleep.
2. It filled him with an awe-inspiring sense of the Divine presence.
3. It filled him with a spirit of worship.
4. It led him to a reconsecration of himself to God.
Lessons:
1. Self-seeking even leads to failure.
2. God will never leave nor forsake His child.
3. Let us beware of a partial consecration. (D. C. Hughes, M. A.)
The Christ ladder
The great truth, therefore, that ariseth from hence is, that Christ is our Ladder of Life and Love, by which we have communion with God upon earth, while we live, and admission unto God in heaven, when we die. This ladder hath seven excellent properties. It is–
1. A living ladder, therefore it is called a ladder of life; a ladder that hath life in it, both intrinsically and objectively.
2. A loving ladder, that will not, cannot easily let go its hold of any such as sincerely come to it, to climb upon it, and do therein take hold of it, and thereby embrace it.
3. It is a lively ladder also that will so lovingly embrace us, and so livelily both take hold and keep hold of us, and not let us go until He has brought us up to the top of the ladder, and from thence into mansions of glory.
4. It is a lovely ladder.
(1) In its nature.
(2) In its posture.
The posture and end of its erection is for saving from hell, and sending to heaven.
5. The fifth excellent property is, it is a large ladder; there is room enough both for saints and angels upon this ladder. It is so large, that it enlargeth and stretcheth out itself into all lands, as do the great luminaries of heaven. This ladder is–
(1) Extensive, as it is found everywhere, Asia, Africa, or America; whether it be in the city or in the country; whether it be in public, or in private, whether in family worship, or closet retirements; in all those places believers do find this large ladder of love let down to them, and there doth Christ give them his loves (Son 7:11-12). Upon which account the apostle saith, I will that men pray everywhere, etc. (1Ti 2:8), whether in the fields, or in the villages, or in the vineyards, or under the secret places of the stairs (Son 2:14). Any place, yea a chimney corner may make a good Oratory upon this ladder, whereon Christ accounteth our voices sweet, and our countenances comely. And this ladder, Christ.
(2) It is comprehenensive to all persons; there is room enough upon this ladder for all the saints in all the nations of the world.
6. The sixth excellent property–it is a long and lofty ladder, so long as to reach from earth to heaven.
7. The seventh excellent property of this ladder is, it is a lasting, yea, an everlasting ladder. (C. Nose.)
Jacobs dream: the solution of a mystery
I. THE DUALITY OF EXISTENCE. Let us pause for a moment and contemplate our own existence; for each one of us is a little universe, a miniature representation of the great universe of which we form a part, Now, we carry within ourselves a kind of double consciousness. We have a higher nature and a lower nature, a spiritual side and a material side, an immortal element and a mortal element. It is this double consciousness that has suggested to heathen nations the existence of another world. Men of thought and reflection among them have discovered in themselves powers that can never be developed in the present life, desires that can never be satisfied by any material objects, and hence they have speculated and discoursed concerning a higher, a nobler, a more permanent state of existence. But Jacob was not left to grope after this knowledge by the light of his own reason. In this magnificent vision of the night, the truth is made known to him in all its imposing details, is revealed to him with marvellous clearness and emphatic precision. This truth is taught unto you, not by the uncertain voice of your constitution, as it was to ancient sages; not by supernatural visions, as it was to Jacob; but by the explicit and authoritative teaching of Gods word. It was a part of Christs mission, when He assumed our nature, to teach us this truth; for He brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel. He came to elevate us, by setting us free from the tyranny of sense, and directing our thoughts to things invisible. Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for the meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you.
II. THE UNITY OF EXISTENCE. We know that we possess both a material and a spiritual nature, but the point at which they come in contact it is impossible to ascertain. You have a definite reply in the text. Heaven above and earth below are connected by one great ladder. They are, therefore, not two, but one. And, behold, the Lord stood above it. The Lord of heaven is also the Lord of earth; heaven End earth are therefore united into one realm. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland contains different countries; all separate, yet all united; owing allegiance to the same sovereign. The universe is a vast united kingdom, embracing different provinces, different principalities, different powers; but all alike subject to the central government. And, behold, the angels of God ascending and descending on it. The spirit-world is very near to us, we are but one step removed from it, were our eyes opened we should perceive that it stands round about us. Indeed, we are sometimes inclined to believe that material forms are but symbolical representations of spiritual realities, that the things which are seen are but outward manifestations of the things which are not seen. Through its agony and atoning death, the way which sin had shut up has been reopened. God can have mercy upon us, can hold communion with us, can send His angels down to comfort us in our troubles, to strengthen us in our conflicts, and at last to bear our ransomed souls to glory. The unity of existence! It is a wonderful, and yet a solemn fact. All being is but one vast territory, broken up into innumerable separate parts, but all united under one sceptre. Dream not, then, that when you quit this world, you will become the subject of a different government, or become amenable to different laws. (D. Rowlands, B. A.)
A ladder of escape
A company of shipwrecked sailors cast on the coast of Scotland at the bottom of a great precipice, where the water would have broken up their vessel and drowned them, found a ladder hanging down the precipice, which they reached from their ships mast, and escaped thereby. So Christ is to us a ladder of salvation, and if we believe on Him we shall be saved from all evil, and we may rise to be holy, happy, and useful. (D. Rowlands, B. A.)
The God of Bethel
I. CONSIDER WHAT JACOB SAW.
II. CONSIDER WHAT HE HEARD.
1. I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac. It is well to have a known God, a tried God, a family God, and a fathers God; it is well to be able to say, as the Church does in the twenty-second Psalm, Our fathers trusted in Thee: they trusted, and Thou didst deliver them. It is well for you, when God looks down and sees you walking in the same path that your fathers did who are gone to heaven before you, followers of those who through faith and patience are now inheriting the promises.
2. The land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed. God had already given it by promise to Abraham, but at present he had no inheritance, not so much as to set his foot on. But as God had given it to him and his seed by promise, it was as sure as if in actual possession. Yet several hundred years were previously to elapse, and they must suffer much in Egypt, and must wander forty years in the wilderness. But what of this?
It was the land of promise; God had given them it, and nothing could hinder their possession of it.
3. 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 so it was. You know in a few years they became an innumerable people, and what millions since have descended from this one patriarch.
4. And in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. This refers to the Messiah. To them as concerning the flesh He came, God having raised up His Son, even Jesus, who delivered us from the wrath to come. In His name we are blessed with all spiritual blessings. This promise has as yet received only a partial accomplishment. Few as yet are blessed with faithful Abraham. But we read of a nation being born in a day; that all nations of the earth shall be blessed in Him; that all shall know the Lord from the least even to the greatest.
5. And, behold, I am with thee. So He is with all His people. His essential presence fills heaven and earth.
6. And will bring thee again into this land. This would be gladsome tidings to Jacob, for who is he that could not rejoice at such tidings concerning a country where he was born and bred, the residence of his most impressive years?
7. For I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. But would He leave him then? Oh no; his anxieties therefore were entirely unnecessary. Thus it is with Christians: they have exceeding great and precious promises, All yea and amen in Christ Jesus, and all of them must be fulfilled before God leaves His people. Will He leave you then? No, He will never leave you, nor forsake you, to all eternity. As your day is, so shall your strength be while here; hereafter all tears shall be wiped from your eyes.
III. OBSERVE WHAT HE DID.
1. He discovered and acknowledged what he was ignorant of before he went to sleep.
2. He confessed a privilege.
3. He reared a memorial.
4. He vowed a vow. (W. Jay.)
The vision
I. THE SITUATION OF JACOB AT THIS PRESENT TIME.
1. And, that we may understand this more accurately, let us notice his character. According to the chronology of sacred Scripture, Jacob was now more than seventy years of age; so that his character was not then to be formed. He had lived sufficiently long to develop all its reigning tendencies; and though some might be disposed to conclude, from the impropriety of his conduct on this occasion, that he was yet a stranger to God, and to the renewing influence of Divine grace, yet an accurate knowledge of human nature, and an extensive acquaintance with the errors of men of sincere piety, would hardly sanction so harsh a conclusion.
2. His affliction. A short time previously Jacob had no enemy. Behind him were the terrors of murderous revenge, and before him the uninteresting waste of an untried world. To this must be added the sorrows of separation from all that he had learned to love. These things could not but press upon him as he went out from Beer-sheba to Haran; and the distress of his heart would be in a still greater degree aggravated by the consciousness of guilt. He had defrauded his brother–he had deceived his father–he had lied unto God. The peace of conscience which he once enjoyed must have been disturbed. He could not look up with cheerful confidence towards the God of truth. Sin against God has ever had the same character and effects. It drove the angels out of heaven, and our first parents out of paradise.
3. His submission. Not a word of murmuring appears on the record–nothing of the spirit of resistance–no high rebellious contending against the providence of God; but silently he obeys the injunctions of parental authority; and with nothing but his staff, he steals unobtrusively from under his fathers roof, and enters alone upon the pilgrimage, which his misconduct had rendered necessary. There would be, however, some comfort even in the spirit of pious submission.
4. His afflicted mind would, in the midst of trial, be in some measure cheered by the expectation which he had been warranted to encourage. He was yet, as a matter of grace, encouraged to look upon himself as one whom the Lord had blessed; and it appears, that in the sorrowful hour of his departure from home, his father, fearing lest, in his exile, he should be swallowed up of overmuch sorrow, gave him even additional encouragement. He confirmed the blessing to him in language still more distinct God Almighty bless thee, and give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee. We see, then, Jacob fallen and afflicted, but submissive, penitent, and borne up by hope in the promise of God, taking his journey through the wilderness, till the shadows of evening lengthen round him–till the setting sun finds him in a solitary spot, remote from the dwellings of man; where the turf must be his bed-the circle of heaven his canopy–and one of the stones of the place his pillow; and where, if he finds comfort, it must be from a source beyond the range of human calculation. We must not attach to such a scene, in a warm climate, all the desolateness of a houseless wanderer among ourselves; but still, such a combination of circumstances wears the strong character of chastening; and we may write upon it that interesting passage of Holy Writ. Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. Jacob strove to hasten an event which he should have looked for in the regular course of Gods providence–the result is that he delays it. He aimed at the pre-eminence in his fathers house, and, in a few hours he is resting his houseless head upon a stony pillow in the wilderness. Such dispensations are highly calculated for the advancement of the spiritual character. God only can make the storm a fertilizing, rather than a desolating shower.
II. But we come to consider THE CONSOLATION WHICH WAS MERCIFULLY VOUCHSAFED TO JACOB IN HIS SOLITUDE. In the failure of all sources of earthly comfort, God generally appears most especially, for the support of those who trust in Him.
1. The obscure intimation of a gracious reconciliation with God through a mediator.
2. The second lesson inculcated in this vision was the providential protection of God. It was shown to him, that He who through a sufficient mediation was a reconciled God, would also be a father, a protector, a guide. It is scarcely possible to conceive a more kind and encouraging address, to one in the circumstances of Jacob. It is calculated to give a very exalted idea of the mercy of God, who not only blesses beyond what we ask or think; but even when we think not, meets his erring and disconsolate children with the assurances of a love that cannot be averted, and a fatherly protection that will never fail. How blessed are they who have the Lord for their God! In the midst of outward affliction and inward trial, Jacob was crowned with blessings that empire could not command, and that wealth could not buy. Let not then the pilgrim of the cross be discouraged. A rich provision is made for you–a throne of grace is open to you; a willing helper only waits, and scarcely waits, for the petition of faith, that he may give you aid. How deeply is their lot to be regretted who have never sought the Redeemer, the guardian, the guide, the comforter of Jacob!–how much is the mere man of this present world to be pitied! (E. Craig.)
Life as a ladder
It was a good while ago that a young man, sleeping one night in the open air, had a wonderful vision of a ladder that reached up all the way into heaven. Whatever else it meant, it was at least a vision of what his life might be, of what every life may be, of what every true and noble life must be. Its foot rested on the earth; and we must all start very low down. He who would ascend a ladder, puts his foot first on the lowest round. We cannot start in life at the top, but must begin at the bottom and climb up. We cannot begin as angels, nor as holy saints, nor even as moderately advanced Christians. We must begin in the most rudimentary way, with the simplest duties, just as the wisest men once sat with primer and spelling-book in hand. But this ladder was not lying all along on the earth; its foot was on the ground, but its top was up above the stars, amid the glory of Gods presence. A true life rises heavenward. It is a poor, an unworthy, life-plan that is all on the earth, that lifts no eye or thought upward, that does not take heaven into its purpose. The true life must press upward until it reaches glory. Its aim is the perfection of character. Its constant aspirations are for holiness and righteousness–Christlikeness. Its goal is heaven itself. A ladder is climbed step by step; no one leaps to the top. And no one rises to sainthood at a bound. No one gets the victory once for all over his sins and faults. It is a struggle of long years; and every day must have its own victories, if we are ever to be crowned. It may give some people considerable comfort to think of lifes course as a ladder, which one must climb slowly, step by step. A ladder is not easy to ascend. It is toilsome work to go up its rounds. It is not easy to rise Christward; it is hard, costly, painful. Railroad tracks suggest speed, but a ladder suggests slow progress. We rise upward in spiritual life, not at railway speed, nor even at the racers rate of progress, but as men go up a ladder. Then there is another side to this truth. Men do not fly up ladders; yet they go up step by step. We ought always to be making at least some progress in Christian life, as the years go on. Each day should show some slight advance in holiness, some new conquest over the evil that is in us, some besetting sin or wrong habit gotten a little more under our feet. Every fault we overcome lifts us a little higher. Every low desire, every bad habit, all longings for ignoble things, that we trample down, become ladder-rounds on which we climb upward out of grovelling and sinfulness into nobler being. There really is no other way by which we can rise upward. If we are not living victoriously these little common days, we are not making any progress. Only those who climb are getting toward the stars. Heaven is for those who overcome. Not that the struggle is to be made in our own strength, or that the victories are to be won by our own hands; there is a mighty Helper with us always on the ladder. He does not carry us up, always we must do the climbing; but He helps and cheers, putting ever new strength into the heart, and so aiding every one who truly strives in His name to do his best. The ladder did not come to an end half-way up to heaven; it reached to the very steps of Gods throne. A true life is persistent and persevering, and ends not short of glory. It is ladder, too, all the way; it does not become a plain, easy, flower lined path after a time. A really earnest and faithful Christian life never gets easy. The easy way does not lead upward; it leads always downward. Nothing worth living for can be had without pain and cost and struggle. Every step up the way to heaven is up-hill, and steep besides. Heaven always keeps above us, no matter how far we climb up toward it. However long we have been climbing, and whatever height we have reached, there are always other victories to win, other heights to gain. We shall never get to the top of the ladder until our feet are on heavens threshold. This wonderful vision-ladder was radiant with angels. We are not alone in our toilsome climbing. We have the companionship and ministry of strong friends we have never seen. Besides, the going up and coming down of these celestial messengers told of communication never interrupted between God and those who are climbing up the ladder. There is never a moment, nor any experience, in the life of a true Christian, from which a message may not instantly be sent up to God, and back to which help may not instantly come. God is not off in heaven merely, at the top of the long, steep life-ladder, looking down upon us as we struggle upward in pain and tears. As we listen, we hear Him speak to the sad, weary man who lies there at the foot of the stairway, and He says: Behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest; I will not leave thee. Not angel championship alone, precious as it is, is promised, but Divine companionship also, every step of the toilsome way, until we get home. It is never impossible, therefore, for any one to mount the ladder to the very summit; with Gods strong, loving help the weakest need never faint nor fail. (J. M. Miller, D. D.)
Jacob at Bethel
I. JACOBS DREAM.
1. When he dreamed it.
2. What the dream was.
3. What it meant.
II. JACOBS WAKING THOUGHTS.
1. Humble surprise.
2. Reverential awe.
3. A joyful discovery.
III. JACOBS VOW.
1. The preparation.
2. The vow itself. Jacob dedicates
(1) himself,
(2) his substance, to God. (J. Hambleton, M. A.)
Right principles
There comes a time when every young man or maiden must start out upon life. The seed that ripens upon the stalk must be shaken off, and be planted, and grown upon its own root. The scion is cut away from the parent branch and grafted upon another stalk. It is at the starting out in life that every one needs an inspiration, and will have it, either good or bad. It is just at this point that every one needs, in some way suited to his genius, his circumstances and condition, that there should happen to him substantially that which happened to Jacob; that in his vision (which may be upon his bed, or may be one of those waking visions which men have) there should be a ladder, which, touching the earth, connects it with heaven; and a vision of Gods angels passing between the Father and His earthly child. Let me, then, not so much preach as talk with you of your visions; and I address myself mainly to the young–to those that are just entering upon life. Shall your ladder, standing on the earth, reach to heaven? or is your ladder, in its whole length, flat along the ground? Stop one moment, and think, you who have started out, or are about starting. By ladder I mean your plans in life. Are they, all of them, lying upon the ground, or, though they begin there, do they really go up, and consciously take hold of the future and of the spiritual? Man must not avoid the world. Every ladder should stand upon the ground. The ground is a very good place to start from, but a very poor place to stop on. No man can be a Christian by separating himself from his kind. No man can be a Christian by avoiding business; and if you transact business, it must be transacted in the accustomed ways. Activity in earthly things is not inconsistent with true piety. A right industry, a right enterprise, and right ambitions in these, do not stand in the way of true religion. They not only perfectly harmonize with it, but they are indispensable to it. I can scarcely conceive of a lazy man being a Christian. Even the chronicles of those that have sought by retiring to caves, and thus separating themselves from human life, to live a Christian life, show that while they escaped from men, they did not escape from the temptations which sprang up through the passions of human nature. A human life, in its ordinary condition in Christian communities, is favourable (if one be wise enough to employ it) to the production of morality, of virtue, and of true piety. A mans ladder, then, should stand on the ground. A man that is going to be a Christian should be a man among men–joined in interest with them, sympathising in their pursuits, active in daily duties; not above the enterprise, the thoughtfulness, and the proper amount of care that belong to the worldly avocations. This is a part of the Divine economy; and those that have the romantic notion of piety, that it is something that lifts them out of the way of and away from actual worldly cares, misconceive totally the methods of Divine grace. But while mans plans in this world should be secular, and adapted to the great laws of that physical condition in which he was born, they must not end where they begin. Woe be to him that uses the earth for the earth, or whose plans are wholly material, beginning and ending in secularity and materiality; who means by fortune–riches, and nothing else; who means by power–carnal, temporal power, and nothing else; whose pleasure consists in that which addresses itself to the senses, and in nothing else. Woe be to him who lays out a plan which has nothing in it but this world. At the very time when you plant your ladder on the ground, you must see to it that it is long enough to reach, and that it does reach, and rests its top in heaven. This world and the other must be consciously connected in every true mans life. This world is shallow. Our atmosphere is smotheringly near to us. There is no manhood possible that does not recognize an existence beyond our horizon, and that does not stretch itself up into the proportions, at least ideal, which belong to it as a creature of the Infinite. And even if one were to look only upon natural results and economic courses, he is best prepared for this life who considers this life to be made up of this life and of that which is to come. In every outstarting in life it is not enough that you propose to yourself to do well in this world–your this world must reach to the other, Along every mans ladder should be seen Gods good angels. You are not at liberty to execute a good plan with bad instruments. When you lay the course of your life out before you, and say to yourself that you propose to achieve in your mortal life such and such things, it is not a matter of indifference to you how you achieve them. Gods angels must ascend and descend on your ladder, otherwise other and worse angels will. When youth first opens, if it has been Christianity instructed, I think the impulses generally are noble, and even romantic. Youth characteristically aspires to do things that are right, and to do them in a right manner. One of the earliest experiences is that of surprise and even horror at the worlds ignoble ways, and the temporary withdrawal of the young soul from its first contacts with life. Its first comprehension of actual life, and of what must be done in the world, if one would succeed, violates its romantic notion of manly truthfulness, of straightforwardness, of honourable dealings. Almost all young men come up to that period of life at which they are to break away from home, and go out into the world, with the most generous purposes. They seem inspired by truth, honesty, fidelity, enterprise, generosity, honour and even heroism. These all belong to youthful aspirations. They mean never to forsake these things. They mean to carry these qualities into their lives, and to live by them. Now these are Gods good angels to you; not that there are none better; but it may be well said that these nobler incitements, and motives, and aspirations stand along the line of a young mans plans in life as so many angelic messengers by which he purposes to work out his ideal in life. Let every one who begins life, then, have a plan along which are clearly seen noble sentiments and convictions. No plan is fit for achievement which you cannot achieve by open, honest, clean, upright Christian motives. You cannot afford to succeed by any other course. Your ladder, though standing on the ground, should rest its top in heaven; and there should be angels constantly passing between the top and the bottom. It is bad enough to have a plan that begins on earth and stays on earth; but for a man having a good plan to consent to execute it from base sentiments or by base influences, is unpardonable. Your life will task and prove you. Do not, however, let it drive away from you those influences which overhang your childhood. Have they not already gone from some of you? Has not an enamel already formed over some of your tender feelings? Have not some of you boasted of forgetfulness? Have you not boasted that you no longer remembered or were influenced by those tender impulses? and that you have strengthened yourself against them? that you have devastated, to some extent, purity, delicacy, refinement, truth, honour, justice, and rectitude? Are you not already working down toward the animal conditions of life? Do not, however, trust alone to those generous sentiments. Morality is not piety. In the vision of Jacob there was not alone the ladder between the earth and heaven, and the angels ascending and descending, but brightest, and best, and grandest, and behind all the angels, stood God, saying to him, I am thy fathers God. Now high above all a mans plans, high above all his heroic moral resolves, there is to be a living trust in God; and there is to be a soul-connection between ourselves or our business, and our God. All our life long we must not be far from Him. Piety must quicken morality; then life will be safe, and will be successful. Here, then, is a general schedule of a right life; something to do that is right; a plan by which you shall execute a right life by right instruments; and over all, the benign, genial, stimulating influence of the heavenly Father. Business, morality, piety–these three should be coupled together. They are the trinity of influences from which every one should act, and it is transcendently important that young men should find this out before they find out anything else. Blessed be that man who, going from his fathers house, and lying down to sleep, though it be upon the ground, and though the stones be under his head, sees a ladder between heaven and earth, typifying his future life, and on that ladder angels ascending and descending, and hears God saying to him, I am thy God. That is an inspiration on lifes threshold, worth any mans aspirations. (H. W.Beecher)
The comfortable vision
Four points present themselves for consideration in the spiritual meaning of this vision.
I. The perfect Manhood of our Lord Jesus Christ. The ladder was set up on the earth.
II. The eternal Godhead of our Lord Jesus Christ. The top of it reached to heaven.
III. The mediatorial character of our Lord Jesus Christ, resulting from this union of two natures in one Person. He is here represented as a ladder between earth and heaven.
IV. The communications carried on through the Mediator between earth and heaven. The angels of God were seen ascending and descending on the ladder. Prayer, grace, mercy, peace, praise–these are the messages, with which the several angels are charged respectively. (Dean Goulburn)
.
Jacobs ladder
I. The appearance is a ladder; and, now, the dullest of comprehension must at once feel that one mournful truth is here taught. We are plainly reminded of this emblem that the natural normal communication between God and man has been destroyed; and that, by the fall, this planet has been placed in a state of isolation and non-intercourse with heaven.
II. Having considered the first truth taught by this vision, let us now pass to the second, let us examine the medium which God provides to renew this intercourse, to re-establish this alliance between earth and heaven. We have spoken of a disruption, of a chasm such as no thunder ever rifted, and over this abyss angel thoughts must have often hovered in grief and dismay. And, now, can this breach never be healed? is this yawning gulf for ever impassable? Can no skill construct, no virtue, no prayers, win a path of return for a single soul? Must all hope for man be for ever buried in despair? To these questions human reason could not have given but one answer. Human reason, did I say? Cherub and seraph must have shuddered as they gazed at the rent sin had made; and, recalling a frightful tragedy among the celestial hierarchies, they must have felt that for man all was lost–not in danger of being lest–but lost, the soul lost, heaven lost, hope lost, all lost, and lost for ever. But blessed be God, hosannah to His grace; everlasting praises to Him who came to seek and to save that which was lost, these questions have been answered, and so answered that angels are lost in pondering such mercy. Eternal wisdom and power and love have solved the problem, and solved it by consecrating for us a new and living way. In the first place, observe that God, not man, is the architect of this ladder. Jacob did nothing–could do nothing–towards its construction. And so, if we have boldness to enter into the holiest, it is not by works of righteousness which we have done, but by the blood of Jesus. Mark, in the next place, the form and position of this ladder; its foot is planted on the earth, and its top reaches to heaven. A third truth taught by this remarkable vision is the freeness of salvation by Jesus. What conditions are here interposed? What fitness? What works? Between God and man there is one mediator, Jesus Christ; but between that mediator and man there is, there can be none.
III. We have thus seen that the ladder on which Jacob gazed was a type of Christ, of the mysterious interference by which heaven and earth are reconciled. It is not, however, only in this district of Gods moral dominion that so wonderful an interposition is the subject of intense and adoring interest. On this ladder the patriarch saw an order of beings far superior to man. From top to bottom it swarmed with radiant cherubim and seraphim, the angels of God ascending and descending. Ascending and descending; exulting that this new avenue has been opened; and, at once, in eager bands, pouring down to earth as ministering spirits to minister to them who are heirs of salvation. Descending; coming down to encamp about the righteous, whether they sleep or wake, and deliver them–as it is written, He shall give His angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways; they shall bear thee up in their hands lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. And ascending; now to bear the news of a sinners repentance and send a tide of rapture and gratulation along the habitations of heaven; and now to escort the soul of some Lazarus–to guard it from the prince of the power of the air, who watches like a wolf scared from his prey–to guide it on its course, some as strong-winged avant couriers, and some as convoys wafting it up to realms of peace and purity and love, to the bosom of its God. (R. Fuller.)
The vision in the wilderness
I. THE WEARY WANDERER.
1. Homeless.
2. Regretful.
3. Apprehensive.
4. Disappointed.
II. THE WONDROUS VISION.
III. THE WILLING VOW. Rather a response to God than a bargain with Him. Lessons: Note how Jacob, in this journey, may represent three stages in spiritual experience.
1. The penitent; feeling the burden of sin.
2. The believer; rejoicing, with trembling, in Gods revelation of mercy.
3. The worshipper; consecrating his whole life to the service of his God and Saviour. (W. S. Smith, B. D.)
Jacobs night at Bethel
This sacred story of Jacobs night at Bethel may serve to teach us that in our darkest and most desolate moments God may be using our trouble and despondency as a means of drawing our hearts to Him. We may find Him nearest when we thought Him farthest off. What the world would call the greatest misfortune may be found to have been sent in the greatest mercy. There is no such word as chance or accident in the inspired vocabulary of faith. Nobody but a sceptic or a misanthrope would say of himself I am as a weed, Flung from the rock on oceans foam to sail Whereer the surge may sweep, the tempests breath prevail. All places are safe, all losses are profitable, all things work together for good to them that love God. Every experience of the unsatisfactory nature of earthly things should direct us to the stronghold of hope. Every pang caused by an uneasy conscience should awaken within us a more intense longing for the peace which passeth all understanding. Out in mid-ocean there is a ship tossing on the waves. The night is dark, the winds are high. The angry elements rage and howl as if determined to tear the shattered vessel in pieces or sink it in the deep. A sailor-boy has just climbed down from the swinging mast and crept into his narrow locker, wet and cold, to get a little rest. He sleeps unconscious of the howl of the storm and the roll of the groaning ship. His heart is far away in that quiet home which he left for a roving life on the seas. He hears again the voice of evening prayer offered from the parental lips, and one fervent, tender petition bears his own name to the throne of the infinite mercy. The Sabbath bell calls, and he goes in the light of memory, with his youthful companions, along the green walks and beneath the shade of ancient trees to the village church. He hears the blessed words of Christ, Come unto Me. God is speaking to that wanderer upon the seas as He spoke to Jacob at Bethel in the dreams of the night. And that vision of home and voice of prayer is sent to that sailor-boy to make the tossing ship to him the house of God and gate of heaven. When he wakes from that brief and troubled sleep, he has only to answer the call of Heaven, as Jacob did, with the gift of his heart, and that night of tossing on the lonely seas shall be to him also the beginning of a new and a better life. Far away, among the mountains of Nevada, where of old Gods creative hand locked up veins of gold in the fissures of the rock, the weary miner lies down in his cheerless cabin to sleep. It is the evening of the blessed Sabbath, and yet to him it has not been a day of rest. Work, work, work, with hammer and spade and drill, from morn to eve, through all the week, has been his life for months and years. His calloused hands, and stiffened frame, and weary step, tell of hardships such as few can bear and live. And he has borne them all–with heat and cold, and rain and drought, and famine and fever–that he might fill his hands with gold. And now, in this wakeful and lonely hour, something impels him to ask himself what all the treasures of the mountains would be worth to him if he had not found rest for his soul. To that tired, Sabbathless worker in his solitude comes a gentle influence, as if it were an angels whisper, to tell him of riches that never perish, and of a home where the weary are at rest. Thus, all round the earth–on the sea and the land, in the city and the wilderness, by night and by day–God is calling wanderers home. (D. March, D. D.)
The angels of God ascending and descending on it
Ascending and descending angels
I. The first white-winged angel whom I ask you to look in the face is ADVANCEMENT. From our earliest to our latest years personal advancement is a keen and noble satisfaction. It is the antagonism which we have to overcome which makes our effort interesting and meritorious. When we strive to go up, the force of gravitation pulls us back. The inertia of our own bodies must be overcome; the lungs, heart, and brain must be subjected to a greater pressure. And it is just so in our moral life. Therefore the saint says, It was good for me that I was afflicted. Therefore we teach that discontent is a good thin, g, that languorous situations are to be avoided, and that a repletion of any sort is dangerous to the soul. Just as soon as a man feels that there is no need for further effort, his angel descends. Perhaps one reason why the angels of little children always behold the face of their Father who is in heaven is because children grow so fast and hunger so after knowledge, and ask questions so far-reaching that they puzzle their too often motionless elders. Biology teaches that, in the life below our own, the life of the animals, when some function which has been long and sorely striven for, perhaps through countless generations, gets fixed in the order of life, its action becomes automatic, and is no longer a factor in the mental outreaching of the individual. It is so also with man. You may be advanced beyond your neighbours in generosity of belief, in the strictness of your veracity, in the extent of your benevolence; but if you are simply carrying out the spiritual functions which your ancestors organized in you by toil and tears, if your faith, truthfulness, charity, cost you no effort, no upward strain, it is not accounted to you for righteousness. And then we learn from science that everything which can become merely mechanical has its day and ceases to be. Only that which is subject to perpetual change can survive.
II. The next angel is MORALITY. Even morality in us is not always ascending. It proceeds or recedes. How many times in the worlds history all rights have been determined and all moralities squared! To-day nothing is more alarming to most people than the notion that right has been a variable thing with the growing ages. Conscience is the voice of God in the soul of man; but how has that soul of man echoed and contorted the voice! The sense of the right is growing, as it long has grown in the race. Except it is growing in you, as an individual, so that you feel its birth-pangs, and struggle with them, it is not an ascending angel for you. Morality is an angel anywhere–in African jungles, where it keeps a man from killing the members of his household unless they are old or sick, and in the best neighbour you can call to mind, who is too honourable to take an unfair advantage of another. Cicero was moral; and we are told that Brutus was an houourable man. But the stride which morality took from these Roman heroes to Abraham Lincoln is a very marked one, known and read of all men. Thirty years since it was immoral in America not to respect the physical rights of white men. To-day it is immoral not to maintain the rights of men, whatever their colour. After a little it will be accounted simply moral to give woman her rights, the custody of her own child, the control of her own earnings and clothes, the right to express an opinion as to how much she shall be taxed, how much of her property the public may appropriate, the right to as much civil consideration as the ignorant Irishman receives who cracks stone on the road. Some time we shall so enlarge the boundaries of morality that men will be forbidden to enslave the minds of their fellows, that they may appropriate their property through the larceny of their brains. Some time it will be thought as dastardly a deed to slowly unnerve and stamp out men by whiskey as it was to poison them with wines, perfumes, roses, and fans in the soft days of luxurious Rome. Some time a man who simply does so much right as custom exacts, who clamours for the letter, as Shylock for the word of the bond, shall be a byword and a hissing; for the only claim you can lay upon the future springs from your individual advance upon the sense of morality you have inherited.
III. The third angel is INSPIRATION. Of what avail is the evolution of our life below, and the growth of conduct into better and best, if the Holy Spirit does not occasionally hold us as the pledge of eternal possession? For, of course, by inspiration here I mean the filling of your soul and mine with the sweetest assurance. The inspiration which made our sacred volume, which long since scented and winged a poet soul in Persia, so that its orisons flew to our day and clime, which made great India like a sandal-wood chest out of which come to-day poems and teachings, fragrantly preserved, is only as a faded nosegay which your aged mother shows as a souvenir of her young days, only as a pathetic glove which a century since eased a young hand which soon was dust. But to you there may come an exhilaration before which clover-scented mornings are but a passing dream. The descending angel of inspiration is going down now to trouble the waters of ancient Siloam, hovering with a ghosts dead hands over interpretations of Scripture long since palsied through disuse, raising again the widows son by the gate of Nain. The ascending angel is wreathing with an electric flush the human pillar of integrity; it is steadying mans moral nerve to translate correctly all that observers see in nature and life; it is lifting from the dead past capacities which have lapsed in us, in our forward march, and restoring to man an equable health of body and soul, a confidence in an all-round Providence, which will make us patient and calm, and a power of knowing much which is unseen, as animals know, and even inanimate life, but which is as dropped stitches in our life. The angel of inspiration bids us look up, and calls, Come; but, in looking and going upward, we lift the world with us. Believe that inspiration is ahead of you and within. It is a messenger of God. It is the crown of effort and of purity. It does not descend with family heirlooms, mental or moral. It is the gift of God to the individual. There are many angels besides those I have named. Belief is one, if it is allied to inspiration; but let these three lead you–Advancement, Morality, Inspiration. They can open to you abiding joys of which my word is but a feeble hint:–
Around your lifetime golden ladders rise;
And up and down the skies,
With winged sandals shod,
The angels come and go, the messengers of God.
(A. S.Nickerson.)
Angelic ministries
I. The most obvious truth herein conveyed s, of course, the constant presence and activity of the inhabitants of heaven; and indeed it is the general tenor of Scripture that God acts upon us men by and through the angelic host. The providence of God, says Bishop Bull, in the government of this lower world, is in a great part administered by the holy angels. These, as Philo terms them, are the ears and eyes of the Universal King. The expression alludes to the government of earthly monarchs, who have their deputies in all parts of their dominion, who are, as it were, the eyes by which they see and the hands by which they act. Now, if we learn to believe in the principle that God deals with us through the ministrations of angels, we shall have to believe also that we ourselves are in these days the subject of these ministrations, although we behold them not. It is not empty space between earth and heaven; the pathways of the air are filled like the roads and avenues of this world. The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels. Bound upon unnumbered missions, they hurry to and fro, those swift and shining forms; now to superintend a kingdoms welfare, now to hold up a monarchs steps; now to guard the head of some mighty chief in the shock of battle, now to wait beside the sick bed of some houseless poor one, to suggest thoughts of peace to the heart racked with pain and care; and eventually, when the last sand has run out, to waft the liberated soul to the green pastures and the still waters of paradise: for have we not read how it is that they receive us into the everlasting habitations? And it is as revealing this general and universal law that the dream of Jacob is especially remarkable. What he saw then is always, unceasingly, going on. Ascending and descending I From the beginning of the worlds history until now that ever-moving host have been rushing to and fro, unseen, save by him who slumbered on the couch of stone. He called the place Bethel, and supposed that the particular spot on which he rested was opposite to the gate of heaven. Ah! vain imagination! in every quarter of creation the same dazzling scene is being enacted. From every part of the firmament are ever, ever issuing those watchers and holy ones. No foot of earth is unvisited by them, no tract of air is unswept by their forms of fire. In the bright sunshine they are with us; in the stilly hours of slumber they keep sentinel watch around us. Do you ask bow it happens that we feel them not? Yea, sirs, do we not feel their influence? Have we never experienced strong and irresistible impulses upon our minds to do certain things, impulses which we cannot explain, but which the event proves to have been for our good? Have we never been diverted, by sudden and unexpected accidents cast in our way, from going on some journey which, if we had pursued, we learn afterwards, would have been productive of loss of life or limb? What strange ominous forebodings and fears ofttimes seize upon men of the strongest minds, warnings of approaching perils or of coming death, warnings which, if listened unto, would enable many a man to prepare for his meeting with God. And all these things we would have you attribute to nothing less than the care and tenderness of those guardian spirits, who are never far absent from the heirs of salvation. And is there nothing more? Have we not seen or read of death-beds where the sufferer hath been soothed by whisperings unheard by other ears, and charmed with the melody of strains which none could catch save the parting soul? Oh, men and brethren, call it not what the infidel calls it, the wanderings of a disordered mind. Rather believe that angel-guards are verily near, nerving the soul in the last agony, and beckoning onwards to its rest. Rather believe that, as the earthly house of this tabernacle decays, the immortal spirit gets closer converse with celestial things. Rather learn to hope that ye too, when your last hour arrives, and ye stand trembling on the brink of eternity, may be calmed and encouraged by the sight of the ministers of grace, and see in a measure what Jacob saw of old, the angels of God ascending and descending around you.
II. If we take the vision as designed to instruct the mind of the patriarch as to angelic ministries, we cannot suppose the ladder planted upon the earth to be without significance. What, then, may we hence learn? what further light is hence thrown upon the mysterious subject of spiritual agency? Now, the first truth conveyed to us has reference, we think, to the nature of angels. Jacob saw angels ascending and descending, but he saw this descent and ascent accomplished by a ladder. There was an external and independent instrumentality. The language of Scripture does not teach us to regard the angels as purely spiritual creatures. It is probably the peculiar property of God alone to be entirely immaterial. God, it is emplastically declared, is a Spirit. He, and none beside Him, is wholly without bodily parts. It is, indeed, said of the Almighty, He maketh His angels spirits; but we are not hence to conclude that they have no body at all. When the term spirit is employed to denote the angelic nature, we must take it in a lower sense, to denote their exemption from those gross and earthly bodies which the inhabitants of this world possess. They are not flesh and blood, as we are; nor is their substance like any of those things that fall under our observation. Yet have they a body, subject, it would appear, to the action of time; for in the Book of Daniel the angel Gabriel declares that the command was given him to visit the prophet when he began his supplications; and it is added that, flying swiftly, he came to him and touched him about the hour of the evening sacrifice. Now, it is the proper attribute of a body, as distinguished from a pure spirit, to require time to convey itself from one locality to another. God is a Spirit, a perfect Spirit, and He is everywhere at once; a body cannot be in more than one spot at a time. The angels, then, we conclude, have bodies, but bodies of a most refined and glorious quality. The bodies of angels, we may conceive, are spiritual bodies; not like ours, sluggish and inactive, incapable of keeping pace with the nimble and rapid movements of the mind, but of a wonderful subtlety, travelling with an inconceivable velocity, possessed of stupendous power. Jacob saw them ascending and descending upon a ladder, spanning the space between heaven and earth. He did not behold them moving about in an instant, everywhere at once; there was the appearance of a material communication, just such as beings with bodies would require. To delineate purely spiritual creatures as ascending and descending upon a ladder would be an absurdity. The introduction of a ladder into the patriarchs dream is an intimation that the angels, though vastly more glorious than men, are yet utterly unlike God in their nature; that they are not, in short, quite free from the burden of matter. And it may be that higher truths still are taught by the erection of that mystic ladder, whose foot was upon the ground, and its top reaching unto heaven. We cannot wholly dissever the text from a remarkable speech of our blessed Lord. Hereafter, said Christ, shall ye see the heavens opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. The Redeemer Himself steps forward as the interpreter of Jacobs dream, and represents Himself as fulfilling the type of the ladder which arrested the patriarchs gaze. And it is not hard to understand how this may be. For is it not through Christ, and for His merits, that the communication between man and God was not quite cut off at Adams fall? Was it not for Christs sake alone that the Almighty did not utterly excommunicate the race of men, and shut up His compassions from them? Indeed, indeed, if there has been angelic guardianship extended to the saints, if the seraphim and cherubim have busied themselves with this lower world, it has only been because Christ Jesus has vouchsafed to take our nature upon Him. He has been the Way. As none of us can come to the Father save by Him, so neither angel nor archangel can visit us save by Him. (Bishop Woodford.)
The Incarnation a helpful fact
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 grey 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 tract over the hills 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 rain 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 cock-crow, nor is He who connects us with God shy of human handling, but substantial as ourselves. (M. Doris, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
It is not strange that Jacob went alone, as it appears that he did from Gen 32:10, when his grandfathers servant was attended with a so great retinue, Gen 24:1-67, because attendance was then necessary to procure him reputation, and to obtain the consent of the virgin and her parents to long a journey; but here, as it was unnecessary, so it would have been troublesome and prejudicial, exposing him both to the envy and snares of his brother Esau, which by this private departure he did avoid. Besides, God in his wise providence did so order this, and some other matters of the like nature, for the greater illustration of his care and kindness towards his children. Add to this the great simplicity, humility, and innocency of those times, if compared with ours, which made many things then usual which now would be ridiculous.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
10. Jacob went out, c.Hisdeparture from his father’s house was an ignominious flight and forfear of being pursued or waylaid by his vindictive brother, he didnot take the common road, but went by lonely and unfrequented paths,which increased the length and dangers of the journey.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And Jacob went out from Beersheba,…. Where Isaac and Rebekah now lived: from hence he went alone, without any servants to attend him, though perhaps not without letters of recommendation from his parents, testifying their affection to him, and that he came with their knowledge and consent, and was their heir, as Isaac had been to Abraham; nor without provisions, at least not without money to purchase them by the way, as appears by the oil he had, Ge 28:18:
and went toward Haran: for thither he could not get in one day, being many days’ journey; [See comments on Ge 28:5].
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Jacob’s Dream at Bethel. – As he was travelling from Beersheba, where Isaac was then staying (Gen 26:25), to Haran, Jacob came to a place where he was obliged to stop all night, because the sun had set. The words “ he hit (lighted) upon the place, ” indicate the apparently accidental, yet really divinely appointed choice of this place for his night-quarters; and the definite article points it out as having become well known through the revelation of God that ensued. After making a pillow with the stones ( , head-place, pillow), he fell asleep and had a dream, in which he saw a ladder resting upon the earth, with the top reaching to heaven; and upon it angels of God going up and down, and Jehovah Himself standing above it. The ladder was a visible symbol of the real and uninterrupted fellowship between God in heaven and His people upon earth. The angels upon it carry up the wants of men to God, and bring down the assistance and protection of God to men. The ladder stood there upon the earth, just where Jacob was lying in solitude, poor, helpless, and forsaken by men. Above in heaven stood Jehovah, and explained in words the symbol which he saw. Proclaiming Himself to Jacob as the God of his fathers, He not only confirmed to him all the promises of the fathers in their fullest extent, but promised him protection on his journey and a safe return to his home (Gen 28:13-15). But as the fulfilment of this promise to Jacob was still far off, God added the firm assurance, “ I will not leave thee till I have done (carried out) what I have told thee.”
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Jacob’s Vision at Bethel. | B. C. 1760. |
10 And Jacob went out from Beer-sheba, and went toward Haran. 11 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. 12 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. 13 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; 14 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. 15 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.
We have here Jacob upon his journey towards Syria, in a very desolate condition, like one that was sent to seek his fortune; but we find that, though he was alone, yet he was not alone, for the Father was with him, John xvi. 32. If what is here recorded happened (as it should seem it did) the first night, he had made a long day’s journey from Beersheba to Bethel, above forty miles. Providence brought him to a convenient place, probably shaded with trees, to rest himself in that night; and there he had,
I. A hard lodging (v. 11), the stones for his pillows, and the heavens for his canopy and curtains. As the usage then was, perhaps this was not so bad as it seems how to us; but we should think, 1. He lay very cold, the cold ground for his bed, and, which one would suppose made the matter worse, a cold stone for his pillow, and in the cold air. 2. Very uneasy. If his bones were sore with his day’s journey, his night’s rest would but make them sorer. 3. Very much exposed. He forgot that he was fleeing for his life; or had his brother, in his rage, pursued, or sent a murderer after him, here he lay ready to be sacrificed, and destitute of shelter and defence. We cannot think it was by reason of his poverty that he was so ill accommodated, but, (1.) It was owing to the plainness and simplicity of those times, when men did not take so much state, and consult their ease so much, as in these later times of softness and effeminacy. (2.) Jacob had been particularly used to hardships, as a plain man dwelling in tents; and, designing now to go to service, he was the more willing to inure himself to them; and, as it proved, it was well, ch. xxxi. 40. (3.) His comfort in the divine blessing, and his confidence in the divine protection, made him easy, even when he lay thus exposed; being sure that his God made him to dwell in safety, he could lie down and sleep upon a stone.
II. In his hard lodging he had a pleasant dream. Any Israelite indeed would be willing to take up with Jacob’s pillow, provided he might but have Jacob’s dream. Then, and there, he heard the words of God, and saw the visions of the Almighty. It was the best night’s sleep he ever had in his life. Note, God’s time to visit his people with his comforts is when they are most destitute of other comforts, and other comforters; when afflictions in the way of duty (as these were) do abound, then shall consolations so much the more abound. Now observe here,
1. The encouraging vision Jacob saw, v. 12. He saw a ladder which reached from earth to heaven, the angels ascending and descending upon it, and God himself at the head of it. Now this represents the two things that are very comfortable to good people at all times, and in all conditions:– (1.) The providence of God, by which there is a constant correspondence kept up between heaven and earth. The counsels of heaven are executed on earth, and the actions and affairs of this earth are all known in heaven are executed on earth, and the actions and affairs of this earth are all known in heaven and judged there. Providence does its work gradually, and by steps. Angels are employed as ministering spirits, to serve all the purposes and designs of Providence, and the wisdom of God is at the upper end of the ladder, directing all the motions of second causes to the glory of the first Cause. The angels are active spirits, continually ascending and descending; they rest not, day nor night, from service, according to the posts assigned them. They ascend, to give account of what they have done, and to receive orders; and then descend, to execute the orders they have received. Thus we should always abound in the work of the Lord, that we may do it as the angels do it, Psa 103:20; Psa 103:21. This vision gave very seasonable comfort to Jacob, letting him know that he had both a good guide and a good guard, in his going out and coming in,–that, though he was made to wander from his father’s house, yet still he was the care of a kind Providence, and the charge of the holy angels. This is comfort enough, though we should not admit the notion which some have, that the tutelar angels of Canaan were ascending, having guarded Jacob out of their land, and the angels of Syria descending to take him into their custody. Jacob was now the type and representative of the whole church, with the guardianship of which the angels are entrusted. (2.) The mediation of Christ. He is this ladder, the foot on earth in his human nature, the top in heaven in his divine nature: or the former in his humiliation, the latter in his exaltation. All the intercourse between heaven and earth, since the fall, is by this ladder. Christ is the way; all God’s favours come to us, and all our services go to him, by Christ. If God dwell with us, and we with him, it is by Christ. We have no way of getting to heaven, but by this ladder; if we climb up any other way we are thieves and robbers. To this vision our Saviour alludes when he speaks of the angels of God ascending and descending upon the son of man (John i. 51); for the kind offices the angels do us, and the benefits we receive by their ministration, are all owing to Christ, who has reconciled things on earth and things in heaven (Col. i. 20), and made them all meet in himself, Eph. i. 10.
2. The encouraging words Jacob heard. God now brought him into the wilderness, and spoke comfortably to him, spoke from the head of the ladder; for all the glad tidings we receive from heaven come through Jesus Christ.
(1.) The former promises made to his father were repeated and ratified to him, Gen 28:13; Gen 28:14. In general, God intimated to him that he would be the same to him that he had been to Abraham and Isaac. Those that tread in the steps of their godly parents are interested in their covenant and entitled to their privileges. Particularly, [1.] The land of Canaan is settled upon him, the land whereon thou liest; as if by his lying so contentedly upon the bare ground he had taken livery and seisin of the whole land. [2.] It is promised him that his posterity should multiply exceedingly as the dust of the earth–that, though he seemed now to be plucked off as a withered branch, yet he should become a flourishing tree, that should send out his boughs unto the sea. These were the blessings with which his father had blessed him (Gen 28:3; Gen 28:4), and God here said Amen to them, that he might have strong consolation. [3.] It is added that the Messiah should come from his loins, in whom all the families of the earth should be blessed. Christ is the great blessing of the world. All that are blessed, whatever family they are of, are blessed in him, and none of any family are excluded from blessedness in him, but those that exclude themselves.
(2.) Fresh promises were made him, accommodated to his present condition, v. 15. [1.] Jacob was apprehensive of danger from his brother Esau; but God promises to keep him. Note, Those are safe whom god protects, whoever pursues them. [2.] He had now a long journey before him, had to travel alone, in an unknown road, to an unknown country; but, behold, I am with thee, says God. Note, Wherever we are, we are safe, and may be easy, if we have God’s favourable presence with us. [3.] He knew not, but God foresaw, what hardships he should meet with in his uncle’s service, and therefore promises to preserve him in all places. Note, God knows how to give his people graces and comforts accommodated to the events that shall be, as well as to those that are. [4.] He was now going as an exile into a place far distant, but God promises him to bring him back again to this land. Note, He that preserves his people’s going out will also take care of their coming in, Ps. cxxi. 8. [5.] He seemed to be forsaken of all his friends, but God here gives him this assurance, I will not leave thee. Note, Whom God loves he never leaves. This promise is sure to all the seed, Heb. xiii. 5. [6.] Providences seemed to contradict the promises; he is therefore assured of the performance of them in their season: All shall be done that I have spoken to thee of. Note, Saying and doing are not two things with God, whatever they are with us.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Verses 10-15:
Jacob set out to Haran, in obedience to his father’s direction, and also to his mother’s warning. He likely took the common caravan route, much as did Eliezer many years earlier on his mission to Haran. How many days he traveled before arriving at the site of his wondrous dream is not known. The location is about three hours walk north of Jerusalem, near a village then known as Luz. For some reason Jacob did not enter the village to seek shelter. He may have feared the local inhabitants. Or he may have anticipated that Esau might pursue him and overtake him there and kill him. He made his solitary bed in a camp outside the town, using a stone for a pillow.
As he slept, Jacob had a dream. In his dream he saw a ladder, sullam, or a staircase, reaching from earth to heaven to form a means of communication for angels to link heaven and earth. Joh 1:51 for Jesus’ words regarding this angelic ministry.
This “ladder” is symbolic of the Son of man, who alone forms the means of reaching from earth to heaven. He makes possible the communication between God in his glory and man in his sin.
Jehovah spoke from heaven in Jacob’s vision, and reaffirmed the Covenant which He had made with Abraham, renewed in Isaac, and now confirmed in Jacob. He continued the promise that Abraham’s seed, through Jacob, should be without number. The “dust-of the earth” refers to the literal descendants of Jacob. As a part of this confirmation, Jehovah promised to bring Jacob back to this Land, and that He would be with him wherever he would go.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
10. And Jacob went out. In the course of this history we must especially observe, how the Lord preserved his own Church in the person of one man. For Isaac, on account of his age, lay like a dry trunk; and although the living root of piety was concealed within his breast, yet no hope of further offspring remained in his exhausted and barren old age. Esau, like a green and flourishing branch, had much of show and splendor, but his vigor was only momentary. Jacob, as a severed twig, was removed into a far distant land; not that, being ingrafted or planted there, he should acquire strength and greatness, but that, being moistened with the dew of heaven, he might put forth his shoots as into the air itself. For the Lord wonderfully nourishes him, and supplies him with strength, until he shall bring him back again to his father’s house. Meanwhile, let the reader diligently observe, that while he who was blessed by God is cast into exile; occasion of glorying was given to the reprobate Esau, who was left in the possession of everything, so that he might securely reign without a rival. Let us not, then, be disturbed, if at any time the wicked sound their triumphs, as having gained their wishes, while we are oppressed. Moses mentions the name of Beersheba, because, as it formed one of the boundaries of the land of Canaan, and lay towards the great desert and the south, it was the more remote from the eastern region towards which Jacob was going. He afterwards adds Charran, (Gen 29:1,) where Abraham, when he left his own country, dwelt for some time. Now, it appears that not only the pious old man Terah, when he followed his son, or accompanied him on his journey, came to Charran where he died; but that his other son Nahor, with his family, also came to the same place. For we read in the eleventh chapter (Gen 11:1,) that Terah took his son Abraham, and Lot his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law. Whence we infer that Nahor, at that time, remained in Chaldea, his native country. But now, since Moses says, that Laban dwelt at Charran, we may hence conjecture, that Nahor, in order that he might not appear guilty of the inhumanity of deserting his father, afterwards gathered together his goods and came to him.
Moses here, in a few words, declares what a severe and arduous journey the holy man (Jacob) had, on account of its great length: to which also another circumstance is added; namely, that he lay on the ground, under the open sky, without a companion, and without a habitation. But as Moses only briefly alludes to these facts, so will I also avoid prolixity, as the thing speaks for itself. Wherefore, if, at any time, we think ourselves to be roughly treated, let us remember the example of the holy man, as a reproof to our fastidiousness.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
CRITICAL NOTES.
Gen. 28:11. And he lighted upon a certain place.] The term means he fell upon the place, as the providential stopping-place incidentally coming upon it, or coming up to it, as the lodging place for the night. This place was about forty-eight miles from Beersheba, and eight miles north of Jerusalem, near the town of Bethel, and is defined as the place from its being so well known in the history. (Jacobus.)
Gen. 28:12. A ladder.] Whether it was the vision of a common ladder or flight of steps, or whether, as some suppose, it was a pile of mountain terraces, matters little. The flight of steps hewn in the rocky sides of the mountain near Tyre, on the edge of the Mediterranean, is called the ladder of Tyre. (Jacobus.)
Gen. 28:17. How dreadful is this place!] Heb. Awe-inspiring, commonly rendered fearful or terrible. (Jacobus.)
Gen. 28:18. Took the stone.] A collective singular for stones, as it appears from Gen. 28:11 that there was more than one of them. Poured oil upon the top of it.] This was an act of consecration to God.
Gen. 28:19. And he called the name of that place Beth-el.] This name means the house of God, and was not now for the first time given. Abraham also worshipped God here, and found that the place already bore this name. (Gen. 12:8; Gen. 13:3; Gen. 25:30.) But the name of that city was called Luz at the first. The city in the immediate neighbourhood was, at the time, called Luz. The descendants of the patriarchs transferred the name of Bethel to that city. The Canaanites, not caring for this, continued to call it Luz, which was retained till Joshua occupied the land. Bethel, the holy place, is distinguished from Luz, the city. (Kurtz).
Gen. 28:20. If God will be with me, and keep me in the way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and raiment to pat on.] This is not making any condition with God, for this is only a recital of the promise, and is more properly rendered sinceinasmuch as. It expresses no doubt or contingency. I, if I be lifted up, means as surely as I shall be lifted up. And so hereas surely as God will be with me (has promised to be). (Jacobus.)
Gen. 28:21. Then shall the Lord be my God.] And (so surely as) he shall be my God, my covenant Godthe same as He has been to Abraham and Isaac, so shall this stone. (Hengstenberg.)
Gen. 28:22. Gods house. A place sacred to the memory of Gods presenceas a place where He manifested Himself. The apostle calls the Church the pillar and ground of the truth, alluding to this passage. (1Ti. 3:14.) (Jacobus.)
Gen. 28:22. I will surely give the tenth unto thee.] After the example of Abraham. (Gen. 14:20.) The number ten, being the last of the cardinal numbers, expresses the idea of perfection.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Gen. 28:10-22
JACOBS VISION
I. It was vouchsafed to him in a time of inward and outward trouble. The sense of his sin is now lying hard upon Jacob. He had been guilty of deceit, had incurred the anger of his brother, and disturbed the peace of his fathers household. He had claimed his title to the blessing in a self-righteous frame of mind, and gained admission for that claim by unrighteous means. As long as he is supported by his mothers sympathy and by the excitement of success, he feels but little sense of shame and sorrow. But this is the time with him of outward trouble; and the thought of his sin is forced upon him, and he has also inward trouble. He who had never left his fathers house before, for whom everything was provided, now becomes a wanderer. He is left all alone on an untried journey. He set out in the sunshine, and as he was young and vigorous he could keep his spirits from sinking under despondency. But now night comes on. He has no tent, no pillow. He is alone with himself, all seems desolate around him, and he is like one forsaken. A sense of sin rests upon his soul, and a vague dread of unknown terrors. It was thus when everything in life seemed against him that this vision was vouchsafed.
II. It satisfied all his necessities. I. His spiritual necessities.
(1) It assured him that heaven and earth were not separated by an impassable gulf. Sin has created a distance between God and man. Men feel this when they think at all upon the subject. They think upon the righteous character, and sadly feel that they are not so with God. Jacob felt now that he had sinned, the heavens seemed to him as brassno opening there, no voice or sign from God above. He himself was oppressed by a sense of sin, and dared not look up. Then it was that this dream assured him that there was no necessity for despair, that heaven and earth, the sinners soul and God could yet be brought near together.
(2) It assured him that there was a way of reconciliation between God and man. The gulf was bridged over. There was a way of communication between heaven and earth, in both directions, so that the love of heaven was sent down and the answer of the human heart was returned. Not only was the way to heaven opened, but it proved to be a well-trodden path. Messengers of mercy were descending from the highest heaven, and thankful prayers and praises were ascending thither.
3. It assured him that the love of God was above all the darkness of human sin and evil. God was at the top of this ladder (Gen. 28:13). The Lord above, and the object of His mercy beneath, and a way of communication opened up between both. Thus God is the author of salvation, and we are accepted through a Mediator.
4. It imparted to him the blessings of a revelation from God. The Lord spake to Jacob, renewing the old promises made to his father Abraham, and assuring him that he would have protection to the end (Gen. 28:13-15). It is revelation when God speaks to man. We cannot know the mind and purpose of God concerning us unless He thus declares Himself. Good things might have been prepared for us through the mercy of God, and yet we might have been unaware of them until He was pleased to make them known. There are those who say that we can have no revelation from heaven. But can we deny to God the right to speak and declare Himselfa right which we willingly concede to all His intelligent creatures? We are not left to draw rational, and too often precarious, inferences from the known dealings of God; but we have the advantage of a distinct declaration of His mind. We Christians have heard the voice of God through His word. We have heard His exceeding great and precious promises. We have a laddera way of reconciliation to God through Christ, who unites the human with the divine. Through and by Him we have access to the Father. Our prayers have free course to ascend to heaven, and the Holy Spirit descends into our hearts to inspire them. In the incarnation, God is no longer at the head of the ladder but at the foot, brought quite near to us, seeing that we have God manifest in the flesh.
III. It revealed the awful solemnity of human life. When Jacob awaked out of his sleep, he said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. And 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. (Gen. 28:16-17.) Things that were regarded hitherto as common are now invested with an awful interest and significance, and are felt to be pervaded by a Divine presence. Such is human life when God awakens us to a sense of the reality of things. We may pass through this life quite thoughtlessly, but when we begin to think seriously, then life becomes solemn. Mystery lies on all sides of us. Whence are we? Whither do we tend? This life of ours is touched, overshadowed, and informed by a higher life. When God opens the eye of our soul, we need not travel far to some holy shrine to draw near before Him; for we are already in His house, and at the very gate of heaven. When this dream of life is over, we shall waken up to the true reality of things.
IV. It resulted in Jacobs conversion. Jacob before this time was a worldly man. He was of the earth, earthy. Now his character is changed, not only outwardly, but inwardly. He becomes a spiritual man. All things are now seen in a new light. To know the realities of God, not from tradition, or as the fruit of speculation, but from a heartfelt and true knowledge, is the conversion of our soul. Balaam felt that Israel was a righteous nation, and that Jacob was a righteous man, when he said, Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his. He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel: the Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them. (Num. 23:10-21.) This vision is Jacobs conversion, and his conduct afterwards gives evidence of that great change.
1. He erected a memorial of the event. He marked the spot, so that he might ever be reminded of that solemn night. Thus the impressions of the whole scene would be fixed deep in his mind for ever. The value of forms lie in the fact that they give us something material to rest upon. Where God has revealed himself to us is our holy place, our Bethel.
2. He resolved to make God supreme in all his thoughts and actions. Then shall the Lord be my God. (Gen. 28:21.) Henceforward he would not worship honour, pleasure, or the world. He would respect all the rights of God, and make a full surrender of himself and of his worldly substance. (Gen. 28:22.) He is now altogether a devoted man; being no longer his own, but belonging to God. To have the Lord for our God is something more than an impression or a saying. It is the doing of His will. Knowledge and feeling are converted into action.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Gen. 28:10. Jacobs departure from his fathers house formed a striking contrast with the pompous mission which had been sent to the same country when a wife was to be procured for Isaac. Without a servant to attend him, or a beast to carry him, being provided only with a staff to walk with (as he afterwards informs us), he pursues his solitary way. (Gen. 32:10.) We here behold the heir of the promise, the chosen servant of God, in whose loins were an elect people, and many powerful kings, whose history was to occupy so large a space in the book of God; in whom all the families of the earth were to be blessed; a forlorn wanderer, banished from his fathers house, his whole inheritance his staff in his hand. But the sequel informs us that in the midst of this scene of outer and inner darkness God was graciously preparing a message of peace and joy for His exiled servant.(Bush.)
Gen. 28:11. He lighted upon a certain place, little thinking to have found heaven there. Let this comfort travellers and friends that part with them. Jacob never lay better than when he lay without-doors; nor yet slept sweeter than when he laid his head upon a stone. (Trapp.)
Jacob, in this wretched condition on his journey, is a symbol of the Messiah. Christ had not where to lay his head. (Lange.)
A solemn conviction is stealing over Jacob of what life is, a struggle which each man must make in self dependence. He is fairly afloat like a young swimmer, without corks, striking out for his life; dependant on self for defence, guidance, choice. Childhood is a state of dependence; but man passes from the state of dependence into that in which he must stand alone. It is a solemn crisis, because the way in which it is met often decides the character of the future life.(Robertson.)
Probably Jacob found the gates of the city shut upon his arrival, and was obliged to spend the night in the open air. In the time of their darkest calamity God comes to the aid of His servants.
Perhaps the declining sun never withdrew its light from one more deep in gloom than Jacob when he paused at Luz. The canopy of heaven was his only roofthe bare earth his couchthe rugged stone his pillow. Instead of a tender mothers tender care, he had hardness in its hardest form. The Lord, whose love is wisdom, and whose wisdom is love, leads His children into depths for their good; but leaves them not in depths to their hurt. It was so with Jacob. It will be so, while saints on earth need to be brought low, that they may more securely rise. (Christ is All, by Archdeacon Law.)
Gen. 28:12. God made a direct communication to his soul. He lay down to sleep, and he dreamed. We know what dreams are. They are strange combinations of our waking thoughts in fanciful forms, and we may trace in Jacobs previous journey the groundwork of his dream. He looked up all day to heaven as he trudged along, the glorious expanse of an Oriental sky was around him, a quivering, trembling, mass of blue; but he was alone, and, when the stars came out, melancholy sensations were his, such as youth frequently feels in the autumn time. Deep questionings beset him. Time he felt was fleeting. Eternity, what was it? Life, what a mystery! And all this took form in his dream. Thus far, all was natural; the supernatural in this dream was the manner in which God impressed it upon his heart. Similar dreams we have often had; but the remembrance of them has often faded away. Conversion is the impression made by circumstances, and that impression lasting for life; it is God the Spirits work upon the soul.(Robertson).
Our Saviour applies these words to Himself, the true ladder of life, through whom alone we are able to ascend to heaven (Joh. 1:51). He that will go up any other way must, as the emperor once said, erect a ladder and go up alone. He touched heaven, in respect to His Deity; earth in respect of His humanity; and joined earth to heaven, by reconciling man to God. Gregory speaks elegantly of Christ, that he joined heaven and earth together, as with a bridge; being the only true Pontifex, or bridge-maker. Heaven is now open and obvious to them that acknowledge Him their sole Mediator, and lay hold, by the hand of faith, on His merits, as the rounds of this heavenly ladder. These only ascend; that is, their consciences are drawn out of the depths of despair, and put into heaven, as it were, by pardon and peace with God, rest sweetly in His bosom, calling Him Abba, Father, and have the holy angels ascending to report their necessities, and descending, as messengers of mercies. We must also ascend, saith St. Bernard, by those two feet, as it weremeditation and prayer: yea, there must be continual ascensions in our hearts; and as Jacob saw the angels ascending and descending, and none standing still, so must we be active and abundant in Gods work (1Co. 15:58).(Trapp.)
As connecting earth and heaven it was a striking image of mediation and reconciliation by Him who is the Way. This is the New Testament explanation of it (Joh. 1:51). The idea plainly is of communication opened with heaven, which had been cut off by sin. And the immediate application of it is the providential care which is secured to him by the covenant. Angelic messengers traversing this stairway executing the gracious purposes of Redemption (Heb. 1:14), and all on the basis of the mediation of Christ, the Angel of the Covenantthis is the travellers vision.(Jacobus.)
Gen. 28:13. God stands above the methods and means of Providence and Grace. The Divine love is the fountain of Redemption.
The heavenly ladder seen by Jacob in a dream, on which angels were ascending and descending, with the Lord himself at the summit, was itself but the weak intimation of a closer union between earth and heaven to be effected in the person of the Son of Manan union wherein God should no longer appear far off, but near; men now at last beholding the heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.(Trench.)
By this promise Jacob is secured beyond the reach of his brothers wrath.
It is remarkable that Abraham is styled his father, that is, his actual grandfather, and covenant father.(Murphy.)
From Jacobs ladder we receive the first definite intimation that beyond Sheol, heaven is the home of man.(Lange.)
What an honour is this to Abraham, that God was not ashamed to be called his and his sons God! Friend to Sir Philip Sidney, is engraven upon a noblemans tomb in this kingdom, as one of his titles. Behold the goodness of God, stooping so low as to style Himself the God of Abraham; and Abraham again, the friend of God.(Trapp.)
It is enough for us to be assured that God will be the same to us as He has been to our fathers, and that He will perform the same for us. By faith we become heirs of an ancient heritage, which is secure to us as an eternal possessionas long as God is our God.
Gen. 28:14. This expression points to the world-wide universality of the kingdom of the seed of Abraham, when it shall become the fifth monarchy, that shall subdue all that went before, and endure for ever. This transcends the destiny of the natural seed of Abraham.(Murphy.)
Against his four-fold cross, here is a four-fold comfort.
1. Against the loss of his friends, I will be with thee.
2. Of his country, I will give thee this land.
3. Against his poverty, Thou shalt spread abroad to the east, west, etc.
4. His solitariness; angels shall attend thee, and thy seed shall be as the dust, etc. And who can count the dust of Jacob, saith Balaam. (Num. 23:10.) Now, whatsoever God spake here with Jacob, He spake with us, as well as with him, saith Hosea. (Hos. 12:4.(Trapp.)
Gen. 28:15. He then promises to Jacob personally to be with him, protect him, and bring him back in safety. This is the third announcement of the seed that blesses to the third in the line of descent. (Gen. 12:2-3; Gen. 22:18; Gen. 26:4.(Murphy.)
Jacob was lonely, on an untried journey, with an uncertain fate before him. What could have been more comforting and assuring than this promise of protection in his travels, a safe return home, and success in his mission; and all because he was heir of the covenant? Thus Gods promises, while they are all-embracing, are suited to our special need.
Esaus blessing was soon fulfilled; but Jacobs related to things at a great distance, and which none but God Almighty could bring to pass. How seasonable then were those precious promises which furnished at his outset a ground for faith to rest upon!(Fuller.)
Gen. 28:16. He who had felt no fear in laying himself down to sleep in a lonely place, and under the cloud of night, is now filled with a holy dismay when the morning arose at the thought of being surrounded with God. But the element of joy was not extinguished by the feeling of the awful which the scene had inspired. The Lord had been specially present to him where he little thought of meeting with Him. He had laid him down to sleep, as on common ground, but he found that it was a consecrated place, hallowed by the presence of God Himself in this blessed vision of the night. It seemed a lone and uninviting spot, but it proved to him a magnificent temple.(Bush.)
He knew His omnipresence. But he did not expect a special manifestation of the Lord in this place, far from the sanctuaries of his father.(Murphy.)
The commonest things of life become sacred if we only think deeply about them.
We do not really discover God anywhere, not even in His Word, unless He reveals Himself inwardly to our souls. Then do we truly know that God was there, though we knew it not.
Every fresh revelation of God obliges us to confess our ignorance and inattention in the past.
Gen. 28:17. This was the place where God manifested Himself as He was wont to do in the sanctuary.
In whatever place the soul of man feels the presence and power of God, there is the House of God.
The place of Gods public worship is a place of angels and archangels, saith Chrysostom; it is the Kingdom of God; it is very heaven. What wonder, then, though Jacob be afraid, albeit, he saw nothing but visions of love and mercy. In Thy fear will I worship toward Thy holy temple, saith David (Psa. 5:7).(Trapp.)
The last impression made upon Jacob was that of the awfulness of life. Children play away life. It is a touching and softening thing to see the child, without an aim or thought, playing away his young moments; but it is sad indeed to see men and women do this, for life is a solemn mystery, full of questions that we cannot answer. Whence come we? Whither go we? How came we here? Say you that life is short, that it is a shadow, a dream, a vapour, a puff of air? Yes, it is short, but has an eternity wrapped up in it; it is a dream, but an awful, and appalling one, the most solemn dream of eternity that we shall ever have. Remember this is the gate of heaven, this is a dreadful place, the common is the Divine; God is here.(Robertson.)
Earth is a court of Paradise; life, here below, is a short pilgrimage; our home is above, and the life of a blessed eternity illuminates our path.(Krummacher.)
Where Gods Word is found, there is a house of God. There heaven stands open.(Lange.)
We must daily wait at the gate of heaven if we would enter there.
Gen. 28:18. He was in no condition to indulge in sleep. He must be up and expressing the homage of his soul for such precious, gracious revelations.(Jacobus.)
He set up a memorial of the impressions just made upon him. He erected a few stones, and called them Bethel. They were a fixed point to remind him of the past. The power of this Bethel we shall see in the 35th chap. Herein is the value of forms; impressions, feelings, will pass away unless we have some memorial. If we were merely spiritual beings then we might do without forms; but we are still mixed up with matter, and unless we have a form the spirit will die. Resolve then, like Jacob, to keep religion in mind by the use of religious rites. Church-going, the keeping of the Sabbath, are not religion; but religion hardly lives without them. If a man will say, I can read the Bible at home, think of Christ without attending the Holy Communion, make every day a Sabbath, why his religion will die out with his omission of the form.(Robertson.)
As Jacob was not induced to set up this stone and worship at it by any superstition or idolatry, so the papists gain nothing in deriving their imageworship from this act; although we read in Lev. 26:1; Deu. 7:5; Deu. 12:3, that God has expressly prohibited these things.(Lange.)
Gen. 28:19. This place was long regarded with religious veneration, as we may infer from Jereboams having chosen it for the seat of his idolatrous worship of the golden calves (1Ki. 12:28; 1Ki. 12:23), for which reason the prophet Hosea, (Hos. 4:15) alluding to the name given it by Jacob, calls it, Beth-aven, the house of vanityi.e., of idolsinstead of Beth-el, house of God. In like manner, (Amo. 5:5): Bethel shall shall come to naught. (Heb. shall be Aven). A good name has no security of permanence where a change for the worse has taken place in the character. God even writes upon His own people, Lo-Ammi, not my people, instead of Ammi, my people, when by their transgression they forfeit His favour.(Bush.)
Gen. 28:20. It must not be understood from his conditional mode of expression that he had any doubt as to the fulfilment of the Divine promise, or that he would prescribe terms to his Maker. The language implies nothing more than his taking God at His worda sincere avowal, that since the Lord had promised him the bestowment of inestimable blessings, he would endeavour not to be wanting in the suitable returns of duty and devotedness. God had promised to be with him, to keep him, to bring him again into the land, and not to leave him. He takes up the precious words, and virtually says, Oh, let it be according to Thy word unto Thy servant, and Thou shalt be mine, and I will be Thine for ever. This was all right; for Jacob sought nothing which God had not promised, and he could not well err while making the Divine promises the rule and measure of his desires.(Bush.)
The order of what he desired is deserving of notice. It corresponds with our Saviours rule, to seek things of the greatest importance first. By how much Gods favour is better than life, by so much His being with us, and keeping us is better than food and raiment.(Fuller.)
The desires of Jacob were moderate. He only asks for the bare necessaries of life. He seeks not high things for himselfno wealth, or rank, or luxury. We know from the case of Solomon that such modest desires are approved by God, who is wont to fulfil them even beyond what we have asked. (1Ki. 3:5-12.)
Nature is content with little; grace with less. Food and drink are the riches of Christians, saith Jerome. Bread and water, with the Gospel, are good cheer. One told a philosopher, If you will be content to please Dionysius, you need not feed upon green herbs. He replied, And if you be content to feed upon green herbs, you need not please Dionysius.(Trapp.)
Gen. 28:21. This is not the condition in which Jacob will accept God in a mercenary spirit. It is the response of the son to the assurance of the father. Wilt Thou indeed be with me? Thou shalt be my God.(Murphy.)
There is clear evidence that Jacob was now a child of God. He takes God to be his God in covenant, with whom he will live. But what progress there is between Bethel and Peniel. Grace reigns within him, but not without a conflict. The powers and tendencies of evil are still at work. He yields too readily to their urgent solicitations. Still, grace and the principles of the renewed man gain a stronger hold, and become more and more controlling. Under the loving but faithful discipline of God, he is gaining in his faith, until, in the great crisis of his life, Mahanaim and Peniel, and the new revelations then given to him, it receives a large and sudden increase. He is thenceforward trusting, serene, and established, strengthened and settled, and passes into the quiet life of the triumphant believer.(Lange.)
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
4. Jacobs Dream-Vision at Bethel (Gen. 28:10-17).
The Dream Ladder and the Angels. Jacob went out from Beersheba (Gen. 26:25) and set out toward Haran. Note the following differences of view: His departure from his fathers house was an ignominious flight; and for fear of being pursued or waylaid by his vindictive brother, he did not take the common road, but went by lonely and unfrequented paths, which increased the length and dangers of the journey, until, deeming himself at a secure distance, he seems to have gone on the great road northward along the central mountain-ridge of Canaan (CECG, 199). Was Jacob a fugitive? In a mild sense, Yes. But they let their imagination play too freely, who make him run forth in haste from home in continual fear of being overtaken and let him cover the entire distance from Beersheba to Bethelabout 70 miles as the crow flies over mountain roadsin one day. Esau had threatened to kill his brother only after the death of Isaac [Gen. 27:41]. It may have been about the third day when Jacob arrived at this spot after traveling leisurely, for he had a long journey before him (EG, 770). The mention of the fact that he went out teaches that a righteous mans departure from a city leaves its mark. While he is in it, he is its splendor, lustre, and beauty. When he leaves, it all departs with him (Rashi, SC, 164).
The Place, Gen. 28:11, literally, he lighted upon the place, etc. That is, the place mentioned elsewhere (cf. Gen. 22:4), mount Moriah (Rashi). The definite article denotes the place well known to travelers, viz., an inn (Sforno) (SC, 164). The definite article prefixed to place shows that he had purposely chosen as his first nights resting-place the spot which had been distinguished by the encampment of Abraham shortly after his entrance into Canaan (Gen. 12:8); or that, the gates of Luz being shut, he was undesignedly, on his part, compelled to rest for the night, which proved to be the place his grandfather had consecrated. By a forced march he had reached that place, about forty-eight miles from Beersheba, and had to spend the night in the open field. This, after all, is no great hardship; for a native, winding himself in the ample folds of his cloak, and selecting a smooth stone for a pillow, sleeps comfortably under the canopy of heaven. A warm climate, and an indifference to dirt and dew, easily reconcile an Oriental to such necessities (CECG, 199). The words, he hit (lighted) upon the place, indicate the apparently accidental, yet really divinely appointed choice of this place for his nightquarters; and the definite article points it out as having become well known (through the revelation of God that ensued (BCOTP, 281). Was this a cult-place? We doubt it very much. Such a cult-place would hardly have been a seemly place for Yahweh to reveal Himself; for perhaps without exception these places were set apart for the idols of the land. Yahweh has nothing in common with idols. Such a spot would be an abomination of Yahweh. . . . The article simply marks it as the place which was afterward to become famous. Jacob spends the night just there because that was all that was left for him, for the sun had gone down and the night had fallen swiftly, as Oriental nights do. The hardy shepherd is not disturbed by the experience, for shepherds often spend the night thus and are observed to this day sleeping with a stone for a pillow (EG, 771).
The Stone Pillow. One of the stones of the place, etc. The nature of the soil in this area, we are told, was stony. Was the prophetic power embodied in one of these stones? Would not this be sheer magic? We see no reason for these rather fanciful notions. It seems that Jacob simply took of the stones present and made for himself a head place. This is literally the meaning of the word used here. Here meraashtaw does not actually mean pillow but head placea proper distinction, for pillows are soft, head places not necessarily so. They who must find rational explanations for everything here conjecture about some stony ascent which Jacob saw in the rapidly descending dusk and which then afterward in the dream took the form of a ladder (even Edersheim). Dreams, especially those sent by the Almighty, require no such substructure. Not quite so harmless is the contention of those who import liberally of their own thoughts into the text and then secure a sequence about as follows: The stone used by Jacob is one of the pillars or sacred stones of the cult-place (a pure invention). Jacob unwittingly takes it in the semi-darkness and prepares it for a headrest. The charmed stone then superinduces a dream. On awakening, Jacob is afraid, because he realizes he has rashly used a sacred stone and quickly makes a vow to fend off possible evil consequences and to appease the angered Deity. Such interpretations transport the occurrence into the realm of superstition, magic, fetish, and animistic conceptions, debasing everything and especially the patriarchs conception of things (EG, 771772). Cf. Skinner: He lighted upon the place i.e., the holy place of Bethel (Gen. 12:6), whose sanctity was revealed by what followed.he took (at haphazard) one of the stones of the place which proved itself to be the abode of a deity by inspiring the dream which came to Joseph that night (ICCG, 376). We see no reason for importingas Leupold puts itpagan superstitions into the narratives of these ancient heroes of the faith. It is quite possible, of course, that some of these stones had once been a part of the altar set up by Abraham in the same vicinity (Gen. 12:8, Gen. 13:2-4) although it is difficult to assume that Jacob had some way of identifying them as such. The commonsense view would seem to be that, as stated above, Jacob simply took some of the stones he found here and made of them for himself a head place.
The Dream. It was natural that in the unwonted circumstances he should dream. Bodily exhaustion, mental excitement, the consciousness of his exposure to the banditti of the adjoining regions, and his need of the protection of Heaven, would direct the course of his dream into a certain channel, But his dream was an extraordinarya supernatural one (CECG, 199). The connection between heaven and earth, and now especially between heaven and the place where the poor fugitive sleeps, is represented in three different forms, increasing in fulness and strength: the ladder, not too short, but resting firmly on the earth below and extending up to heaven; the angels of God, appearing in great numbers, passing up and down the ladder as the messengers of God; ascending as the invisible companions of the wanderer, to report about him, and as mediators of his prayers; descending as heavenly guardians and mediators of the blessing; finally Jehovah himself standing above the ladder, henceforth the covenant God of Jacob, just as he had hitherto been the covenant God of Abraham and Isaac (CDHCG, 521). This for Jacob was the first of seven theophanies: cf. Gen. 31:3; Gen. 31:11-13; Gen. 32:1-2; Gen 12:2430; Gen. 35:1; Gen. 35:9-13; Gen. 46:1-4.
The Ladder. Many commentators seem to prefer the rendering, stairway, or staircase, rather than the image of a mountain-pile whose sides, indented in the rock, gave it the appearance of a ladder: the rough stones of the mountain appearing to form themselves into a vast staircase: Bush, Stanley (PCG, 349). (Some will argue that the pile of rock which served as Jacobs pillow was a miniature copy of this image). Not so, writes Leupold: Dreams are a legitimate mode of divine revelation. On this instance the ladder is the most notable external feature of the dream. The word sullam, used only here, is well established in its meaning, ladder. If it reaches from earth to heaven, that does not necessitate anything grotesque; dreams seem to make the strangest things perfectly natural. Nor could a ladder sufficiently broad to allow angels to ascend and descend constitute an incongruity in a dream. The surprise occasioned by the character of the dream is reflected by the threefold hinnehbeholds: a ladder, angels, and Yahweh (EG, 772). Speiser differs: The traditional ladder is such an old favorite that it is a pity to have to dislodge it. Yet it goes without saying that a picture of angels going up and down in a steady stream is hard to reconcile with an ordinary ladder. Etymologically, the term (stem, to heap up, raise) suggests a ramp or a solid stairway. And archaeologically, the Mesopotamian ziggurats were equipped with flights of stairs leading up to the summit; a good illustration is the ziggurat of Ur (Third Dynasty). Only such a stairway can account for Jacobs later description of it as a gateway to heaven (ABG, 218). At any rate, from Jacobs ladder we receive the first definite information that beyond Sheol, heaven is the home of matt (Lange, 523). The ladder was a visible symbol of the real and uninterrupted fellowship (Cf. Heb. 1:14; Psalms 23; Psa. 139:7-10)
The Angels. The ladder was a visible symbol of the real and uninterrupted fellowship between God in heaven and His people upon earth. The angels upon it carry up the wants of men to God, and bring down the assistance and protection of God to men. The ladder stood there upon the earth, just where Jacob was lying in solitude, poor, helpless, and forsaken by men. Above in heaven stood Jehovah, and explained in words the symbols which he saw (BCOTP, 281). In Jacobs dream Jehovah, the God of the chosen race (Gen. 28:13; Gen. 28:16), in order to assure him that though temporarily exiled from his fathers house he would not on that account be severed from the God of his father, as Ishmael had been when sent away from Abrahams household, and Lot when his connection with Abraham was finally cut off by his passing beyond the limit of the promised land. God was thenceforward Elohim to them all as to all who were aliens to the chosen race. But Jacob was still under the guardianship of Jehovah, who would continue with him wherever he might go. The angels (Gen. 28:12), however, are not called angels of Jehovah, which never occurs in the Pentateuch, but angels of Elohim, as in Gen. 32:2 (E.V. Gen. 28:1), who are thus distinguished from messengers of menthe Hebrew word for angel properly meaning messenger. This does not mark a distinction between the documents, as though J knew of but one angel, while E speaks of angels; for J has angels in the plural (Gen. 19:1; Gen. 19:15). The place where Jehovah had thus revealed himself Jacob calls the house of God and the gate of heaven, God in contrast with man, as heaven with earth. It was a spot marked by a divine manifestation (UBG, 340).
This vision represented the peculiar care of God concerning Jacob and other saints, and the ministration of angels to them (2Ch. 16:9, Ecc. 5:8, Psa. 135:6, Isa. 41:10, Act. 18:10, 2Ti. 4:16-17; Psa. 34:7; Psa. 91:11; Mat. 18:10; Heb. 1:14; Gen. 32:1-2). But chiefly this ladder typified Christ, as Mediator between God and man. He, in his manhood, is of the earth, a descendant of Jacob; and in his divine person is the Lord from heaven (Isa. 7:14; Isa. 9:6; Joh. 1:14; Rom. 1:3-4; Rom. 9:5; 1Ti. 3:16): he is the only means of fellowship between God and men (Joh. 14:6; Eph. 2:18; Eph. 3:12; 1Ti. 2:5-6); and he directs and enjoys the ministration of angels (Joh. 1:51; 1Pe. 1:12, 1Ti. 3:16)in his conception (Luk. 1:31, Mat. 1:20)his birth (Luk. 2:14, Heb. 1:6)in his temptation (Mat. 4:11)his agony (Luk. 22:43)his resurrection (Mat. 28:2; Mat. 28:5)his ascension (Act. 1:10-11; Psa. 47:5; Psa. 68:17-18; Dan. 7:10; Dan. 7:13)and second coming (1Th. 4:16, 2Th. 1:7, Mat. 25:31) (SIBG, 260).
The Divine Promise, Gen. 28:13-15, Gen. 28:13Yahweh stood by (marginal, beside) him and announced Himself as one with the God of his fathers. Gen. 28:16the land whereon thou liest: a description peculiarly appropriate to the solitary and homeless fugitive who had not where to lay his head. Thus forlorn, amid the memorials of the covenant, he was visited by God in a dream, which showed him a flight of stairs leading up from earth to the gates of heaven, and trodden by angels, some descending on their errands as ministering spirits upon earth, and others ascending to carry their reports to Him, whose face they ever watch in dutiful service. This symbol of Gods providence was crowned by a vision of Jehovah, and his voice added to the renewal of the covenant a special promise of protection (OTH, 100). Yahweh reveals Himself first of all as the Lord (Gen. 2:4), the Covenant God of Abraham and of Isaac. It is remarkable that Abraham is styled his father, that is, his actual grandfather, and covenant father (MG, 387). Yahweh now renews the promise of the land, of the seed, and of the blessing in that seed for the whole race of man. Westward, eastward, northward, and southward are they to break forth. This expression points to the world-wide universality of the kingdom of the seed of Abraham, when it shall become the fifth monarchy, that shall subdue all that went before, and endure forever. This transcends the destiny of the natural seed of Abraham. He then promises to Jacob personally to be with him, protect him, and bring him back in safety. This is the third announcement of the seed that blesses to the third in the line of descent: Gen. 12:2-3; Gen. 22:18; Gen. 26:4 (MG, 387).
The land, given to Abraham (Gen. 13:15) and to Isaac (Gen. 26:3), and now to Jacob. The seed to be as the dust of the earth, promised to Abraham (Gen. 13:16), and to Isaac, but under a different emblem (as the stars of heaven, Gen. 26:4), and now, under the original emblem, to Jacob. The seed, moreover, to break forth toward all four corners of the earth, as promised to Abraham (Gen. 13:14; cf. Deu. 3:27; Deu. 34:1-4), and now to Jacob (Gen. 28:14). Note that a third emblem, designed likewise to point up the world-wide universality of the Kingdom of Christ (i.e., the Reign of Messiah, Christ) is used in the divine promise to Abraham, viz., the sand which is upon the seashore (Gen. 22:17; cf. Gen. 32:12). Note that the citizens of the Messiahs kingdom are citizens, not by virtue of having been born of the flesh of Abraham, but by virtue of having been born again, that is, of belonging to Abraham by virtue of manifesting the fullness of the obedience of faith (Gal. 3:26-29), the depth of faith which Abraham manifested when God proved him to himself, to his own people, and to all mankind throughout the stretch of time (Gen., ch. 22). (Cf. Joh. 3:1-8, Tit. 3:5, Gal. 5:16-25, Rom. 5:1-2, etc.)
Is the Lord blessing a cheat and prospering one who secured a blessing by craft? By no means. . . . Jacob is being strengthened in the faith and supported by liberal promises, because he was penitent over his sin and stood greatly in need of the assurance of divine grace. Besides, Jacob was deeply grieved at being called upon to sever the ties that bound him to house and home, and he was apprehensive of the future as well. The Lord meets him and grants him the support of His grace (EG, 773).
Note again the elements of Yahwehs Promise: 1. The possession of the land on which he now was lying, practically an exile. 2. A progeny (seed) as numerous as the dust of the earth. 3. Protection during the time of his absence from home, the protection in fact of Gods personal presence: I am with thee, and will keep thee whithersoever thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land, that is, this very spot, this piece of ground, on which Jacob was lying, and experiencing the reiteration of the Abrahamic Promise. The language surely intimates here that Jacobs wanderings would be extensive; the ray of hope was in the promise that he would be divinely led back to this Land of Promise. The far-reaching element of the Promise was that in his seed all the families of the earth should be blessed (Gen. 28:14). The Seed, as we know from New Testament fulfilment, was Messiah, Christ (Gal. 3:16). (Note that this was in substance a renewal of the Abrahamic Promise: cf. Gen. 12:37; Gen. 13:14-17, Gen. 15:18, Gen. 22:17-18, Gen. 24:7, Gen. 28:13-15).
5. The Awakening, Gen. 28:16-17.
Jacob awoke from his dream with a sense of dread, of the awesomeness of God. He was afraid, and exclaimed, How dreadful is this place! Surely Yahweh is in this place! The underlying feeling is not joy, but fear, because in ignorance he had treated the holy place as common ground . . . the place is no ordinary haram, but one superlatively holy, the most sacred spot on earth (ICCG, 377). To this we reply that it was Jacobs vision that for him endowed the place with dreadfulness (holiness), not with unknown magical qualities which the particular spot engendered. Jacob had felt himself severed from the gracious presence and the manifestation of Yahweh which he knew centered in his fathers house. Jacob understood full well the omnipresence of God, but he knew, too, that it had not pleased God to manifest and reveal Himself everywhere as Yahweh. Now the patriarch receives specific assurance that God in His character as Yahweh was content to be with Jacob and keep and bless him for the covenants sake. That Yahweh was going to do this much for him, that is what Jacob had not known. To understand the word rightly note that Jacob could not have saidfor it would have involved an untruthSurely, God is in this place and I knew it not. Of course he knew that. Any true believers knowledge of God involves such elementary things as knowledge of His not being confined to one place. Such crude conceptions the patriarchs never had. To suppose that the account is trying to picture Jacob as on a lower level than Abraham in spiritual discernment is misunderstanding (EG, 775). Jacob does not here learn the doctrine of the Divine omnipresence for the first time, but now discovers that the covenant God of Abraham revealed himself at other than consecrated places; or perhaps simply gives expression to his astonishment at finding that whereas he fancied himself alone, he was in reality in the company of God (PCG, 350). Not that the omnipresence of God was unknown to him, but that Jehovah in His condescending mercy should be near to him even here, far away from his fathers house and from the places consecrated to His worshipit was this which he did not know or imagine. The revelation was intended not only to stamp the blessing, with which Isaac had dismissed him from his home, with the seal of divine approval, but also to impress upon Jacobs mind the fact, that although Jehovah would be near to protect and guide him even in a foreign land, the land of promise was the holy ground on which the God of his fathers would set up the covenant of His grace. On his departure from this land, he was to carry with him a sacred awe of the gracious presence of Jehovah there. To that end the Lord proved to him that He was near, in such a way that the place appeared dreadful, inasmuch as the nearness of the holy God makes an alarming impression upon unholy man, and the consciousness of sin grows into the fear of death. But in spite of this alarm, the place was none other than the house of God and the gate of heaven, i.e., a place where God dwells, and a way that opened to Him in heaven (BCOTP, 282). Jacob does not think that Jehovahs revelation to him was confined to this place of Bethel. He does not interpret the sacredness of the place in a heathen way, as an external thing, but theocratically and symbolically. Through Jehovahs revelation, this place. which is viewed as a heathen waste, becomes to him a house of God, and therefore he consecrates it to a permanent sanctuary (Lange, CDHCG, 525).
FOR MEDITATION AND SERMONIZING
The Holiness of God
Text: Gen. 28:16-17. Note that Jacob on awakening from his dream-vision was afraid, that is, shaken, literally terrified (ABG, 218), and exclaimed How dreadful is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. Someone has said: Where Gods word is found, there is a house of God; there heaven stands open.
In Scripture there is one Personand only one Personwho is ever addressed as Holy Father: that Person is God Himself, and God is so addressed by the Son of God in the latters highpriestly prayer (Joh. 17:11). Moreoyer, Jesus Himself forbids our addressing any other being as father, that is, in a spiritual sense (Mat. 23:1-12, esp. Mat. 23:9). Likewise, God alone is spoken of in Scripture as reverend (Psa. 111:9, cf. Heb. 12:28-29). In view of these positive Scripture statements, how can men have the presumption to arrogate these sacred titles to themselves: not only just reverend, but also very reverend, most reverend, etc., ad nauseam. Note that Jesus, the Only Begotten, is also addressed as the Holy One of God (by evil; spirits, i.e., fallen angels, Mar. 1:24; by Simon Peter Joh. 6:69; cf. Act. 3:14; Act. 4:27; Act. 7:52). It should be noted, too, that Gods dwelling-place is the Holy City (Rev. 3:12; Rev. 11:2; Rev. 21:2; Rev. 22:19), per facio the New Jerusalem (Gal. 4:2, Rev. 21:10, Heb. 11:10; Heb. 12:22). It is the presence of God that makes heaven to be heaven; it is the absence of God that makes hell to be hell (Rev. 21:1-8; Rev. 20:11-15; Rev. 22:1-5; Rev. 6:16-17, etc.).
The word holiness comes from the Greek holos, meaning all, the whole, entire, etc, Holiness is wholeness, completeness, hence perfection (per facio, to make or to do completely, thoroughly). The perfections of God, commonly known as His attributes, constitute His holiness (Mat. 5:48). (Cf. 1Pe. 1:16, Lev. 11:44; Lev. 19:2; Lev. 20:7).
The attributes of GodPerfections of the Divine Naturemay be classified as ontological, that is, inherent in His Being, and moral, i.e., inherent in His relationships with moral creatures. In the former category, we say that God is eternal, unchangeable, omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent. In the latter category, we say that God is infinitely holy, just and good; infinitely true and faithful; infinitely merciful and long-suffering. (For a discussion of these attributes see my Survey Course in Christian Doctrine, Vol. I, College Press, Joplin, Missouri.)
It is the holiness of God, we are told, that is the subject-matter of the heavenly hymnody before the Throne of the Almighty (Isa. 6:3). This is the burden of the heavenly anthem which is sung unceasingly around the Throne, in which the redeemed of earth will be privileged to join, in the new heavens and new earth (2Pe. 3:13, 1Th. 5:23, Rev. 4:8). When we stand before God in that great Day the one outstanding characteristic of His nature that will be apparent to all His intelligent creatures will surely be His holiness. Is not His end in creating us in His image the building of a holy redeemed race fit to commune with Him in loving intimacy throughout the ceaseless aeons of eternity? Hence His admonition to us, Be ye yourselves also holy, etc. (1Pe. 1:15-16). It is because men cannot grasp the import of the holiness of God that they get such ridiculously distorted concepts of His dealings with His creation. Holiness is the foundation of all the Divine Perfections. We shall examine here some of the more significant aspects of this Divine Holiness.
1. The Holiness of God includes His truthfulness. He always speaks the truth. He would never deceive us. When He speaks, He speaks the truth; what He tells us that He will do, that He will do: we can depend on it. (Mat. 24:35, Mar. 13:31; Luk. 21:33; Luk. 16:31; Rom. 10:6-10, 2Ti. 2:18-19, etc.). The foundation of God standeth sure, i.e., for ever. His word is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, etc. (Heb. 4:12). (May I offer this personal testimony: the more I delve into the cults and philosophies of men, the more I am convinced that Gods Word is to be found in the Bible, and the more confirmed I become in my conviction that what is found in the Bible is true, even if we as human beings cannot understand fully the meaning of it. After all, as Sam Jones used to say, You cannot pour the ocean into a teacup. In the Scripture God speaks to men, and what He speaks is truewe can depend on it. And the reason why multitudes are staggering in blindness and carelessness today is the fact that they do not knowor will not acceptwhat God is telling them in His Book. Their humanism, materialism, naturalism, agnosticism, etc., leave them utterly blind to the truth. They do not know Gods Wordthey do not try to know itthey do not even want to know it. They are the blind leading the blindand their end can be only the pit (Mat. 15:14C.C.).
2. The Holiness of God includes His righteousness. What He tells us to do is right; what He tells us not to do is wrong (Gal. 5:16-25). Why do we have so many varying notions of right and wrong? The answer is simple: Because men follow what they think instead of what God has said. God loves righteousness, but He hates iniquity (Psa. 45:7, Heb. 1:9). It has been rightly said that human character is worthless in proportion as the abhorrence of sin is lacking in it. The most evident sign of the moral flabbiness of our age is the manner in which we condonewink atsin. It was Herbert Spencer who said over a century ago that good nature with Americans has become a crime. Dr. Arnold, Head Master of Rugby once said, I am never sure of a boy who only loves the good. I never feel that he is safe until I see that he abhors evil. Lecky says, in his great book, Democracy and Liberty, There is one thing worse than corruption, and that is acquiescence in corruption. Dr. Will Durant has said: The nation that will not resist anarchy is doomed to destruction. To be incapable of moral indignation against wrong is to have no real love for the right. The only revenge that is permissible to Christians is the revenge that pursues and exterminates sin. Likewise, this is the only vengeance known to God. (We must remember that vindication is not vengeance).
3. The Holiness of God includes His faithfulness. That is, He faithfully executes His judgments and fulfils His promises. (2Ti. 2:13, 1Co. 10:13, Deu. 32:4, Isa. 40:8, 1Jn. 1:9, Mat. 24:35, 2Pe. 1:4, Heb. 2:1-4, 2Pe. 3:1-13).
4. The Holiness of God includes His love (and in turn His mercy and His longsuffering). By His mercy, we mean that He is ever willing and anxious to pardon all who are truly penitent. (Eze. 33:11, Psa. 145:9, Luk. 1:78, 2Co. 1:3, Eph. 2:4, Tit. 3:5, Joh. 3:16, 1Jn. 4:7-21). In the story of the Prodigal Son (Luk. 15:11-32), Jesus tells us that the father ran to meet his penitent boy returning home and fell on his neck and kissed him: is not this really the story of the Forgiving Father? Note, too, that the father was moved with compassion (Gen. 28:20). Robert Browning writes: God! Thou art love! I build my faith on that. Lowell: Tis heaven alone that is given away; tis only God may be had for the asking. Annie Johnston Flint: Out of His infinite riches in Jesus, He giveth and givethand giveth again. By Gods longsuffering we mean that He gives the sinner a long time for repentance, even to the limit at which love must give way to justice. 1Pe. 3:20the longsuffering of God gave the antediluvian world one hundred and twenty years of grace (Gen. 6:3); cf. 2Pe. 3:9. It is said that an atheist conversing on occasion with Joseph Parker, the distinguished British minister, exclaimed, If there is a God, I give Him three minutes to prove it by striking me dead. To which Joseph Parker replied with great sorrow in his voice, Do you suppose that you can exhaust the mercy of God in three minutes? Consider Gods long-suffering patience toward the Children of Israel, despite their numerous and repeated backslidings. Think of the awful wickedness spread abroad over our earth todayyet God waits, for those who may come to repentance. Gods mercy will follow you to the grave, my sinner friend, but it cannot consistently follow you farther. This life is probationary; in the next world, Gods love must give way to His justice. No such thing as post-mortem repentance or salvation is taught in Scripture: as a matter of fact, the idea is completely rejected in the narrative of the Lazarus and the Rich Man (Luk. 16:19-31).
Note what God says to us through His prophet Ezekiel (Eze. 33:11). Note the Divine exhortation, Turn ye, turn ye, from your evil ways; for why will ye die? Is not this a wonderful revealing of the great Heart of out God? God wants us to repent, to turn to Him; he yearns for our turning to Him; and when we give Him our hearts, He delights in being merciful to us. Did you ever have the experience of your child turning away from you and probably getting into trouble? then to have him come back in penitence and tears, with an open confession, I have done wrong? Do you not gladly help him in every way you can? You do for him what he cannot do for himself. That is what God does for usHe does for us what we cannot do for ourselves: He who owns the world and all that is therein, comes down to buy us back, to redeem us. He rushes out the road to meet us and to throw His arms around us, if we will only come in penitence and confession. Himself took our infirmities, and bare our diseases through the blood of Him who died on the Cross to redeem us. He provided this covering of grace for our sins. He leads us back into His house and bestows on us the gifts of His divine Fatherhood. We can never merit salvation and eternal life; we can only accept these as Gifts (Joh. 3:16). Dante tells us in his Divine Comedy (one of the greatest of all the epic poems) that the motto over the doorway to Hell is this: Abandon hope, all ye who enter here. The Bible tells us that above the gate to Heaven is the inscription: The Gift of God.
Yes, it is Gods Love that causes Him to be a jealous God. I Jehovah thy God am a jealous God, etc. (Exo. 20:1-6). We must not overlook the fact that jealousy is naturally an emotion that attaches to true love. The person who can remain complacent when he sees the object of his affection being led away by another who is unworthy, by one who seeks only his own selfish ends, certainly cannot have any measure of true love to begin with. To be jealous is to be pained, to be hurt, to be heart-broken, on seeing the one loved being led astray into what can only turn out to be a life of misery. I would not give a plugged nickel (pardon the slang!) for any kind of affection that does not have in it this element of jealousy. What does this famous passage in Exodus mean? It means this: I Jehovah thy God have a heart filled with affection for you, my people. But I am hurt, I am heartbroken, when I see you bestowing your affections upon the false gods before whom you bow down in idolatry. And when you do spurn my affection, when you turn a deaf ear to my wooings, I will see to it that your sins will find you out, that the consequences of your unfaithfulness will pursue you and yours from generation to generation, if perchance, knowing this, you may be brought to your senses and to return to me and to my love for you. This Exodus passage is the first statement in literature of the law of heredity, the law of the consequences of sin. (The law of guilt is to be found in Eze. 18:19-24).
Yes, the holiness of God includes His jealousy. (Cf. the Apostles jealousy with respect to the Bride of Christ, 2Co. 11:2). This was the terrible lesson that Hosea learned from his own experience: namely, that he was heartbroken by the unfaithfulness of his wife Gomer, so God was indescribably heartbroken (in such a measure as man could never be) by the unfaithfulness of His people Israel; that as he, Hosea, would go down into the marketplace and buy back his prostitute wife (redeem her) for fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a half of barley, so God in the person of His Only Begotten would come down into the marketplace of the world, and by the shedding of His own precious blood, buy back all those who would accept the gift of redemption (Joh. 3:16, Lev. 17:11, Joh. 1:29, Act. 20:28, 1Pe. 1:18-21, Rev. 12:10-12; Rev. 22:14). It was through his own personal experience that the prophet Hosea reached a concept of Gods immeasurable love that is not surpassed anywhere in Scripture, not even in the New Testament.
5. The Holiness of God includes His absolute justice. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne (Psa. 97:2). God could not be holy and not be just. God could not be holy and fail to punish sin. God could not be holy and accept a sinner in his sins, for this would be putting a premium on sin, this would be rewarding sin. And because sin is transgression of divine law (lawlessness, 1Jn. 3:4), God could not be holy without demanding an adequate atonement (the word means covering). Hence for the joy that was set before him (Heb. 12:2), the Eternal Logos as the Only Begotten Son of God provided this atonement, this Covering of Grace, so that God would be vindicated from the false charges brought against Him by Satan and his rebel host, and hence could be just and at the same time a justifier of all who come to Him by the obedience of faith in Christ Jesus (Rom. 3:19-26). Because the One who died on the Cross was not just a man (in which case this would have been only a martyrdom), but the incarnate God-Man (Joh. 1:1-14; Mat. 22:42; Mat. 1:23; Gal. 4:4; 1Ti. 3:16; Joh. 17:5; Mat. 16:16-19; 1Pe. 2:21-24 etc.), whose vicarious sacrifice was, therefore, The Atonement (Heb. 9:23-28). God did for man what man could never do for himself. As W. Robertson Smith writes, (LRS, 62): To reconcile the forgiving goodness of God with His absolute justice, is one of the highest problems of spiritual religion, which in Christianity is solved by the doctrine of the atonement. It is important to realize that in heathenism this problem never arose in the form in which the New Testament deals with it, not because the gods of the heathen were not conceived as good and gracious, but because they were not absolutely just (italics mine, C.C.). The God of the Bible is just, absolutely just: under His sovereignty every transgression and obedience will receive a just recompense of reward (Heb. 2:1-3); in the finality of things the Great JudgeChrist Himselfwill render unto every man according to his deeds (Mat. 16:27). Multitudes seem to cherish the fantasy that final Judgment will be a kind of military inspection in which the Judge will pass down the line as we number off individually as in the army, and consign each of us to his proper destiny. No so. The Acting Sovereign of the universe knows the moral standing of every person at any and every moment of this life. Hence the final Judgment will not be the ascertainment of the moral character of each human being; it will be, rather, the revelation of the absolute justice of God who will render to every man according to his works (Rom. 2:4-11). A man who afterward became a Methodist preacher was converted in Whitefields time by a vision of the judgment, in which he saw all men gathered before the throne and each one coming up to the book of Gods law, tearing open his heart before it as one would tear open the bosom of his shirt, comparing his heart with the things written in the book, and, according as they agreed or disagreed with that standard, either passing triumphant to the company of the blest, or going with howling to the company of the damned. No word was spoken; the Judge sat silent; the judgment was one of self-revelation and self-condemnation (Strong, ST, p. 1026). Cf. Luk. 16:25, Heb. 10:27; Mat. 25:31-46, Joh. 5:26-29, Act. 17:30-31, Luk. 11:29-32; Rev. 20:11-15, 2Pe. 2:1-10; etc.) The saints will appear in the Judgment clad in the fine linen of righteousness (Rev. 19:8; Rev. 19:14), their sins having been covered by the blood of Christ, forgiven and forgotten, put away from them forever; and clothed also in glory and honor and immortality, the habiliments of eternal redemption (Heb. 9:11-12). In their manifestation, the greatness of Gods love, mercy, and salvation will be fully disclosed to all intelligent creatures. The wicked will be presented in the judgment as they really are; even their secret sins will be made manifest to the whole intelligent creation. For the first time, it seems, they will realize the enormity of their rebelliousness (as will also the evil angels) and their complete loss of God and heaven will impel them spontaneously to resort to weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, i.e., that of utter remorse and despair, not of hate. Thus will be consummated the complete vindication of God against all His enemies, angelic and human, which is, in itself, the primary design of the Last Judgment. This final demonstration will be sufficient to prove to all intelligences that Satans charges against God have been from the beginning false and malicious (Joh. 8:44, Luk. 10:18, 2Co. 4:4, Eph. 3:8-12, 1Pe. 5:8, 2Pe. 2:4, Jud. 1:6-7, 1Co. 6:2-3, Rev. 20:9-15, Rev. 22:10-15). The greatness of this Consummation of Gods Cosmic Plan will be determined, not by the number fully redeemed in spirit and soul and body, but by the ineffable glory of the salvation there to be revealed in its fulness (Rom. 8:18-23, 1Th. 5:23, 2Co. 5:1-10, 1Co. 15:35-58, etc.). In a word, it can be rightly said that Gods absolute justice is His holiness, for the simple reason that ever attribute of God must be under the primacy of His justice.
6. Last, but not least by any means, the Holiness of God must include His awesomeness. But what is awesomeness? It is defined in the dictionaryand properlyas meaning causing, or expressive of, awe or terror. There are multiplied thousands of persons on our earth today who look upon God as a kind of glorified bellhop, waiting and ready at any time to pander to their slightest requests and idiosyncrasies. And when and if He does not do this, they resort to orgies of self-pity. This is not the God of the Biblelet this fact be understood at once! Manifold numbers of human beings carry the notion of Gods love to such an extent as to believe that all men will be saved ultimately, that is, let us say, if there is a God in their thinking). This is contrary to human experience itself, Only that person who has cultivated understanding of poetry can appreciate poetry; only that person who has cultivated understanding of music can truly appreciate music. And it is equally true that only those persons who Understand and cultivate the Spiritual life can expectand hopeto enjoy ultimate union with God. Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people, we often are told. And this is not just a clicheit is sober fact. In the very nature of the casepsychologically as well as theologically speakinga wicked man would be utterly out of place in heaven. Only those who bring forth the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:16-25) can, in the very nature of the case, be prepared to share the Beatific Vision (Rev. 21:1-5, 1Jn. 3:1-3). I cant think of anyone who would be more miserable than the Devil would be if he could get past the pearly gate for a split second. Evil is always uncomfortable, even miserable, in the presence of good.
The awesomeness of God. This was one of the lessons, if not actually the most important lesson, that Jacob learned from his experience at Bethel. When he awakened from his dream-vision, he was afraid, we are told: literally, according to Dr. Speiser, he was terrified. Was not this to be expected. No man hath seen God at any time, that is, in the fulness of His being: no man could look upon God with the eye of flesh and live, because our God is a devouring fire, a jealous God (1 John 1:16, Deu. 4:24). (Cf, the appearance of Yahweh in the time of Moses, on the occasion of the giving of the Law, Exo. 19:7-25; Exo. 20:18-26). For the impenitent, the negligent, the profane, there remaineth no more a sacrifice for sin, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and a fierceness of fire which shall devour the adversaries (Heb. 10:27). It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Heb. 10:31). The Apostle tells us that unto them that are factious, and obey not the truth, but obey unrighteousness, shall be wrath and indignation, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that worketh evil (Rom. 2:8-9). The wheat and the tares must be allowed to grow up together, because only Omniscience, who looketh upon the thoughts and intents of the heart, can justly separate them; hence it will not be until the great Judgment that the wheat will be gathered into the granary, and the chaff will be burned up with unquenchable fire (Heb. 4:12-13; Mat. 13:24-30; 2Th. 1:7-10). Note the numerous references to hell as the abode of the lost in the lake of fire and brimstone, etc. (Isa. 33:14, Psa. 11:5-7, Mat. 3:12; Mat. 5:29-30; Mat. 7:19; Mat. 25:41-46; Luk. 3:17, Joh. 15:6, 2Pe. 3:7, Jud. 1:7; Rev. 14:9-11; Rev. 19:20; Rev. 20:11-15; Rev. 21:8, etc.). There are many who will say that this language is all figurative. Perhaps soit could be, of course. But to say that all these references to hell are in figurative language is to accentuate the problem; for a figure must be a figure of something, and if the Bible descriptions of hell are merely figurative, I shudder to contemplate what the reality might be. For, whatever else we take with us into the next order of being, it is evidentfrom both Scripture and sciencethat we take memory (cf. Luk. 16:25; studies in psychic research now verify the fact that the subconscious in man is the seat of perfect memory). It may turn out, then, that memory is the worm that never dies and conscience (if not at peace with God) the fire that is never quenched (Mar. 9:43-48, Heb. 10:27). (We must remember, in this connection, that when God forgives, He forgets; undoubtedly we may expect this to be one of the ineffable aspects of eternal redemption; cf. Psa. 103:12). On the other hand, one cannot even begin to comprehendor even to imaginethe mental anguish which the unredeemed will suffer on fully realizing the enormity of their loss in being separated from God and all good forever (Rev. 6:16-17; Rev. 9:6; Mat. 8:12; Mat. 13:42; Mat. 13:50; Mat. 22:13; Mat. 24:51; Mat. 25:30; Luk. 13:28; cf. Heb. 18:1520). (In this connection, it should be noted especially that the word which Jesus used to designate hell was not Hades [the underworld, or probably the grave], but Gehenna, the name derived from the Valley of Hinnom outside the city of Jerusalem, the place where Molech, Chemosh, and Tammuz (Ammonite, Moabite, and Syrian deities, respectively) were worshipped (cf. 1Ki. 11:7, 2Ch. 28:3; 2Ch. 33:6; Eze. 8:14, Jer. 7:30-34, Num. 21:29). Its sinister history caused its defilement by Josiah (2Ki. 23:6; 2Ki. 23:10). It became the place where the refuse of the city, dead animals, and the bodies of criminals were burned; and hence was regarded as a fit symbol of the destruction of wicked souls. It is especially significant that Jesus used this name several times in his Sermon on the Mount.)
Undoubtedly the dreadfulness of God is a fact of His being, and an aspect of His holiness. Recognition of it would seem to be an aspect of the attitude of worship. Indeed the Preacher tells us that to fear God and keep his commandments is the whole duty of man (Ecc. 12:13). Our God is to be feared in the sense that His awesomeness is to be felt at all times. All power is of God, and surely the forces that are unleashed as man discovers more and more about the physical power that is inherent in the submicroscopic world, should cause all of us to stand in awe of His righteous indignation that occasions His use of moral power (authority) to punish sin. Let it never be forgotten that God hates sin, and that this hatred is the source of the divine wrath which, in all justice and holiness, must inevitably be visited upon the wicked and impenitent.
Rudolph Otto, in his remarkable book, The Idea of the Holy, develops the thesis that religious dread is essential to recognition of Gods holiness and hence to genuine Christian worship. Of modern language, he writes, English has the words awe, aweful, which in their deeper and most special sense approximate closely to our meaning. The phrase, he stood aghast, is also suggestive in this connexion. The unique character of religious awe, he holds, is qualitatively distinct from all natural feelings. Quoting again: Not only is the saying of Luther, that the natural man cannot fear God perfectly, correct from the standpoint of psychology, but we ought to go further and add that the natural man is quite unable even to shudder (grauen) or feel horror in the real sense of the word. For shuddering is something more than natural, ordinary fear. It implies that the mysterious is already beginning to loom before the mind, to touch the feelings. It implies the first application of a category of valuation which has no place in the everyday natural world of ordinary experience, and is possible only to a being in whom has been awakened a mental predisposition, unique in kind and different in a definite way from any natural faculty. And this newly-revealed capacity, even in the crude and violent manifestations which are all it at first evinces, bears witness to a completely new function of experience and standard of valuation, belonging only to the spirit of man. This numinous awe, Otto goes on to say, appears first as characteristic of primitives in the form of daemonic dread. Even when the worship of daemons has long since reached the higher level of worship of gods, these gods still retain as numina something of the ghost in the impress they make on the feelings of the worshipper, viz., the peculiar quality of the uncanny and awful, which survives with the quality of exaltedness and sublimity or is symbolized by means of it. And this element, softened though it is, does not disappear even on the highest level of all, where the worship of God is at its purest. Its disappearance would be indeed an essential loss. The shudder reappears in a form ennobled beyond measure where the soul, held speechless, trembles inwardly to the furthest fibre of its being. It invades the mind mightily in Christian worship with the words: Holy holy, holy; it breaks forth from the hymn of Tersteegen:
God Himself is present:
Heart, be stilled before Him:
Prostrate inwardly adore Him.
The shudder has here lost its crazy and bewildering note, but not the ineffable something that holds the mind. It has become a mystical awe, and sets free as its accompaniment, reflected in self-consciousness, that creature-feeling that has already been described as the feeling of personal nothingness and abasement before the awe-inspiring object directly experienced.
Otto cites as an example of the case in point the references in Scripture to the Wrath of Yahweh. The notion that this Wrath is mere caprice and wilful passion, he points out, would have been emphatically rejected by the spiritually-minded men of the Old Covenant, for to them the Wrath of God, so far from being a diminution of His Godhead, appears as a natural expression of it, an element of holiness itself, and quite an indispensable one. And in this they are entirely right. Closely related to the Wrath of Yahweh, according to this author, is the Jealousy of Yahweh. The state of mind denoted by the phrase being jealous for Yahweh is also a numinous state of mind, in which features of the tremendum pass over into the man who has experience of it. For characteristic aspects of what Otto calls the Mysterium Tremendum, the following are listed: the sense of Majesty (Overpoweringness), the sense of urgency (energy), the sense of the Wholly Other, the sense of Fascination, i.e., of the numinous object. The numinous consciousness, Otto tells us, is innate; it cannot be taught; it can only be awakened. Is not all this inherent in the oft-repeated descriptive phrase, in Scripture, The Living God? (See IH, pp. 12-24: cf. also the book by Miguel de Unamuno, The Agony of Christianity.)
In strict harmony with this experience of dreadful-ness in the presence of Yahweh was Jacobs experience at Bethel (as Otto points out). Gen. 28:17, Jacob says here, on awaking from his dream-vision, How dreadful is this place: this is none other than the house of Elohim! This verse is very instructive for the psychology of religion. . . . The first sentence gives plainly the mental impression itself in all its immediacy, before reflection has permeated it, and before the meaning-content of the feeling itself has become clear or explicit. It connotes solely the primal numinous awe, which has been undoubtedly sufficient in itself in many cases to mark out holy or sacred places, and make of them spots of aweful veneration, centres of a cult admitting a certain development. There is no need, that is, for the experient to pass on to resolve his mere impression of the eerie and aweful into the idea of a numen, a divine power, dwelling in the aweful place, still less need the numen become a nomen, a named power, or the nomen become something more than a mere pronoun. Worship is possible without this further explicative process. But Jacobs second statement gives this process of explication and interpretation; it is no longer simply an expression of the actual experience. The words used by Jacob undoubtedly connote a sense of eeriness or uncanniness. Cf. Moses at the Burning Bush (Exo. 3:5-7), Isaiahs Vision of Jehovah of Hosts (Isa. 6:1-5), Daniels Vision of the Ancient of Days (Dan. 7:9 ff.), Johns Vision of the Living One (Rev. 1:12-18), etc. Surely the awesomeness of our God is a realistic aspect of the very Mystery of all mysteriesthe Mystery of Being! Surely the dreadfulness of God is a phase of His holiness, and the awareness of it a vital aspect of Christian worship! For our Christ, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, in His eternal being (Joh. 17:5), dwells with the Heavenly Father, in light unapproachable, whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honor and power eternal. Amen (1Ti. 6:15-16).
FOR MEDITATION AND SERMONIZING
Lessons from Jacobs ladder
Gen. 28:10-15; cf. Joh. 1:51
The writer of Hebrews tells us that God spoke by divers portions and in divers manners to holy men of old (Gen. 1:1). He came down and talked personally with Adam in the primeval Garden. He conversed in some manner with Noah and the ark was built. He talked with Abraham on different occasions, and also with Isaac and Jacob. He revealed His will to Moses at the Burning Bush, and to the entire assembly of Israel from the summit of Sinai. Indeed prophecy (revelation) never came by man, but only as holy men of old spoke from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit (2Pe. 1:21).
We are quite familiar with the story of Gods speaking to Jacob in the dream-vision which the latter experienced at Bethel: the vision of a ladder stretched from heaven to earth and angels ascending and descending upon it. This vision had wondrous significance to Jacob, of course, but in its antitypical aspect is has even more far reaching significance for Christians. Our Lord Himself reveals fully the spiritual meaning of Jacobs vision in terms we can all understand (Joh. 1:51).
We are familiar with the circumstances which led up to this scene at Bethel. Jacob was in flight, we might truly say, to Paddan-aram, the home of his uncle Laban, to avoid the vengeance threatened by his brother Esau. On the way to Mesopotamia the event occurred as recorded in the lesson context. Physically exhausted, Jacob lay down to sleep, and then to dream. The earth was his bed, the canopy of heaven his coverlet, and a stone his only pillow. Then came the vision of the celestial ladder and its angelic host, and the voice of Yahweh repeating the Promise He had made previously to Abraham and then to Isaac. Said Jacob on awaking from his dream, This is none other than the house of God (Bethel)! Explaining this vision in the sense suggested by our Lord Himself, what lessons do we derive from the story? What truths did Jacobs Ladder typify or suggest with reference to Christ?
1. It typified the Person of the Savior. (1) the top of the ladder reached to heaven. So Christ is the spiritual Ladder who connects heaven and earth. He came from heaven and entered into human flesh, in order to purchase redemption for us. Those scholars who would discredit the Virgin Birth would do well first to explain away the doctrine of His pre-existence. (Cf. Joh. 17:4-5; Joh. 1:1-14; Joh. 8:58; Col. 1:16-17; Heb. 1:10; Heb. 2:9-18; Php. 2:5-11, and many other Scriptures which either assert positively, or clearly intimate, that the Son has existed with the Father from eternity and was indeed the executive Agent in the Creation, cf. Gen. 1:3; Gen. 1:6; Gen. 1:9, etc.). (2) In the beginning man transgressed the law of God, the sovereign law of the creation because it is the expression of the Sovereign Will. Absolute Justice demanded satisfaction, vindication of the Sovereign Will, else the law would have been rendered void and the Divine government discredited in the sight of all intelligent beings. There was nothing that earth had to offer, nothing within man himself, that, could provide atonement (covering) for the transgression of the divine law. Hence, it became necessary for Heaven to offer its costliest Gift, in order that the majesty of the law be sustained and Gods law adequately demonstrated to rebellious angels and men. This offering was made: God gave His Only Begotten as the Sacrificial Lamb (Joh. 1:29; Joh. 3:16), and for the joy that was set before Him the Son gave His life (Heb. 12:1-2), and the Holy Spirit has revealed the Word (cf. Col. 1:13-23, Rom. 3:25, Eph. 3:8-12, 1Co. 2:9-13, Heb. 10:19-22, etc. Hence it was, that the bottom of the ladder which Jacob saw rested on the ground. Our Lord took upon Himself, not the nature of angels, but the nature of the seed of Abraham, He became Immanuel, God with us. (Heb. 2:14-16, Isa. 9:6, 1Ti. 3:16, Rom. 8:3, Mat. 1:23). He was not just a son, but the Son, of the living God (Mat. 16:16). He was God in human flesh (Joh. 14:9), yet while in the flesh He was subject to the frailties and temptations to which all men are subject (Mat. 4:2; Mat. 8:24; Luk. 2:52; Joh. 4:6-7; Joh. 11:35). In the strength of perfect manhood He conquered sin in the flesh, and being made perfect through suffering, He was qualified to lead many sons into glory (Heb. 2:9-10). It is on the basis of His human nature that he is given the title, Son of man. It is on the basis of His human nature that He has qualified Himself to be our great High Priest (Heb. 2:17-18; Heb. 5:8-10; Heb. 9:24-28). Joh. 3:13; this should read, freely translated: No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man whose abode is heaven (cf. Joh. 1:18; Joh. 17:5). His eternal abode is heaven; while on earth, He was temporarily out of that abode, to which He has returned as our Prophet, Priest, and King (Act. 2:36, Eph. 1:20-23), the Lords Anointed, (Mat. 3:16; Mat. 16:16, Joh. 20:30-31, Act. 2:29-36; Act. 10:38-43, etc.) The matchless humanity of Christ is one of the irrefutable evidences of His deity.
2. It typified the mediatorial work of Christ. The ladder reached from heaven to earth, thus forming a bond of union. An integral phase of Christs incarnate life was that of reconciliation; His ministry was the ministry of reconciliation (Eph. 2:11-22, 2Co. 5:17-21). The essence of true religion is reconciliation, as signified by the etymology of the word, religo, religare, which means to bind back. Christianity is the true religion in the sense that it is the authoritarian Faith, revealing to us the only One who can bind us anew to God. God gave the world to man, and man mortgaged itand himselfto the devil (Gen. 1:27-31; Gen. 3:6-8; Rom. 7:14). Rebellion entered mans heart and separated him from his Creator. The Only Begotten (Joh. 3:16) came to earth to offer Himself as a propitiation for sin (Rom. 3:25; 1Jn. 2:2; 1Jn. 4:10). He came, both to satisfy the demands of Absolute Justice and so to vindicate God, and to demonstrate Gods love for man in such a way as to overcome the rebellion in mans heart and woo him back to the Heavenly Father (Joh. 3:16; 1Jn. 4:11; 1Jn. 4:10; Rom. 2:4). He came to heal the schism which sin had caused, to repair the ruin which Satan had incurred, and to remove the misery which iniquity had entailed (1Co. 15:20-28, Heb. 2:14-15).
He is our Mediator to-day, our High Priest after the order of Melchizedek (Heb. 6:20). There is no other name (authority) by which it is possible for us to be saved (Act. 4:12). There is no way of approach to God but through Him (Joh. 14:6). We are no longer to pray directly to God, as did the Jew; we must address our prayers to the Father in the name of Christ (Joh. 14:13-15). How, then, sinner friend, do you expect to come to the Father unless you have accepted Christ? How can you consistently ask God to answer your prayers until you have been inducted into Christ (Gal. 3:27)? I warn you solemnly that, as long as you are out of Christ, you are without a Mediator at Gods right hand (1Ti. 2:5). The Mediatorship of Christ is one of the blessings of adoption, and with it comes the privilege of prayer and personal communion with God (Rom. 8:12-17). It is indeed doubtful that anyone has the right to call God Father who has not been adopted into the family of God (Eph. 2:19-22). I realize that this statement is contrary to public opinionbut we must speak where the Bible speaks and as the Bible speaks.
A priest is one who acts as mediator between God and man: in Scripture, all Christians are said to be priests unto God (1Pe. 2:5; 1Pe. 2:9; Isa. 61:6, Rev. 1:6), thus qualified to offer up the incense of devoted hearts (1Th. 5:16-17, Rom. 12:1-2), through the Mediatorship of their great High Priest. In the old Tabernacle and Temple service, the high priest went once each year, on the Day of Atonement, into the Holy of Holies, with an offering of blood for himself and his people. Jesus, our High Priest, does not have to enter heaven once each year, but has entered into the Most Holy Place (Holy of Holies)heaven itselfinto the tabernacle not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, once for all, and there, again once for all time, He offered His most precious blood and His perfect body as the supreme sacrifice for the sin of the world (Joh. 1:29; Joh. 19:36; 1Co. 5:7; 1Pe. 2:21-25; Heb., ch. 9). There He is to-day at Gods right hand (the seat of authority) acting as our Mediator (Heb. 1:1-4; Heb. 8:1-13), the Mediator of a better Covenant (Heb. 8:6-13). Satan may appear before the gates of heaven to accuse the people of God (Rev. 12:10; cf. Job. 1:11; Job. 2:5; Zec. 3:1; Luk. 22:31; 1Pe. 5:8), but our High Priest is there, at the Fathers right hand, to defend them (Eph. 1:20-22). All Christians are priests unto God (1Pe. 2:5, Rev. 5:10); Jesus is their High Priest after the order of Melchizedek (i.e., a Priest-King, Gen. 14:18-20; Heb. 6:20, Heb. 8:11-13; cf. Psa. 110:4), and the antitype of Jacobs dream-ladder in which heaven and earth were seen to be united i.e., reconciled.
3. It suggests that Christ is the only Way back to the Father. There was but one Ladder in the dream; so there is but one way back to reconciliation with God. In Christ, God is well-pleased, and only those who are in Christ can be well-pleasing unto God (Col. 1:19-20, Gal. 3:27, Heb. 11:6). All offerings of obedience, prayer, and sacrifice must be in the name of Christ (Col. 3:17). We are baptized in the name of Christ (Act. 2:38); we meet for the Lords Supper each Lords Day in memoriam of His death on the Cross (Luk. 22:14-20; 1Co. 10:16-17; 1Co. 11:23-30; Act. 2:42; Act. 20:2). There is no propitiation available in you yourself, my sinner friend, in your home, in your lodge, in your school, or in humanity in general. (Propitiation is that which vindicates Divine Justice and effects reconciliation between God and man). You must come to God by the obedience of faith in Christ Jesus, humbly imploring the Heavenly Father for forgiveness and pardon, crying as did the publican of old, (Luk. 18:13; Luk. 15:16-24), God, be merciful to me, a sinner!
4. It portrays the accessibility of Christ to the sinner. Joh. 3:17God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world (i.e., all accountable beings)? Why not? Because the world is under divine condemnation, and has been since sin entered in, and separated man from God. The unredeemed world is under the curse of sin (Gal. 3:10, Rev. 22:3). When a person arrives at an accountable age, he is in the kingdom of this world (Joh. 18:36, Rom. 12:2, 1Co. 1:20, 2Co. 4:4, Rev. 11:1-5; Rev. 12:10); he stands without hope either in this world or in the world to come, until he accepts and obeys the Son of God as both Lord and Christ (Act. 2:36, Rom. 10:9-10). He must be regenerated, born again, adopted, transplanted out of the power of darkness into the kingdom of the Son, etc. (Col. 1:13, Joh. 3:1-8, Tit. 3:5, Rom. 8:12-17). These are eternal truths which the wisdom of this world, in our day as always, chooses to ignore or completely reject, in its attempt to deify man (in the name of humanism, naturalism, etc. and other such terms as only very learned (?) men could conjure up, cf. 1Co. 1:18-25). Man today has no awareness, comparatively speaking of his own insignificance and guilt. The grace of God has little or no place in the twentieth-century edition of the wisdom of this world.
Jacob, on his way to Paddan-aram, was weary and footsore when he arrived at Bethel, heavily laden with the consciousness of his own wrongdoing, and burdened with the knowledge of his brothers estrangement and threatened vengeance. He was a pilgrim in a strange land. But the foot of this wonderful dream-ladder rested on the ground, right at his side. No matter if a stone were his pillow, the Ladder to heaven rested near him on the earth, the angels of God were walking up and down on it, and Yahweh Himself was talking to him. Herein we see the nearness of Christ to us. We are all sinners, saved by grace, if saved at all (Eph. 2:8). We could hardly have any hope of heaven without this divine Mediator who knows our frailties and can sympathetically plead our case at the Bar of Absolute Justice. This writer is frank to say that the hope of eternal life which I cherish in my heart of hearts, rests solely upon the offices of the divine-human Redeemer, the Anointed of God, who emptied himself (Php. 2:5-11, Heb. 2:9-18), who stooped down to assume my insignificant state in the totality of being, who brought, and is continually bringing, the mercy and longsuffering of God within reach of every perishing sinner, including the forgiveness of His saints even after they have become redeemed (1Jn. 1:8-10 : these words, it must be noted, were written to Christians).
5. Jacobs Ladder points up the office and work of angels both in Creation and in Redemption. Jacob saw the heavenly host ascending and descending on the Ladder. Note what Jesus said, in this connection, Joh. 1:51. We have largely lost sight of the Biblical doctrine of angels. Angels constituted the citizenship of heaven before the worlds were created (Luk. 10:18). It was the premundane rebellion of certain angels, led by the archangel Lucifer, which brought about the mass of evil with which earth has been afflicted since the seduction of man (Eze. 28:12-17, Isa. 14:12-15, Joh. 8:44, 2Pe. 2:4, Jud. 1:6). Angels have existed from eternity in great numbers and with a celestial organization (1Ki. 22:19, Psa. 68:17, Dan. 7:10, Mat. 26:53, Luk. 2:13-14; Rev. 5:11; Rev. 12:7-8, etc.). In fact we are told that the worlds were arranged, and peopled by human creatures capable of redemption and immortalization, in order that the Absolute Justice of God and the fiendishness of Satan may ultimately be demonstrated to both angels and men (Eph. 3:10; Eph. 6:12). If, in the Day of Vindication, just one soul of the human family stands fully redeemed in spirit and soul and body (1Th. 5:23), God will be gloriously vindicated of all the false charges Satan brought against Him and the creation itself will be proved to be an indescribable triumph (Isa. 45:5-7; Isa. 46:8-11; 1Co. 6:2-3; Rev. 19:1-16; Rev. 20:11-15, etc.). It would seem that the justice and love of God could be demonstrated only in a world of lost sinners: that is a great mystery, of course. The simple fact is, however, that the price which man must pay for his freedomfor his being man, one might truly sayis the possibility of evil.
Angels are supernatural ethereal beings. They constitute a special creation, without sex distinctions, prior to man and superior to him in powers, endowed with superhuman knowledge, but lacking omniscience, thus filling the gap between Deity and humanity in the scale of intelligences. (Psa. 8:4-5, Mar. 12:18-25, Act. 23:9, Heb. 12:22-24). In Heb. 12:22-23, we note the distinction between innumerable hosts of angels and the spirits of just men made perfect: this and other Scripture passages show us that angels are not disembodied spirits in fact there is no such teaching in Scripture; even the redeemed of earth will be endowed with spiritual bodies in the next life (1Co. 15:42-54, 2Co. 5:1-4). Angelic superhuman power, however, is limited in some respects (Mar. 13:32).
Angels have always played a prominent role in the execution of Gods eternal purpose for His creation. We meet them executing judgment on the Cities of the Plain (Genesis 19). We meet them frequently in the stories of the journeyings of the patriarchs (Gen. 16:7, ch. 18, Gen. 22:11, Gen. 24:7). We meet them on Sinais mount communicating the law to Moses (Gal. 3:19). We meet them directing the battles of the Children of Israel on different occasions (Jdg. 6:12, 2Sa. 24:16, 2Ki. 19:35, etc.). We hear them singing above the storied hills of old Judea on the night Christ was born (Luk. 2:13-15). We meet them on the mount of temptation (Mat. 4:11), at the open sepulchre (Mat. 28:2), and on the Mount of Olives when our Lord ascended to heaven (Act. 9:1-11). We meet them comforting the saints, leading sinners to the light, delivering the apostles from prison (Act. 5:19; Act. 8:26; Act. 10:3; Act. 12:7, etc.). And we are told that every little child has its guardian angel always before the throne of God (Mat. 18:10).
Angels were walking up and down the Ladder which Jacob saw. That ladder typified Christ. In all ages, redemption has been offered man through Christ, the Lords anointed: before the Cross prospectively, since the Cross retrospectively; and in all ages, angels have been walking up and down this ladder of redemption which connects heaven and earth. Note that Jesus said they are ascending and descending upon the Son of man, Joh. 1:51. The work of angels has always been that of ministering to those who inherit salvation (Heb. 1:13-14). And even in our day, as always, angels are said to rejoice every time one sinner repents and names the name of Christ (Luk. 15:7). No wonder, then, that the angels, as ministering spirits, have always been vitally interested in the unfolding of the cosmic drama of redemption (1Pe. 1:10-12; 1Pe. 1:4; Act. 26:18; Col. 1:12, etc.).
6. Jacobs Ladder signifies the truth that Jesus exalts His faithful people to their final heavenly state, clothed in glory and honor and immortality, and hence conformed to the image of His Son (Rom. 8:29-30), their minds united with the Mind of God in knowledge and their wills united with the will of God in love (1Co. 13:12-13, 1Jn. 3:2).
The top of Josephs Ladder reached to heavena striking metaphor of what Christ will do for His saints. Man, in the beginning, was natural; when sin entered his heart and separated him from God, he became unnatural; by grace, through faith, he can become prenatural (a better term for redeemed man than supernatural). Progression in the Spiritual Life is from the Kingdom of Nature through the kingdom of Grace into the Kingdom of Glory (Joh. 3:1-8, 2Pe. 3:18, 1Co. 15:42-54, 2Pe. 1:10-11). Heaven is truly a prepared place for a prepared people. Jesus is now engaged in the great work of bringing many sons into glory (Heb. 2:10). Immortality is one of the promises (rewards), of the Spiritual Life (Rom. 2:7; Rom. 8:11; Php. 3:20-21; 2Co. 5:1-5, etc.). (Immortalityincorruptionis, of course, a term that has reference to the redemption of the body, cf. Rom. 8:23). The Christian life is constant growth (2Pe. 1:5-11). In the end, we may stand before the Throne, redeemed in spirit and soul and body, if we continue steadfastly in the love and service of Him who bought us with His own precious blood (Act. 20:28, Php. 3:20-21, 1Co. 15:51-58, 1Th. 4:14-18, 1Jn. 3:2). Our ultimate destiny, as Gods saints, is the new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness (2Pe. 3:13; Rev. 3:5; Rev. 3:12; Rev. 3:21; Rev. 5:9-10).
Heaven is not reached at a single bound:
We build the ladder by which we rise
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,
And mount to the summit round by round.
That Ladder is Christ; and the rounds are these: faith, courage, knowledge, self-control, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, love (2Pe. 1:5-8). In the bliss of ultimate union with God, faith will become reality, hope will be lost in fruition, and love will be all-fulfilling (1Co. 13:13).
Review Questions
See Gen. 28:20-22.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
JACOBS DREAM.
(10) And Jacob.Though this history is called the Tldth Isaac, yet it is really the history of Jacob, just as the Tldth Terah was the history of Abraham, and the Tldth Jacob, beginning at Gen. 37:2, is the history of Joseph. Up to this time all had been preparation, but now at length Jacob is confirmed in the possession of the birthright, and made the heir of the Abrahamic blessing; and henceforward his fortunes solely occupy the inspired narrator, though Isaac had still sixty-three years to live. (See Note on Gen. 11:27.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
JACOB AT BETHEL, Gen 28:10-22.
A complex nature of manifold elements was that of Jacob. His cunning, and disposition to supplant and overreach, have been twice shown. Deceitfulness was a quality so conspicuous in his character as to have put him under the condemnation of all after time. But at the same time he was possessed of many higher qualities than Esau. The latter quickly showed out all he was; but many years and divers experiences were necessary to develop Jacob. In his more quiet soul there was a hiding of power; a susceptibility for divine things; a spiritual insight and longing that made him the fitter person to lead in the development of the chosen nation. The God of his fathers is now about to put him through a discipline that will eventually bring out his spiritual possibilities into bold relief. That which is now dead in him must be quickened by a divine energy from on high. He must suffer for his falsehood, and be wronged and deceived, and humbled in many ways; and at the same time he must receive much light and strength from Jehovah before he can cease to be the unworthy Jacob and become the prince of God.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
10. Jacob went out from Beer-sheba Very differently from the manner in which his father’s servant had gone out on a similar errand .
Gen 24:10.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jacob meets God at Bethel ( Gen 28:10-22 )
Gen 28:10
‘And Jacob went out from Beersheba and went towards Haran.’
At this stage Isaac and the family tribe are still firmly situated in Beersheba. Twenty years later they will be found in Mamre near Hebron (Gen 35:27). That the tribe had kept in close touch with the children of Heth, who were connected with Mamre (Gen 23:17-18), is clear from Gen 26:34; Gen 27:46. Perhaps they had outstayed their welcome at Beersheba. That Jacob had kept in touch with his family comes out in that he later knows where to find them.
Jacob would not travel alone. In Gen 32:10 he refers to crossing the river only having a staff, but that is probably because he did not see those who travelled with him as his own. They and the gifts were Isaac’s. He would almost certainly have servants with him, together with suitable gifts to present to the wider family. (It would seem for example that Rebekah sent with him her own nurse, a typical motherly gesture – see Gen 35:8). Not to take gifts would be a solecism of the worst kind. But he was without the expensive marriage gifts which would have made his way easier. This omission is quite startling. It suggests Isaac’s displeasure with him. He did not want him back quickly and would be quite happy if he remained in Paddan-aram. Rebekah felt the same for a different reason. She wanted him where he would be safe. Alternately it may indicate a period of relative tribal poverty. It may be that Jacob is to restore the family’s fortunes.
Gen 28:11
‘And he lighted on a certain place and tarried there all night because the sun was set, and he took one of the stones of the place and put it under his head, and lay down in that place to sleep.’
The coincidental nature of the resting place is stressed. Though he knows it not an invisible hand is guiding him. The stone is mentioned because it will become a sacred pillar (Gen 28:18).
Gen 28:12
‘And he dreamed, and behold, a ramp set up on the earth and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God ascending and descending on it.’
The word ‘sullam’ (‘heaped up) suggests a kind of ramp leading upwards. And moving up and down this ramp were angels of God. The general message is clear, that the messengers of God are watching over God’s purposes in the world, and especially as regards Canaan. Compare Gen 32:1-2 also the angelic messengers in Genesis 19 and Zec 1:8-11. But the use of ‘God’ rather than ‘Yahweh’ indicates general activity rather than specific covenant activity. It is Jacob who is being looked after by Yahweh Himself (Gen 28:15).
We note in passing that there is no idea of these angels as having wings, that is why they need a ramp. In fact angels are never described as having wings. Wings are limited to the cherubim/seraphim.
Gen 28:13-14
‘And behold Yahweh stood above it (or ‘by him’) and said, “I am Yahweh, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. I will give to you and to your seed the land on which you lie. And your seed will be as the dust of the earth, and you will break forth to the west, and to the east, and to the north and to the south. And in you and in your seed will all the families of the earth be blessed.” ’
Now Jacob has a theophany of Yahweh, as his fathers had had before him. He sees a vision of God in a dream, and God speaks to him directly as the God of his fathers. He confirms the promises made in the covenant. The land is to belong to their children, they will become countless as the dust of the earth, they will spread abroad widely in all directions, and through them the whole world will be blessed. The final purpose of God is always universal blessing. Jacob is now formally accepted as the seed through whom the promises would be fulfilled.
Gen 28:15
“And behold I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you again to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you of.”
God’s sovereign purpose in Jacob is revealed. It is not because Jacob is worthy but because God purposes it. Yet there is in Jacob that which will respond, and indeed has responded, and while his behaviour leaves much to be desired God will work on him to make him what he ought to be. Thus God will be with him and will keep and guard him, and will bring about His purpose through him. Jacob is Yahweh’s personal concern.
We too may feel unworthy in our walk with God, but it is not our sense of worthiness that matters but the fact that God is at work on our lives and we are responsive. If we are His He will work in us to will and to do of His good pleasure (Php 2:13).
Gen 28:16
‘And Jacob awoke from his sleep, and he said, “Surely Yahweh is in this place, and I did not know it”. And he was afraid and said, “How awe-inspiring is this place. This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven”.’
Jacob awakes, still filled with the dread and awe that his experience has aroused in him. It is possible that he takes what he has seen literally and thinks that this is literally the place where heaven and earth conjoin and where there is a gate (in the sense of a city gate) through which angels can pass. But more likely he sees it as temporary. Yahweh is here, even though he had not been aware of it. And the place has thus become for the time being the dwelling-place of Yahweh, ‘the house of God’ (beth elohim) and the gateway to heaven.
All this must not be over-pressed. Jacob is aware that Yahweh has revealed Himself in a number of places, for example, at Shechem (Gen 12:6), in various unnamed places (Gen 15:1 on; Gen 17:1 on) and in Beersheba (Gen 26:24). Each is in its own way as sacred as Bethel. And worship of Yahweh is not confined to Palestine (Gen 24:26; Gen 24:48; Gen 24:52. See also Gen 29:32; Gen 29:35 which demonstrate that Jacob has introduced his wives to the worship of Yahweh). The fact that Yahweh will be with him wherever he goes, and will not leave him, is a guarantee of that. But for him Bethel will always be special, for here was where he first met God personally and heard His voice speaking to him.
How often God comes to us when we least expect it. Like Jacob we wander to ‘a certain place’ and then God meets us there.
Gen 28:18
‘And Jacob arose early in the morning and took the stone that he had put under his head, and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it.’
The pouring of oil on the pillar was to sanctify it to God, to set it apart as ‘holy’ (Lev 8:10-11; Num 7:1). It was to become a sacred pillar, a pillar for a memorial of the covenant renewed with him. Setting up stones was regularly a physical reminder of covenants (compare Gen 31:45-52; Gen 35:14; 1Sa 7:12; Jos 4:3; see also 2Sa 18:18). The pouring with oil gave it a special significance as a holy memorial.
Generally such stone pillars erected in this way were very large. If that is so here the stone will have been lying sideways when he used it as a pillow, mainly buried in the ground, and he put it up on end, no doubt with the help of his servants. In that case ‘took’ in verse 11 would simply mean ‘selected’.
Gen 28:19
‘And he called the name of that place Bethel, but the name of the city was Luz at the first.’
Jacob names the place where he is ‘Beth-el’ (the house of God) but the closest city is called Luz. Its name was later changed to Bethel because of this incident. But the name is not static. Jos 16:2 still distinguishes between Bethel and Luz, although they are clearly very close (Jos 18:13). The use of Bethel earlier in Genesis is a result of scribal updating. It was not uncommon for ancient names to be updated when documents were copied. This constant changing or re-adaptation of names in Genesis reflects the gradual taking over of the land by the patriarchs.
Gen 28:20-22
‘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 Yahweh be my God, and this stone which I have set up for a pillar shall be God’s house, and of all that you will give me I will surely give a tenth to you.” ’
Jacob makes a vow. If God will watch over him as He has promised (Gen 28:15) then he will indeed be totally dedicated to Yahweh. The vow is threefold. Yahweh will be his God, the place where the stone has been erected will be a cult sanctuary to His worship, and he will give one tenth of all he receives to God.
We note that he says ‘if God will be with me’ where we might expect ‘Yahweh’. The terms were interchangeable. But he is going into a foreign land where Yahweh is not acknowledged and thus thinks in terms of ‘God’ going with him. But if the journey is successful then he will establish His worship as the worship of Yahweh, the God of his fathers. He is not saying that Yahweh will become his God but that he will be reconfirmed as his God.
The verse demonstrates that Jacob sees ‘Elohim’ as firmly equated to ‘Yahweh’. The idea of the reconfirmation of Yahweh as his God parallels other examples where a similar idea is in mind (e.g. Exo 6:3).
“This — pillar shall be ‘the house of God” (beth elohim).’ As men approach the pillar they will recognise the presence of God and will engage in worship because it signifies that God appeared there and made his covenant with man. But Jacob does not limit God to a stone. His vision alone has made clear to him the transcendence of God. As Gen 28:19 demonstrates he calls the area as a whole Bethel.
“A tenth.” A recognised percentage given to one to whom one owes dues, as with Abraham to Melchizedek (Gen 14:20). It was a principle recognised elsewhere in the Ancient Near East. He is acknowledging God as his overlord. The change from the third person to the first person in the last phrase reflects the depths of Jacob’s personal dedication.
It is quite probable that this section was put in written form immediately as a covenant document, either by himself or one of his men, a guarantee to Jacob that his future is secured by Yahweh.
Jacob’s vow brings home to us the importance of worship and measured Christian giving in response to the goodness of God.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Jacob’s Dream at Bethel
v. 10. And Jacob went out from Beersheba, v. 11. And he lighted upon a certain place, v. 12. 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.
v. 13. 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; v. 14. 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. v. 15. And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again in to this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Gen 28:10
And Jacob went out from Beersheba,in obedience to his father’s commandment to seek a wife (Gen 28:2), but also in compliance with his mother’s counsel to evade the wrath of Esau (Gen 27:43; cf. Hos 12:12. On Beersheba vide Gen 21:31; Gen 26:33and went towards Haranprobably along the route traversed by Abraham’s servant (cf. Gen 14:10).
Gen 28:11
And he lighted upon a certain place,literally, he struck upon the place; i.e. either the place best suited for him to rest in (Inglis), or the place appointed for him by God (Ainsworth, Bush), or more probably the well-known place afterwards mentioned (Keil, Wordsworth, ‘Speaker’s Commentary’). Situated in the mountains of Ephraim, about three hours north of Jerusalem, it was not reached after one, but after several days’ journey (cf. Gen 22:4)and tarried there all night, because the sun was set;being either remote from the city Luz when overtaken by darkness, or unwilling to enter the town; not because he hated the inhabitants (Josephus), but because he was a strangerand he took of the stones of that place,i.e. one of the stones (vide Gen 28:18). “The track (of pilgrims) winds through an uneven valley, covered, as with gravestones, by large sheets of bare rock; some few here and there standing up like the cromlechs of Druidical monuments”and put them for his pillows,literally, and put for his head-bolster, the word signifying that which is at the head of any one (cf. 1Sa 19:13; 1Sa 26:7, 1Sa 26:11, 1Sa 26:16; 1Ki 19:6)and lay down in that place to sleep (cf. Gen 19:4; 1Sa 3:5, 1Sa 3:6, 1Sa 3:9).
Gen 28:12
And he dreamed. This dream, which has been pronounced “beautifully ingenious,” “clever” and “philosophical,” the work of a later Hebrew poet and not of Jacob (De Wette), was not wonderful considering the state of mind and body in which he must have beenfatigued by travel, saddened by thoughts of home, doubtless meditating on his mother, and more than likely pondering the great benediction of his aged and, to all appearance, dying father. Yet while these circumstances may account for the mental framework of the dream, the dream itself was Divinely sent. And behold a ladderthe rough stones of the mountain appearing to form themselves into vast staircase (Stanley, Bush)set up an the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven:symbolically intimating the fact of a real, uninterrupted, and close communication between heaven and earth, and in particular between God in his glory and man in his solitude and sinand behold the angels of Godliterally, the messengers of Elohim, i.e. the angels (Psa 103:20, Psa 103:21; Psa 104:4; Heb 1:14)ascending and descending on itvide Joh 1:51, which shows that Christ regarded either the ladder in Jacob’s vision as an emblem of himself, the one Mediator between God and man (Calvin, Luther, Ainsworth, ‘Speaker’s Commentary,’ Murphy), or, what is more probable, Jacob himself as type of him, the Son of man, in whom the living intercourse between earth and heaven depicted in the vision of the angel-trodden staircase was completely fulfilled (Hengstenberg, Baumgsrten, Lange, Bush).
Gen 28:13
And, behold,”the dream-vision is so glorious that the narrator represents it by a threefold (Lange)the Lord stood above it,the change in the Divine name is not to be explained by assigning Gen 28:13-16 to the Jehovistic editor (Tuch, Bleek) or to a subsequent redactor (Davidson), since without it the Elohistic document would be abrupt, if not incomplete (Kalisch), but by recalling the fact that it is not the general providence of the Deity over his creature man, but the special superintendence of the God of Abraham and of Isaac over his chosen people, that the symbolic ladder was intended to depict (Hengstenberg)and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac:thus not simply proclaiming his personal name Jehovah, but announcing himself as the Elohim who had solemnly entered into covenant with his ancestors, and who had now come, in virtue of that covenant, to renew to him the promises he had previously given themthe land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seedgiven to Abraham, Gen 13:15; to Isaac, Gen 26:3.
Gen 28:14
And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth,promised to Abraham, Gen 13:16; to Isaac, under a different emblem, Gen 26:4and thou shalt spread abroad (literally, break forth) to the west, and to the east, to the north, and to the south:(cf. Gen 13:14; Deu 12:20). In its ultimate significance this points to the world-wide universality of the kingdom of Christ (Murphy)and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed (vide Gen 12:3; Gen 18:18; Gen 22:18 (Abraham); Gen 26:4 (Isaac).
Gen 28:15
And, behold, I am with thee,spoken to Isaac (cf. Gen 26:24); again to Jacob (Gen 31:3); afterwards to Christ’s disciples (Mat 28:20)and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest,literally, in all thou goestin all thy goings (cf. Gen 48:16; Psa 121:5, Psa 121:7, Psa 121:8)and will bring thee again into this land;equivalent to an intimation that his present journey to Padan-aram was not without the Divine sanction, though apparently it had been against the will of God that Isaac should leave the promised land (vide Gen 14:6, Gen 14:8)for I will not leave thee,a promise afterwards repeated to Israel (Deu 31:6, Deu 31:8), to Joshua (Gen 1:5), to Solomon (1Ch 28:20), to the poor and needy (Isa 41:17), to Christians (Heb 13:7)until I have done that which I have spoken to thee ofcf. Balaam’s testimony to the Divine faithfulness (Num 23:19), and Joshua’s (Gen 21:1-34 :45), and Solomon’s (1Ki 8:56). It is impossible, in connection with this sublime theophany granted to Jacob at Bethel, not to recall the similar Divine manifestation vouchsafed to Abraham beneath the starry firmament at Hebron (vide Gen 15:1).
Gen 28:16
And Jacob awaked out of his sleep (during which he had seen and talked with Jehovah), and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not. Jacob does not here learn the doctrine of the Divine omnipresence for the first time (Knobel), but now discovers that the covenant God of Abraham revealed himself at other than consecrated places (Rosenmller, Keil, Lange, Murphy); or perhaps simply gives expression to his astonishment at finding that whereas he fancied himself alone, he was in reality in the company of Godso plus adeptum ease quam sperare ausus fuisset (Calvin).
Gen 28:17
And he was afraid,so were Moses (Exo 20:18, Exo 20:19), Job (Gen 42:5, Gen 42:6), Isaiah (Gen 6:5), Peter (Luk 5:8), John (Rev 1:17, Rev 1:18), at similar discoveries of the Divine presenceand said, How dreadful is this place!i.e. how to be feared! how awe-inspiring! (LXX.), terribilis (Vulgate)this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. Not literally, but figuratively, the place where God dwells, and the entrance to his glorious abode (Keil); the idea that Jacob was “made aware by the dream that he had slept on one of those favored spots singled out for a future sanctuary, and was fearful that he had sinned by employing it for a profane purpose” (Kalisch), being fanciful.
Gen 28:18
And Jacob rose up early in the morning (cf. Gen 19:27; Gen 22:3), and took the stone that he had put for his pillows (vide supra), and set it up for a pillarliterally, set it up, a pillar (or something set upright, hence a statue or monument); not as an object of worship, a sort of fetish, but as a memorial of the vision (Calvin, Keil, Murphy; cf. Gen 31:45; Gen 35:14; Jos 4:9, Jos 4:20; Jos 14:1-15 :26; 1Sa 7:12)and poured oil upon the top of it. Quasi signum consecrationis (Calvin), and not because he regarded it as in itself invested with any degree of sanctity. The worship of sacred stones (Baetylia), afterwards prevalent among the Greeks, Romans, Hindoos, Arabs, and Germans, though by some regarded as one of the primeval forms of worship among the Hebrews, was expressly interdicted by the law of Moses (cf. Exo 22:24; Exo 34:13; Le Exo 26:1; Deu 12:3; Deu 16:22). It was probably a heathen imitation of the rite here recorded, though by some authorities (Keil, Knobel, Lange) the Baetylian worship is said to have been connected chiefly with meteoric stones which were supposed to have descended from some divinity; as, e. g; the stone in Delphi sacred to Apollo; that in Emesa, on the Orontes, consecrated to the sun; the angular rock at Pessinus in Phrygia worshipped as hallowed by Cybele; the black stone in the Kaaba at Mecca believed to have been brought from heaven by the angel Gabriel (vide Kalisch in loco). That the present narrative was a late invention, “called into existence by a desire” on the part of the priests and prophets of Yahweh (Jehovah) “to proclaim the high antiquity of the sanctuary at Bethel, and to make a sacred stone harmless”, is pure assumption. The circumstance that the usage here mentioned is nowhere else in Scripture countenanced (except in Gen 35:14, with reference to this same pillar) forms a sufficient pledge of the high antiquity of the narrative (vied Havernick’s ‘Introd.,’ 20).
Gen 28:19
And he called the name of that place Betheli.e. a house of God. Rosenmller and Kalisch find a connection between Bethel and Baetylia, the former regarding Beetylia as a corruption of Bethel, and the latter viewing Bethel as the Hebraised form of Beetylion. Keil objects to both that the interchange of in , and in ), would be perfectly inexplicable. On the site of Bethel (Beitin) vide Gen 12:8. But the name of that city was called Luz at the first. Originally the Canaanitish town, built according to Calvin after this event, was called Luz, or “almond tree,” a name it continued to bear until the conquest (Jdg 1:23). From the circumstances recorded in the narrative, Jacob called the spot where he slept (in the vicinity of Luz) Bethelthe designation afterwards extending to the town (Gen 35:6). Until the conquest both titles appear to have been usedLuz by the Canaanites, Bethel by the Israelites. When the conquest was completed the Hebrew name was substituted for the Hittite, the sole survivor of the captured city building another Luz in another part of the country (vide Jdg 1:26).
Gen 28:20, Gen 28:21
And Jacob vowed a vow,not in any mercenary or doubtful spirit, but as an expression of gratitude for the Divine mercy (Calvin), as the soul’s full and free acceptance of the Lord to be its own God (Murphy), as the instinctive impulse of the new creature (Candlish)saying, If (not the language of uncertainty, but equivalent to “since, ‘ or “forasmuch as;” Jacob by faith both appropriating and anticipating the fulfillment of the preceding promise) God (Elohim; for the reason of which vide infra) will be with me,as he has promised (Gen 28:15), and as I believe he willand will keep me in this way that I go,a particular appropriation of the general promise (Gen 28:15)and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on (i.e. all the necessaries of life, included, though not specially mentioned, in the preceding promise), so that I come again to my father’s housealso guaranteed by God (Gen 28:15), and here accepted by the patriarchin peace (i.e. especially free from Esau’s avenging threats); then shall the Lord be my Godliterally, and Jehovah will be to me for Elohim (Rosenmller, Hengstenberg, Keil, Kalisch, ‘Speaker’s Commentary’), though the received translation is not without support (LXX; Vulgate, Syriac, Calvin, Michaelis, Lange, Murphy, Wordsworth); but to have bargained and bartered with God in the way which this suggests before assenting to accept him as an object of trust and worship would have been little less than criminal. Accordingly, the clause is best placed in the protasis of the sentence, which then practically reads, “if Elohim will be Jehovah to me, and if Jehovah will be to me Elohim”.
Gen 28:22
And (or then, the apodosis now commencing) this stone which I have set for a pillar (vide on Gen 28:18) shall be God’s houseBethel, meaning that he would afterwards erect there an altar for the celebration of Divine worshipa resolution which was subsequently carried out (vide Gen 35:1, Gen 35:15). “The pillar or cairn or cromlech of Bethel must have been looked upon by the Israelites, and may be still looked upon in thought by us, as the precursor of every “house of God” that has since arisen in the Jewish and Christian worldthe temple, the cathedral, the church, the chapel; nay, more, of those secret places of worship that are marked by no natural beauty and seen by no human eyethe closet, the catacomb, the thoroughfare of the true worshipper. And of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee. Literally, giving I will give the tenth (cf. Gen 14:20). The case of Jacob affords another proof that the practice of voluntary tithing was known and observed antecedent to the tune of Moses
HOMILETICS
Gen 28:10-22
Jacob at Bethel, or heaven opened.
I. THE LONELY SLEEPER.
1. His desolate condition. Exiled from home, fleeing from the murderous resentment of a brother, o’er-canopied by the star-lit firmament, remote from human habitation, and encompassed by a heathen population, on the bleak summit of the Bethel plateau, upwards of sixty miles from Beersheba, the wandering son of Isaac makes his evening couch with a stone slab for his pillow, an emblem of many another footsore and dejected traveler upon life’s journey.
2. His inward cogitations. The current of his thoughts needs not be difficult to imagine. Mingling with the sadness of leaving home, and the apprehension with which he regarded the uncertain future, there could not fail to be a sense of security, if not a gleam of hope, arising from the consciousness that he carried with him his father’s blessing; in this again affording a reflex of most men’s lives, in which joy and sorrow, hope and fear, continually meet and strangely blend.
3. His heavenly visitation. If the dream by which Jacob’s slumber was disturbed was occasioned by unusual cerebral excitement, if its psychological framework was supplied by the peculiar color of his meditations, it is still true that it was made the medium of a Divine theophany and revelation. So God, who is “never far from any one of us,” is specially near to his children in solitude and sorrow, “in dreams, in visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed, opening the ears of men, and sealing their instruction” (Job 33:15, Job 33:16).
II. THE MIDNIGHT DREAM.
1. The celestial vision.
(1) A ladder reaching from earth to heaven; suggesting the thought of an open pathway of communication between God and man, and in particular between the heirs of the promise and their covenant God.
(2) The angels of God ascending and descending upon it; symbolizing God’s providential government of the world by means of the celestial hosts (Psa 103:20, Psa 103:21; Psa 104:4), but especially the ministry of angels towards the heirs of salvation (Psa 91:11; Heb 1:14). A truth henceforward to be exemplified in the experience of Jacob, and afterwards more fully, indeed completely and ideally, realized in Christ.
(3) Jehovah standing above it. The situation occupied by the symbolic presence of Jehovah was designed to indicate two things: first, that Jehovah was the true and only source whence blessing could descend to man; and, second, that the, pathway which had been opened up for sinful man conducted straight into God’s immediate presence. Thus it was a visible unveiling of the grace and glory comprehended in the covenant, and now fully revealed by the gospel.
2. The accompanying voice.
(1) Proclaiming the Divine name; as the covenant God of Abraham and of Isaac, of which the New Testament interpretation is the God and Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the true seed of Abraham.
(2) Renewing the covenant promisesof a land, of a seed, of a blessing.
(3) Personally engaging to extend to Jacob continual attendance,”Behold, I am with thee,”constant protection,”and will keep thee in all thy goings,”complete fidelity,”I will not leave thee,” &c.; in all which again the voice was but an anticipatory echo of the heavenly voice that sounds in the gospel.
III. THE AWE–STRUCK AWAKENING.
1. Devout impression. The night having passed in contemplation of the unseen world, the morning found the startled sleeper with a strong sense of the supernatural upon his soul, which filled him with alarm. Even to God’s reconciled children awe-inspiring (cf. Job 42:6; Isa 6:5; Luk 5:8; Rev 1:17), a vivid realization of the Divine presence is to the sinful heart overwhelmingly terrible.
2. Reverent adoration. “This is none other but the house of God”implying ideas of Divine residence,”Surely the Lord is in this place!” Divine provision,the thoughts of “bread to eat and raiment to put on” appear to have been suggested to Jacob’s mind,and Divine communionJacob realizes as never before the conception of personal intercourse between Jehovah and his people;”and the gate of heaven”in which lie embedded the fundamental notions of nearness, vision, entrance.
3. Grateful commemoration.
(1) He sets up the stone slab on which his head had rested as a visible memorial of the sublime transaction which had there occurred, and in token of his gratitude pours the only gift he carried with him on it, viz; oil. Sincere piety demands that God’s merciful visitations should be remembered and thankfully acknowledged by offerings of the choicest and best of our possessions.
(2) He calls the name of the place Bethel: in the mean time with a view to his own comfort and satisfaction, but also, there is little doubt, with an eye to the instruction and encouragement of his descendants. It is dutiful in saints not only to rejoice their own hearts by the recollection of Divine mercies, but also to take measures for transmitting the knowledge of them to future generations.
IV. THE SOLEMN VOW.
1. Faith‘s expectation. In a spirit not of mercenary stipulation, but of believing anticipation, Jacob expresses confidence in henceforth enjoying
(1) Divine companionship”If,” or since, “God will be with me;”
(2) Divine protection “and will keep me in this way that I go;”
(3) Divine sustenance”and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on;”
(4) Divine favor”so that I come again to my father’s house in peace;” and
(5) Divine salvation”then,” or rather, and since, “Jehovah shall be my God;”five things promised to the poorest and most desolate of heaven’s pilgrims.
2. Faith‘s resolution. Confidently anticipating the fulfillment of God’s promises, Jacob resolves
(1) To erect an altar at Bethel on returning to the Holy Land, a vow which he afterwards fulfilled. Whatever vows God’s people make should be paid, and no vows are more agreeable to God’s will than those which have for their objects the cultivation of personal piety and the perpetuation and spread of his religion among men.
(2) To consecrate the tenth part of his increase to God, i.e. to the maintenance of God’s worshipan example of pious liberality which has seldom been approached by Christ’s followers, though, considering their higher privileges and obligations, it ought to have been frequently surpassed.
HOMILIES BY J.F. MONTGOMERY
Gen 28:10-22
Jacob’s dream.
Where revelations had been vouchsafed it was supposed that they would be repeated. The stony pillow on which the weary head rested may be changed by the visitation of Divine grace into the meeting-place of heaven and earth. The morning beams breaking in upon the shadowy refuge of the night are transfigured into a dream of covenant blessing. The ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reached to heaven. Angels of God on the way of mediation, ascending, descending, carrying up the wants and services of the man of God, bringing clown the messages of consolation, the vouchsafements of help and deliverance. “Behold, the Lord stood above it,” as the source of all the blessing, standing ready to work for his chosen. This is the first direct communication of Jehovah to Jacob, the first in a long line of revelations of which he was the recipient. It is a renewal of the covenant made to his fathers, it is a republication of the promises. But we require to hear the Lord say to us, “I am with thee, I will not leave thee,” especially when we are already on the journey of faith, when we are obeying the commandment of God, and of the father and mother speaking in his name. Such a place as Jacob found may be made known to us
I. IN PROVIDENTIAL INTERPOSITIONS. We journey on through the wilderness and light upon a certain place where we think we are only among stony facts, where we can find but a harsh welcome; but the Lord is in the place, though we know it not till he reveals himself. Then we cry with trembling gratitude, This is the house of God, &c.
II. IN SEASONS or RELIGIOUS OPPORTUNITY. The ordinary and customary is lifted up by special gift of the Spirit’ ‘into’ the opened heaven, the visiting, angels, the vision of the throne of God. “The house of God, the gate of heaven. Such may be the awaking of our soul in the sanctuary of our own private devotions or of our public worship.
III. Jacob is A TYPE OF THE LORD‘S PEOPLE REGARDED AS A WHOLE. The Church has often laid itself down upon the stones and slept with weariness in its passage through the desert, and the Lord has revealed the ladder of his covenant, connecting together that very place and time of hardship with the throne of grace and. glory, and the ascending and descending angels.
IV. Jesus himself employed this dream of the patriarch as A TYPICAL PROPHECY OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. “Heaven open, and the angels of God Ascending and descending upon the Son of man,” the true Jacob, the Prince prevailing with God and with men (Joh 1:51). The cross is the ladder of mediation. It was set up on the earth. It was not of earthly origin as a means of atonement, but its foot was on the earth as it came forth out of the method and course of earthly history in connection with Divine counsels. Its top reached to heaven, for it was a Divine Mediator whose sacrifice was offered upon it. Angels of God ascended and descended upon the ladder, for only through the atoning merit of Christ is angelic ministration maintained. It is for them “who shall be heirs of salvation.” At the summit of the cross, representing the whole mediatorial work of Christ, is the Lord standing, speaking his word of covenant, and stretching forth his right hand on behalf of his people. Resting at the foot of the cross we hear the voice of a faithful Guide, saying, “I will not leave thee,” &c. In every place one who is conscious of surrounding covenant mercy can say, “This is none other but the house of God,” &c.R.
HOMILIES BY F. HASTINGS
Gen 28:12
A stairway to heaven.
“And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. Jacob in fear of his life leaves home. The last kiss of his mother is taken. During the day Jacob goes forward cheerfully. Night comes on at length. The path is no longer distinct. The wind moans sadly. A sense of loneliness creeps over him. Fear of Esau haunts him. He sees the figure of his brother behind this shrub and that rock. Had Esau outrun to murder him in that lonely spot? He trembles at every shadow, and shudders at every sound. He thinks of the God of his father and mother, and prays. He lies down in the desert; a furze-bush is his only shelter, and a stone his hard pillow. He looks up into the dark vault all glittering with the silent stars. More intense becomes his loneliness, for the stars have no voice for him. Plotting and far-seeing Jacob had deep home-longings, mystic inquirings, and a wealth of affection in his nature. Of such God can make something; to such God can reveal something. To idolatrous, carnal Esau’s how little can God make known. Selfishness hinders. Here in the desert Jacob draws his camel-hair robe more tightly over his feet, and dreams of parents and home, and heaven and God. It might surprise us that he could have such sweet dreams when he was fleeing from the one whom he had undoubtedly wronged. God would over-rule the wrong, and therefore sent him this vision.
I. ALL HAVE DREAMS OF A HEAVEN. A heaven is that for which all men are seeking, whether sought in the way of business, or pleasure, or politics, or literature. Even skeptics have their heaven in their doubt and intellectual pride. That which is our highest object is our heaven. As water cannot rise above its level, so the heaven of some cannot be above their thoughts. There will be a future state answering to the highest longings of the believer, a place of existence in glory far beyond anything here.
II. ACTUAL COMMUNICATION WITH HEAVEN IS POSSIBLE. One author (Hazlitt) says, “In the days of Jacob there was a ladder between heaven and earth, but now the heavens are gone further and become astronomical.” True science opens up an infinite number of worlds and densely-peopled spaces. Material discoveries lessen the sense of spiritual realities. It need not be so. If the universe is great, how great also is the soul, which can embrace in its thoughts the universe! And it is in the soul that God can and does reveal heaven. Peace, hope, love is the spirit of heaven, and that is revealed by Christ. Purify the spirit and heaven comes near.
III. EARNEST EFFORT IS NEEDED TO MAINTAIN COMMUNICATION WITH HEAVEN. In the dream of Jacob he saw a picture of his own struggling ascent in life. Angels might flit up and down, but man had to struggle and put forth earnest effort to maintain the union. Early in life the ascent seems easy. A mountain never appears so far to its summit as it is in reality. As we go on we become more conscious of the difficulties in the way of maintaining the open communications. Often we find ourselves with heads between our hands, pondering whether we shall ever overcome the evil and attain to the good.
IV. THERE IS ALWAYS HELP FROM THE HEAVENS IN THE EFFORT TO MAINTAIN THE COMMUNICATION. A voice comes to Jacob. A promise of guidance and support was given. Christ in his conversation with Nathaniel shows us how all good comes through him. In Christ all goodness centers. All heaven rays out from him in the pardon and reconciliation he has brought. He is the Word made flesh. He is the Divine voice from above. Through him the Holy Spirit is given, and that Holy Spirit shows us things to come, makes heaven plain, and the way direct. One day we shall be called to follow the way the angels go, and after death shall ascend that stairway which “slopes through darkness up to God.”H.
HOMILIES BY J.F. MONTGOMERY
Gen 28:15
God’s providential care.
“Behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest.” Among things believed; but not sufficiently realized, is the truth of God’s constant overruling care. We can trace cause and effect a little way, then lose the chain, and feel as if it went no further, as if events had no special cause. This a common evil in the life of Christians. Its root, walking by sight more than by faith. Jacobwhat made him try craft? Did not trust God fully. Had no habit of faith. But God had not forgotten him. And as he slept on the stone at Bethel the reality of God’s presence was made known to him (Isa 43:2; Mat 28:20) and recorded for our learning.
I. GOD DOES ALWAYS WATCH OVER AND GUIDE. The ladder was not a new thing; it had existed always. The vision showed what exists everywhere (2Ki 6:17). The ladder shows the truth which should stamp our lives. God is love, and love means care. This is for all. Not our love that causes it. Our love, trust, life spring from that truth. The living God is close to us. His hand touches our life at every point. How is it that we are unconscious of this?
II. GOD‘S WORKING IS HIDDEN AND SILENT. Jacob was startled to find him near. Because year by year the world goes on as before, unbelievers deny God’s active presence, worldly men think not of it, and even godly men sometimes forget, for we cannot see the top of the ladder. But God, there, directs all.
III. HIS PURPOSES ARE ACCOMPLISHED BY MANY AGENTS. Many angels, messengers (Psa 104:4; Heb 1:14); natural agents, the elements, &c.; human agents, men good and bad alike carrying out his will; spiritual beings (Psa 91:11). How often those who pray for spiritual blessings forget that common things also are ruled by God. Thus a great door of communion is closed.
IV. BUT THERE IS SO MUCH CONFUSION IN THE WORLD. We often cannot trace God’s hand. How often is trust confounded, wise schemes frustrated, earnest self-denial in vain; prayers, real and intense, without apparent answer. Nay, these are but seeming confusions, to teach the lesson of faith. Through all these, by all these, God’s purposes are surely carried out. One great truth is the key of allthe love of God revealed in Christ. This is the ladder from which he proclaims, “Lo, I am with thee” (cf. Rom 8:32). He who wrought out redemption, can he fail?
V. GOD‘S GOVERNANCE IS FOR OUR SALVATION, in the fullest sense of the word, giving us the victory over evil. God was with Jacob. He had been from the first, though not recognized. He was so to the end. Not giving uninterrupted prosperity. Many a fault and many a painful page in his history; but through all these he was led on. The word to each who will receive it”Behold, I am with thee.” Not because of thy faith, still less of thy goodness. Oh that every Christian would practice trust (Psa 5:3); hearing our Father’s voice, “Commit thy way unto the Lord,” and gladly believing “the Lord is my Shepherd.”M.
HOMILIES BY J.F. MONTGOMERY
Gen 28:18-22
The grateful retrospect and the consecrated prospect.
I. THE TRUE LIFE is that which starts from the place of fellowship with God and commits the future to him. We can always find a pillar of blessed memorial and consecration. The Bethel.
1. Providential care.
2. Religious privilege.
3. Special communications of the Spirit.
God with us as a fact. Our pilgrimage a Bethel all through.
II. THE TRUE TESTIMONY that which erects a stone of witness, a Bethel, where others can find God.
1. Personal. The pillow of rest the pillar of praise.
2. Practical. The testimony which speaks of the journey and the traveler.
III. THE TRUE COVENANT.
1. Coming out of fellowship.
2. Pledging the future at the house of God, and in sight of Divine revelation.
3. Blessed exchange of gifts, confirmation of love. Jehovah keeping and guiding and feeding; his servant serving him and giving him a tenth of all he received. The patriarch’s vow was the result of a distinct advance in his religious life. The hope of blessing became the covenant of engagement, service, worship, sacrifice. The highest form of religious life is that which rests on a solemn vow of grateful dedication at Bethel. The end before us is “our Father‘s house in peace.”R.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
C.
JACOB.-ISRAEL, THE WRESTLER WITH GOD, AND HIS WANDERINGS
FIRST SECTION
Jacobs journey to Mesopotamia, and the heavenly Ladder at Bethel
Gen 28:10-22
10And Jacob went out from Beer-sheba, and went toward Haran. 11And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones [one of the stones] of that place, and put them [it] for his pillows, and lay 12down in that place to sleep. And [then] he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached [was reaching] to heaven: and behold, the angels of God 13[were] ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood [was standing] above it: and said, I am the Lord God [Jehovah, the 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; 14And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west [evening], and to the east [morning], and to the north [midnight], and to the south [midday]: and in 15thee 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 [everywhere] 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 [promised thee].
16And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. 17And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful [awful] is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this [here] is the gate of heaven. 18And 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. 19And he called the name of that place Bethel [house of God]; but the name of that city was called [earlier] Luz at the first. 20And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God [Elohim] will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, 21So that I come again to my fathers house in peace [in prosperity]; then shall the Lord 22[Jehovah] be my God: And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be Gods house: and of all that thou shalt give me, I will surely give the tenth unto thee.
PRELIMINARY REMARK
Jacobs divine election, as well as the spirit of his inward life and the working of his faith, first appear in a bright light in his emigration, his dream, and his vow.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. Jacobs emigration, his night-quarters, and dream (Gen 28:10-15).Went out from Beer-sheba.The journey from Beer-sheba to Haran leads the pilgrim through a great part of Canaan, in a direction from south to north, then crossing the Jordan, and passing through Gilead, Bashan, and Damascus, he comes to Mesopotamia. It was the same journey that Abraham, and afterwards Eliezer, had already made, well known to the patriarchal family.And he lighted upon a certain place.Not after the first days journey, but after several days journey (see Gen 22:4). Bethel (see Gen 28:19), or originally Luz, , was situated in the mountain of Ephraim, on the way from Jerusalem to Shechem, probably the present Beitin; more than three hours north of Jerusalem (see Dictionaries, especially Winer, and books of travels, particularly Robinson, ii. pp. 125130).He lighted upon.By this expression the place in which he took up his night-quarters, in the open air, is distinguished from the city already existing.And tarried there all night.After the sun went down, indicating an active journey. Even at the present date it frequently occurs that pilgrims in those countries, wrapped in their cloaks, spend the night in the open air, during the more favorable seasons of the year.He took of the stones.One of the stones. A stone becomes his pillow. Thus he rests upon the solitary mountain, with no covering but the sky.And he dreamed.In his dream a strange night-vision comes to him, and it belongs to his peculiar character that in this condition he is susceptible of this dream. Here he sleeps upon a hard pillow, exiled from his fathers house, with deep anxiety approaching an uncertain future, and intentionally avoiding intercourse with his fellow-men; a stranger, in solitude and without shelter. Delitzsch. The dream-vision is so glorious, that the narrator represents it by a threefold . The participles, too, serve to give a more vivid representation. The connection between heaven and earth, and now especially between heaven and the place where the poor fugitive sleeps, is represented in three different forms, increasing in fulness and strength; the ladder, not too short, but resting firmly on the earth below and extending up to heaven; the angels of God, appearing in great numbers, passing up and down the ladder as the messengers of God; ascending as the invisible companions of the wanderer, to report about him, and as mediators of his prayers; descending as heavenly guardians and mediators of the blessing; finally, Jehovah himself standing above the ladder, henceforth the covenant God of Jacob, just as he had hitherto been the covenant God of Abraham and Isaac. [It is a beautiful and striking image of the reconciliation and mediation effected by the Angel of the Covenant. See Joh 1:51.A. G.]Jehovah, the God of Abraham.According to Knobel, this is an addition of the Jehovistic enlargement, which does not fit the connection here, where the question is simply about Jacobs protection and guidance. Just as if this could be detached from his theocratic position and importance! First of all, Jacob must now know that Jehovah is with him as his God; that the God of Abrahamhis ancestor in faithand the God of Isaac, will henceforth also prove himself to be the God of Jacob.The land whereon thou liest.The ground on which he sleeps as a fugitive, is to be his possession, to its widest limits. Canaan, from the heights of Bethel, extends in all directions far and wide. His couch upon the bare ground is changed into an ideal possession of the country.As the dust of the earth (see Gen 22:17; Gen 26:4). To one sleeping upon the bare ground, this new symbol of the old promise was peculiarly striking.Thou shalt spread abroad.The wide, indefinite extension to all quarters of the heavens, introduces the thought, that all the nations of the earth are to be blessed in him. [That which is here promised transcends the destiny of the natural seed of Abraham. Murphy, p. 386.A. G.] In the light of this promise, the personal protection and guidance here promised to him has its full significance and certainty. Jehovah guarantees the security of his journey, of the end sought, of his return, and finally, of the divine promises given to him. But the security against Esau is not yet clearly given to him; still the expression: I will not leave thee, untildoes not mean, that he would at one time forsake him, but indicates the infallible fulfilment of all the promises. [The dream-vision is a comprehensive summary of the history of the Old Covenant. As Jacob is now at the starting-point of his independent development, Jehovah now standing above the ladder, appears in the beginning of his descent, and since the end of the ladder is by Jacob, it is clear that Jehovah descends to him, the ancestor and representative of the chosen people. But the whole history of the Old Covenant is nothing else than, on one side, the history of the successive descending of God, to the incarnation in the seed of Jacob, and, on the other, the successive steps of progress in Jacob and his seed towards the preparation to receive the personal fulness of the divine nature into itself. The vision reaches its fulfilment and goal in the sinking of the personal fulness of God into the helpless and weak human nature in the incarnation of Christ. Kurtz.A. G.]
2. Jacobs awaking, his morning solemnity, and vow (Gen 28:16-22).Surely the Lord.The belief in the omnipresence of God was a part of the faith of Abrahams house. And that God was even present here, he did not first learn on this occasion (as Knobel seems to think), but it is new to him that Jehovah, as the covenant God, revealed himself not only at the consecrated altars of his fathers, but even here. Jacob (who was not to take, and did not desire to take, any of the Canaanitish women), probably from religious zeal, avoided taking up his abode for the night in the heathen city, Luz. Generally, indeed, he would feel ill at ease in a profane and heathenish country. The greater, therefore, is his surprise, that Elohim here reveals himself to him, and that as Jehovah.How dreadful (see Exo 3:5)House of God.The dreadfulness of the place results from the awe-inspiring presence of the God of revelation. The place, therefore, is to him a house of God, a Bethel, and the Bethel is to him at the same time the door of heaven. He feels as a sinner rebuked and punished at this sacred place; he trembles and is filled with holy awe, but not disheartened. He did not tremble before men nor wild beasts, but now he trembles before Jehovah in his sanctuary, but it is the trembling of a pious confidence.And he set it up for a pillar.Calvin: A striking monument of the vision. We must here distinguish between the stone for a pillar, as a memorial of divine help, as Joshua and Samuel erected pillars (Gen 31:45; Gen 35:14; Jos 4:9; Jos 4:20; Jos 24:26; 1Sa 7:12); and the anointing of the stone with oil, which consecrated it to Jehovahs sanctuary (Exo 20:30). In the same manner, we must distinguish, on the one hand, between the consecrated stone of Jacob, which marked the place as an ideal house of God and a future place for sacrifice (see Gen 35:15; comp. Gen 35:7), and in an unknown-typical prophecy the place of the future tabernacle, and, on the other hand, the anointed stones worshipped with religious veneration (whence the expression: Oelgtze, idols of oil), and especially the stones supposed in the heathen world to have fallen from heaven, by whose names we are reminded of Bethel, but whose worship, however, is not to be derived from Jacobs conduct at Bethel (see Keil, p. 302; Knobel, p. 239; Delitzsch, p. 460; Winer, Stones).Called the name.Knobel: According to the Elohist, he assigns the name at his return (Gen 35:15). The naming at the last-quoted place, however, clearly expresses the execution of his purpose to sacrifice upon the stone, and thus to change it from an ideal to an actual Bethel, a place for the worship of God. It is evident that this naming of Luz, or the place near by, was of importance only to Jacob and his house, and that the Canaanites called the city Luz now as before, until it became a Hebrew city. According to Keil, Jacob himself called the city Luz by the name of Bethel, but not the place where the pillar was erected. This would be very strange, and it is not proved by Gen 48:3, where Jacob in Egypt characterizes in general the region of this divine revelation. From Jos 16:2; Jos 18:13, too, we receive the impression that Luz and Bethel, strictly taken, were two separate places; for Jacob had not passed the night in the city of Luz, but in the fields or upon the mountain, in the open air. Generally, the whole region was called Luz, in the time of the Canaanites, but Bethel at the time of the Israelites.Vowed a vow.The vow seems to unite the faith in Jehovah with external and personal interests. But the following points should be considered: First, the vow is only an explanation and appropriation of the promise immediately preceding; second, it is a very modest appropriation of it (meat and drink and raiment); thirdly, Jacob emphasizes especially that point which the promise had left dark for his further trial (Gen 32:7), viz., the desire to return to his paternal home in peace, i.e., especially, free from Esaus avenging threats.The vow too: Then shall the Lord be my God, is emphatical, and explains itself by the following promises. Jacob fulfilled the first after his return (Gen 35:7; Gen 28:16), and Israel fulfilled it more completely. The tithes, that first appear in Abrahams history (Gen 14:20), were no doubt employed by Jacob, at his return, for burnt-offerings and thank-offerings and charitable gifts (see below) (Gen 31:54; Gen 46:1). [Murphy says, the vow of Jacob is a step in advance of his predecessors. It is the spirit of adoption working in him. It is the grand and solemn expression of the souls free, full, and perpetual acceptance of the Lord to be its own God. The words, If God will be with me, do not express the condition on which Jacob will accept God, but are the echo and thankful acknowledgment of the divine assurance, I am with thee. The stone shall be Gods house, a monument of the presence and dwelling of God with his people. Here it signalizes the grateful and loving welcome which God receives from his saints. The tenth is the share of all given to God, as representing the full share, the whole which belongs to him. Thus Jacob opens his heart, his home, and his treasure, to God. As the Father is prominently manifested in Abraham, and the Son in Isaac, so also the Spirit in Jacob.A. G.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Jacobs pilgrimage. The patriarchs pilgrims of God (Hebrews 11).
2. From Isaac onward the night dream-vision is the fundamental form of revelation in the history of the patriarchs.Consecrated night-life: 1. As to the occasion: In the most helpless situation, the most solemn and glorious dream. 2. As to the form: A divine revelation in the dream-vision: a. miracles of sight, symbols of salvation; b. miracles of the ear, promise of salvation. 3. As to its contents: The images of the vision: a. the ladder; b. angels, ascending and descending; c. Jehovah standing above the ladder and speaking.The words of the vision, or the centre of the whole vision (Calov.: Verbum dei quasi anima visionis). General promise; individual promise.
3. The rainbow in the brightness of its colors, though soon vanishing away, proclaims the mercy of God, descending from heaven, and ruling over the earth; but Jacobs ladder expresses more definitely the connecting and living intercourse between heaven and earth. The ladder reaching down from heaven to earth, designates the revelations, the words, and promises of God; the ladder reaching upwards from earth to heaven, indicates faith, sighs, confession, and prayer. The angels ascending and descending, are messengers and the symbols of the reality of a personal intercourse between Jehovah and his people.
4. The angelic world develops itself gradually. Here they appear in great numbers, after having been preceded by the symbolic cherubim and the two angels, in company with the Angel of the Lord: 1. These hosts, however, appear in the vision of a dream; 2. they ascend and descend on the ladder; it does not appear, therefore, that they flew. They do not speak, but Jehovah speaks above them. Nevertheless, they indicate the living communion between heaven and earth, the longing for another world, well known to the Lord in the heavens; the help and salvation which comes from above, and with which believing hearts are well acquainted, and the ascending and descending signifies that personal life is only mediated and introduced through personal life. They carry on this mediation, bearing upwards from earth reports and prayers, and from heaven to earth protection and blessings.
5. In this vision and guidance of Jacob the Angel of the Lord unfolds and reveals his peculiar nature in a marked antithesis. Jehovah is the one peculiar personality who, exalted above the multitude of angels, begins to speak, receives and gives the word.
6. Christ brings out the complete fulfilment of Jacobs vision, John 1:52. From this exegesis of the Lord it follows that Jacob, now already as Israel (see Joh 1:47; Gen 28:49), not only beheld a constant intercourse between heaven and earth, but foresaw also, in an unconscious, typical representation, the gradual incarnation of God. Baumgarten: The old fathers, and even Luther and Calvin, are too rash in regarding the ladder, directly and by itself, as the symbol of the mystery of the incarnation. The ladder itself cannot be compared with Christ, but Jacob, who beholds the ladder, etc. No doubt, Jacob, in his vision, is a type of Christ, and Baumgarten correctly says: As far as a dream (it is, the night-vision of a believer) stands below the reality, and things that happen but once below those that continually occur, so far Jacob stands below Christ. Yet the mutual relation and intercourse between God and the elect, of which the advent of Christ is the result and consummation, was doubtless typified by this ladder.
7. From Jacobs ladder we receive the first definite intimation that beyond Sheol, heaven is the home of man.
8. Just as Jacob established his Bethel at his lonely lodging-place, so Christians have founded their churches upon Golgothas, over the tombs of martyrs, and over crypts; and this all in a symbolic sense. The church, as well as Christians, has come out of great tribulations.But every true house of God is also, as such, a gate of heaven.
9. The application of oil also, which afterwards, in a religious sense, as a a symbol of the spirit, runs through the entire Scriptures, we find here first mentioned.
10. Jacobs vow is to be understood from the preceding promise of the Lord. It was to be uttered, according to the human nature, in his waking state, and is the answer to the divine promise.
11. As to the tithes and vows, see Dictionaries. Gerlach: The number ten being the one that concludes the prime numbers, expresses the idea of completion, of some whole thing. Almost all nations, in paying tithes of all their income, and frequently, indeed, as a sacred revenue, thus wished to testify that their whole property belonged to God, and thus to have a sanctified use and enjoyment of what was left.
12. The idea of Jacobs ladder, of the protecting hosts of angels, of the house of God and its sublime terrors, of the gate of heaven, of the symbolical significance of the oil, of the vow, and of the tithesall these constitute a blessing of this consecrated night of Jacobs life.
13. Jacob does not think that Jehovahs revelation to him was confined to this place of Bethel. He does not interpret the sacredness of the place in a heathen way, as an external thing, but theocratically and symbolically. Through Jehovahs revelation, this place, which is viewed as a heathen waste, becomes to him a house of God, and therefore he consecrates it to a permanent sanctuary.
14. Gen 28:20-21. Briefly: If God is to me Jehovah, then Jehovah shall be to me God. If the Lord of the angels and the world proves himself to me a covenant God, then I will glorify in my covenant God, the Lord of the whole world. [There is clear evidence that Jacob was now a child of God. He takes God to be his God in covenant, with whom he will live. He goes out in reliance upon the divine promise, and yields himself to the divine control, rendering to God the homage of a loving and grateful heart. But what a progress there is between Bethel and Peniel. Grace reigns within him, but not without a conflict. The powers and tendencies of evil are still at work. He yields too readily to their urgent solicitations. Still grace and the principles of the renewed man, gain a stronger hold, and become more and more controlling. Under the loving but faithful discipline of God, he is gaining in his faith, until, in the great crisis of his life, Mahanaim and Peniel, and the new revelations then given to him, it receives a large and sudden increase. He is thenceforward trusting, serene, and established, strengthened and settled, and passes into the quiet life of the triumphant believer.A. G.]
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
See Doctrinal and Ethical paragraphs.Jacob, the third patriarch. How he inherited from his grandfather: 1. The active deeds of faith, and from his father; 2. the endurance of faith, and therefore even he appears; 3. as the wrestler of faith.Or the patriarch of hope in a special sense.Jacobs pilgrimage.His couch upon the stony pillow becomes his Bethel.The night-vision of Jacob at Bethel becomes more and more glorious: 1. The ladder; 2. the angels ascending and descending; 3. Jehovah and his promise.The ladder: a. From heaven to earth: the word of God; b. from earth to heaven: prayer (cries and tears, prayer, intercession, thanks, praise).The Angel of God over our life.Jehovah speaking above the silent angels, or the peculiar glory of the word of God, especially of the gospel.Jacobs noble fearlessness, and his holy fear.Bethel, or the sacred places and names upon this earth.Jacobs vow, the answer to Jehovahs promise.How the God of Abraham and Isaac becomes also the God of Jacob, or, Jehovah always the same in the kingdom of God: 1. The living results; 2. the living nature of the results.
Section First, Gen 28:10-15. Starke: Jacob left his home secretly and alone, with all possible speed, before his brother Esau was aware of it. He took nothing with him but his staff (Gen 32:10).(Josephus: Unfavorable opinion of the people at Luz.)Jacob, in this wretched condition upon his journey, a symbol of the Messiah. (Explained allegorically by Rambach: 1. Wooing a wife in a strange country; 2. the true heir appearing in poverty; 3. the sojourn at Bethel. Christ had not where to lay his head.)This ladder, a symbol of Gods paternal care, by which, as by a heavenly ladder, heaven and earth are connected.But that this ladder was to typify something far higher, we learn from Christ himself. The mystery of Christs incarnation, and of his mediatorial office, was typified by this.Freiberger Bibel: In this ladder we see the steps and degrees: 1. Of the state of Christs humiliation; 2. of the state of his exaltation.Chrysostom: Faith is the ladder of Jacob reaching from earth to heaven.Bernh.: The ladder of Jacob is the church, as yet partly militant upon the earth, and partly triumphant in heaven.The Lord (Jehovah). Chaldee: The glory of the Lord. Arab.: The right of the Lord.(Freiberger Bibel: Grotius and Clericus are wrong in not being willing to give the name, the Angel of the Lord, to Christ, but to one of the highest angels, to whom they attribute the name of Jehovah, contrary to the sense and usage of the Holy Spirit.)
Gen 28:15. God, in comforting him, proceeds gradually: 1. He himself is with him, not a mere angel; 2. he will bring him back again; 3. he will never leave him (Rom 8:28).Parents ought not to bring up their children too delicately, for they never know in what circumstances they may be placed.Hall: God is generally nearest to us when we are the most humble.Bibl. Tub.: Even in his sleep Jacob had intercourse with the Lord; in a like manner our sleep should be consecrated to the Lord.Christ, the true Jacobs ladder (Psa 91:2; Isa 33:2).
Gerlach: That the angels here neither hover nor fly, is owing to the representation and typical significance of the vision. By this very fact Jacob was assured that the place where his head lies, is the point to which God sends his angels, in order to execute his commands concerning him, and to receive communications from him; a symbol of the loving and uninterrupted care for his servants, extending to individuals and minute events.Dreadful. The old church called the Lords supper a dreadful mystery (sacramentum tremendum).Lisco: Now Jacob, like Abraham and Isaac, stands as the elect of Jehovah. This is of greater importance, since Jacob is the ancestor of the Israelites only. The promises of Jehovah, therefore, that were given to him, must have appeared as the dearest treasure to his descendants.Schrder: Ver: 10. Because the sun was set. A symbol corresponding with his inward feeling. The paternal home with the revelations and the worship of the only true God, is far behind him, a strange solitude around him, and a position full of temptation before him.The living stone, the rock of salvation, is the antitype of that typical stone in the wilderness; do with it what the patriarch did with his (F. W. Krummacher), Heb 1:14.In the symbol of the ladder lies the prediction of the special providence of God.Earth is a court of paradise; life, here below, is a short pilgrimage; our home is above, and the light of a blessed eternity illuminates our path (F. W. Krummacher).
Section Second, Gen 28:16-22. Starke: Surely the Lord. Chald.: The glory of the Lord.
Gen 28:17. His feeble nature trembled before this heavenly manifestation, because he was well aware of his unworthiness, and the sublimity of Gods majesty considered in the light of the Spirit.Where Gods word is found, there is a house of God. There heaven stands open.(The ancients believed that the divinity, after having forsaken the greater part of the earth (as to his gracious presence), could be found at that place, whither they would be called after their departure from Chalda (Cyrill Alex.)
Gen 28:18. As Jacob was not induced to set up this stone and worship at it by any superstition or idolatry, so the papists gain nothing in deriving their image-worship from this act; although we read in Lev 26:1; Deu 7:5; Deu 12:3. that God has expressly prohibited these things.(The Orientals, in their journeys, use oil for food, for anointing, and for healing.)Cramer: Although the Lord God is everywhere present (Jer 23:24), he is yet especially near to his church with his grace, his spirit, and his blessing (Joh 14:18; Mat 18:20).Bibl. Wirt.: Wherever the Lord God shows himself in his word, or by deeds of his grace, there is his house, and the gate of heaven, there heaven with its treasures is open.A Christian walks with great reverence and fear before God, and bows in humble submission before his most sacred majesty.(Christ, the corner-stone, anointed with the oil of gladness.)Freiberger Bibel: A church, though built of wood and stones, nevertheless bears this beautiful title, and is called Gods house, or house of the Lord. So frequently were named: a. the tabernacle (Exo 23:19; Exo 34:26); b. the first and second temple at Jerusalem, etc.
Gen 28:20-21. Vows must be regarded as holy.The duty of gratitude.Whatever a Christian gives to the establishment of divine service, and to the support of pious teachers, he gives to God.Lisco: How God reveals himself through facts and the experiences of life, by means of which he enlarges the store of our knowledge (still, not here the knowledge of his omnipresence).Gerlach: The vow, which Jacob here took, was based entirely upon the promise given to him, and served as an encouragement to gratitude, to faith, and to obedience, just as afterwards, in the law, in a similar way, sacrifices were vowed and offered. It belonged to the time of childhood under tutors and governors (Gal 4:1).The stone is to become a place of sacrifice.Calwer Handbuch: Perhaps Jacob accomplished the vow concerning the tithes in a similar sense, as at the feast of tithes and sacrifices (Deu 14:28-29), which afterwards occurred every three years, and at which the Levites, the stranger, widows, and orphans should be invited, and at which they should eat and be satisfied. This feast may, perhaps, have existed voluntarily, before it became legal and was introduced as a fixed usage. Schrder: Generally, the outward connection with the chosen generation, the residence at a place pointed out to them by God, constituted the condition of a participation in Jehovah. Ishmael, leaving the paternal home and Canaan, immediately passed over to Elohims dominion. By this manifestation the fear (?) that he, like Ishmael, might be cut off as a branch from its vine, which soon withereth, is taken away from Jacob, and the blessing spoken over him by Isaac at his departure, receives its sanction (Hengstenberg). (The circumstances were more personal and intense; holy persons constituted sacred places, not vice vers; nor did the promise lie in Isaacs individuality, but in the house of Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob was conscious that he was the heir of blessing. The place of Gods special care, the ideal church of Jehovah now, is also transferred in a certain sense, from Beer-sheba to Haran.)Here God himself erected a pulpit, and preached, that his church shall stand forever and ever. But Jacob and the angels of heaven are his hearers. But you must not run to St. Jacob, etc., but in faith look at the place where the word and the sacraments are, for there is the house of God, and the gate of heaven (Luther).The oil, which, from without, penetrates objects gently but deeply, symbolizes holiness which is to be imparted to common things and persons as a permanent character (Baumgarten).As God has become ours by faith, so we must cheerfully yield ourselves to our neighbor by love (Berleb. Bibel).
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
Called Charran, Act 7:2 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
XXVII
JACOB’S CONVERSION AND LIFE IN HARAN
Gen 28:10-31:55
Now we come to an important event in Jacob’s life, his leaving home to be absent many years, and his conversion. How different his leaving from old Eliezer’s! Eliezer went openly, with a large train and many handsome presents. Jacob had to slip off, without money, an exile and afoot. From this time on the man’s individuality will come out. This chapter gives an account of his conversion, the great event of his life, Gen 28:10-18 . That dream was God’s method of communicating with this lonely man. The ladder in that dream, according to John’s Gospel, represents Jesus Christ, the connecting stairway between earth and heaven, upon which angels descend to earth and ascend to heaven. In that dream Jacob saw a grand sight for any man. Earth and heaven had been separated by sin with earth’s inhabitants under a curse. By grace that chasm was spanned by the coming of the Redeemer. Upon that stairway angels come to earth and carry back their reports. Jesus said (Joh 1 ), “Hereafter you shall see the angels of heaven ascending and descending upon the Son of man,” showing that he fulfilled the type of Jacob’s ladder. Dr. Richard Fuller has a marvelous sermon on Jacob’s ladder. He was the great orator of the Southern Baptist pulpit, tall, finely formed, handsome, his voice as a silver bell, and as sweet in its melody as the whisper of an Aeolian harp. It is said that no man could interest a crowd following Dr. Fuller in a speech. He is the only man, other than Dr. J. L. Burrows who has preached the Convention Sermon more than once in the Southern Baptist Convention. People were carried away by the man and his personality. He was one of the few rich men who are called a man of great intellectuality. Read his sermon on Jacob’s ladder, and also the one on “The Cross of Christ.”
Jacob awakened from his sleep and said, “Surely Jehovah is in this place,” and he called the name of that place Bethel. “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 raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, and Jehovah shall be my God, then this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.” There is the evidence of his conversion, his keen sense of divine presence and realization of the import of divine communication, his recognition, as if for the first time in his hitherto unworthy life, of his relations to God and the fixed purpose that came into his heart from that time on to serve God, and to honor God with the firstfruits. Here we come to the second mention of tithing before the giving of the law on Sinai. We have seen before that Abraham gave tithes to Melchizedek. This man is changed from this time on. He does not lose his shrewd business sense, but he is godly and prayerful and believes that wherever he goes God is with him. That is the secret of a religious life. The conviction that there is a direct connection between earth and heaven, and that every angel in heaven, to the extent of his power, is pledged to the companionship and protection of every child of God, and that Jesus Christ is the connecting link between earth and heaven, and that through sickness and health, good and evil report, God will be with his people, is a sure basis of a good life. That consciousness brings out the purpose, “I will serve and honour God with everything that I have.” I remember, while sitting in the back end of a wagon, I read this passage to my wife. The circumstances were these: At the close of the War Between the States, though crippled with wounds, and bankrupt, I voluntarily assumed an antebellum debt of $4,000, not legally my own, and had finally paid all by selling everything I bad but wife and baby, and was moving to a church on the promise of $500 a year. I said, “Now, wife, here is a time to settle our financial relation to God. We haven’t got a thing, and we are sure to fail if he is not honored by us, and if he is honored we will succeed. Let us enter into a covenant right here that whatever happens we will give God one-tenth of every cent that we ever make.” We did from that time on. I have long since passed that limit. For many years I have been giving one-fifth, and some years two-fifths. So here was the event that changed this man’s life. What matters it that he was banished from home and alone, without friends and without money? If God’ was his portion he was rich no matter how poor. If God was with him he had company, no matter how lonely. If God was for him, who could be against him?
The rest of this chapter we devote to Jacob’s life in Haran (Genesis 29-31:55), a period of twenty years. He enters tliat country afoot, with nothing but the clothes he had on and the staff in his hand. He comes out an exceedingly rich man, very much married, with twelve children. Another son was born later. The lesson commences with telling how he arrived at Haran and stopped at the well, perhaps the same at which old Eliezer stopped when he went after a bride for Isaac. Here he meets Rachel, the one woman throughout his life he was to love. She was a little girl about ten or twelve years old, or she would not have bad charge of the flock by herself. But in Oriental countries a girl of twelve is equal in maturity to a girl of seventeen here. It was a case of love at first sight. He never loved another woman while he lived. After they were made known to each other (v. II), “And Jacob kissed Rachel and lifted up his voice and wept.” My first question is, Why did he weep after kissing that girl? I leave that for you to find out. When Brother Truett and his wife were here, looking toward each other just about like Jacob and Rachel, and we were passing over this, I gave that same question. Some of the class answered, “He wept because he had not commenced that work sooner.” And one ill-natured young preacher said, “He wept because Rachel had been eating onions.” But Brother Truett’s wife gave the true answer. See who of you will give it.
The next remark is on the Gen 29:14 : “And Laban, the father of Rachel, said unto him, Surely thou art my bone and my flesh. And he abode with him a month of days,” i.e. he stayed as a guest for a full month. A guest must not stay too long. So naturally Laban raised the question of something to do, and said to Jacob, “Because thou art my brother,” which means kinsman, “shouldst thou, therefore, serve me for nothing? Tell me what shall be thy wages.” Laban proposes a business transaction. Look at it. Jacob says, referring to the two girls Leah, the elder, was not beautiful and her eyes were weak, but Rachael was beautiful of form and countenance “I will serve thee seven years for thy younger daughter. It was the custom for the bridegroom to give presents, and in the Orient today a man in a measure purchases his wife. But Jacob had nothing to give, but he was to serve seven years without other wages. Young men of the present day think if they serve for a girl thirty days that it is a great tax on them, and they begin to think how much they have paid for ice cream, streetcar fare, buggy rides, theater tickets, etc., and begin to bring matters to a focus. They have not the love that Jacob had. And his proposition was accepted. Next, Gen 29:20 , “And Jacob served for Rachel seven years, and they were in his eyes but a few days for the love he had for her.” There is a remarkable proof of the genuineness of his love. This is one of the most illustrious cases of deep, personal, lifelong attachment that we have any historical account of, and has become proverbial: “Serve seven years for Rachel.” At the end of the seven years he claimed the fulfillment of the contract. Now this young man who had practiced the deception upon his old, blind father, has a deception practiced upon him. Laban is very tricky and unscrupulous. All that crowd up there are shrewd traders and sharp bargainers. Whoever deals with them has to keep both eyes open, and not sleep in the day, and not sleep very sound at any time in the night. They are that way till this day. The manner of consummating the marriage, the betrothal of which had lasted seven years, is very simple: In a formal way the father veils the girl and at night turns her over to the bridegroom. That ends the ceremony. I have seen a letter today from a judge who occupies his seat for the first time, and he says one of the first acts of his administration was to marry a couple and he tells of the ceremony, too simple to repeat, but it does not make much difference about the form, the fact that the transfer has been made and accepted establishes the validity.
Here comes a general question, What ill-natured English poet, in order to illustrate what he calls the disillusions that follow marriage said, “With Rachel we lie down at night; in the morning, behold it is Leah”? I don’t agree with him at all. There have been thousands and thousands of marriages where there was not only no disillusion after the marriage was consummated, but an ever-deepening, lifelong attachment. I expect if some woman had written a couplet she would have put it: “With George Washington we lie down at night, and in the morning, lo I it is Benedict Arnold.” It sounds smart, but you ought not to have any respect for any man who reflects upon the sanctity of the marriage relation. I knew a couple who married early, the man about twenty-three, and the girl about eighteen. After twenty-five years had passed the man said, “I have not been anywhere in the world that she has not been with me. Even when I go hunting, fishing, traveling, she is with me. And there has never been an hour since I married her that I had not rather be with her than with anybody else in the world.” And the woman said the same thing. I think that kind of testimony is much better than the English poet’s testimony.
Jacob was very indignant at the cheat perpetrated upon him. He did not love Leah, and he did not want her at all. The explanation that Laban made is so thin that it won’t hold water. It is not true that in the East you cannot marry the younger until the older is disposed of. Laban then said, “As soon as the week of wedding festivities is over, I will let you have Rachel, provided you will serve seven more years. You can take her at the end of the week, but you take her on a credit until you have served the seven years.” Jacob made that trade. Fourteen years of hard work! I want you to think of that whenever you think of the bad things Jacob did; think also of the good points in the man.
Now we come to the evils of polygamy forced upon Jacob. He never wanted but one woman, but this trickery of his uncle gave him two, and the jealousy of these two wives fastened upon him two more; so that there were two wives and two concubines. For quite a while the strife between the two wives goes on. What kind of a home do you suppose that was? Among the Mormons they do sometimes give a separate house to each wife, but others put a dozen in the same house. Jealousy is certain to develop and cause conflict among the children. A struggle between these two wives is manifested in the names given to the children. Leah, in these seven years, bore Jacob seven children, six sons and one daughter. Rachel bore one son, Joseph, and afterward another. The two maidservants bore two each. That makes twelve sons. I will call the names out in the order in which they were born. Reuben, Leah’s firstborn, means “See, a son.” It expresses her pride, that Jacob’s firstborn was a son, and not a daughter. Simeon, her second, means “a hearing”: that she asked God, as the love of her husband had not come when Reuben was born as she supposed, to send her another child, but Jacob still did not love her. Levi, her third, means “a Joiner”; “Now I will be joined to my husband.” But he did not join them. Judah, her fourth, means “praise”; “Praise Jehovah for the blessing that has come upon me, now that I have borne four sons to my husband.” When Bilhah, Rachel’s handmaid, bore a son, Rachel named him Dan, meaning “a judge”; “God has judged my side of the case.” When Naphtali, the second son, was born to her handmaid, Rachel names him “wrestling.” She had wrestled in prayer to God for still additional hold on the husband. Then Zilpah, Leah’s handmaid, bore a son and he is named Gad. The literal Hebrew means “good fortune,” but when we come to interpret it in chapter 49, it means “7 troop,” i.e., four sons have already been born on the Leah side and here is another. That means there is going to be a troop of them. Her next son is named Asher, which means “happy” happy in getting the advantage of Rachel. Then Leah herself bears another son, Issachar, which means “reward.” Her next son, Zebulun, means “dwelling.” “I have borne six sons to my husband. Surely he will dwell with me.” When her daughter was born she named her Dinah, which means “vindication”: “God is vindicating my side of the marriage relation.” At that time Rachel bore her first child and she named him Joseph, “May he add, as I now have a start.” Later on, Rachel’s last son is born, and dying she names him Benoni, “the child of my anguish.” But the husband steps in and for the first time gets to name one of the children. He names him Benjamin, “the child of my right hand.” These are the twelve names bestowed on the sons. When we come to the dying blessing that Jacob pronounces in chapter 49 upon all of the children, we will see some additions to the names and the characteristics there brought out. These titles come from what the mothers thought of the twelve children at the time they were born, but the names from chapter 49 come from the developments of character in the boys themselves. In Deu 33 , where Moses pronounces the blessing on the twelve tribes, calling them by their names, he leaves out one of the twelve altogether, and brings in new titles not based upon what was in the mother’s mind, nor upon the characteristics of the twelve sons, but upon the characteristics of the tribes descended from the sons. In Rev 12 , we will come upon another list of them, where the reference is not at all to the reasons heretofore expressed in their names but to the later tribal characteristics. As we pass along I, will ask you to compare these four lists of the children of Jacob. You know we have four lists of the twelve apostles, and sometimes different names for the same person. Yet more particularly will I call your attention to the birthright man. Reuben, the firstborn, is entitled to the right of primogeniture. You will find out later how he loses it, and how the several elements of the right of primogeniture are distributed among three other sons of Jacob. At the end of the fourteen years Jacob claimed the fulfillment of his contract. Up to this time he had not made anything, except the wife that he wanted. He has a large family, no money or property, but rich in this family. A young man of the present time, encumbered with twelve children in fourteen years of married life, would think himself pretty much hampered, particularly if he had no bank account, cotton field, or big salary. Now the question comes up about a new contract. God had marvelously blessed Laban on account of Jacob. Jacob had attended to his business so well, being competent from habits of earlier life to which I called your attention in a previous chapter, that Laban did not want to lose Jacob. Jacob makes another proposition: “You shall not pay me any salary, but I propose that we leave it for divine providence to designate how much I ought to get. Most of the sheep are white, brown, or black, an unmixed colour. I propose that my part shall be the speckled, striped or ringstreaked.” Laban looked over his flocks and found only a little sprinkle in all the multitudes not having a solid color. So he accepted the proposition. He was a very shrewd old man. Before the contract goes into effect he moves every one that is already ring-streaked, striped, or speckled, three days’ journey from Jacob, and puts them in the hands of his sons and says to Jacob, “We will start even.” Jacob said nothing, but God was with him, and we have here presented in the history how Jacob got rich, and the expedients that he resorted to in order that the flocks might bear striped, speckled, and ring-streaked. And we learn how God intervened that Jacob, who had been working fourteen years and had been cheated, might have compensation. Through Jacob’s expedient, and particularly through divine providence, Jacob’s flocks increased. Old Laban looked on and it puzzled him. Laban’s children looked on and it puzzled them. The pure white and solid colors began to get fewer and fewer. Jacob’s flock began to multiply beyond all human calculation. What follows? Laban’s sons begin to talk about it: “This stranger has come up here. He did not have a thing when he came to our house. He is managing this business and getting all of our father’s property. After a while there won’t be anything to divide between us.” Laban heard the boys talking and he agreed with them. When he would pass Jacob he would look at him sideways and would not speak to him. Jacob saw a storm was brewing. God came to him in a vision and said, “Return to thy native land. It is time to go, twenty years have passed.” Jacob did not know how his wives would stand on the matter. So he sent for them to come out to the field. He would not talk to them about it at the house. He stated the case fairly: how badly he had been treated, and wanted to know if the wives would stand by him and would go with him. They told him they would, and he might have known it. A man need never be afraid, if he is a good husband, of her not standing by him. Everybody else in the world may go back on him, but a good wife will be true. Laban was away on a three days’ journey, so they decided to strike out without letting him know. And to add to it, Rachel went into Laban’s house and stole his teraphim, little images of idolatry and divination. Just as Demetrius, the silversmith at Ephesus, made little models of the temple of Diana at Ephesus, so they could tie them around their necks or put them in their pockets and carry them around with them. Wherever they felt like worshiping, they could bow down before this little trinket, or as they now tie crosses around their necks, or when they get up they bow down before that cross or little image of the virgin Mary. Now, the question comes up, Why did Rachel steal the teraphim? That is what I want you to answer. I have my own opinion, but I don’t want to force it on you now. One may answer that she was herself at heart an idolater, at least in part. Now, you may adopt that, if you want to, for your answer. It is not mine. They started at a good time. Laban was gone to that other flock, and they knew he would not be back for three days and that they would have three days the start. So they crossed the Euphrates and set out with many servants, cattle, sheep, goats, and quite a sprinkling of children and only four wives. It was a pretty big caravan. I don’t know just which way Jacob went. He may have gone down to Damascus, and from Damascus to Gilead.
Three days passed before Laban heard of it. He cornea home after shearing his sheep and wanted to find his little gods, but he could not find them. Then he went out to look for his interests in that other herd, and lo, Jacob was gone. So he rallied a party, a flying column, without women or children, flocks, or other hindrances, on swift dromedaries, or horses suppose dromedaries and at the end of seven days he caught them near the mountains of Gilead. But the night before he caught up with them old Laban had an experience that he had never had before in his life. In that night Almighty God in a vision comes to him and says, “Laban, don’t you speak either good or evil to Jacob. Keep your hands of.” Unquestionably that is the only thing that prevented the killing of Jacob and taking the wives and children and that property God’s divine intervention. It sobered Laban very much. They had a meeting, and it was one of the most touching incidents in human history. Why some novelist has not brought it out I don’t know. Old Laban said, “You have stolen my goods, my cattle, my teraphim.” Jacob knew nothing about these little gods and denied it, and said he had carried off only what was his own. Now comes Jacob’s speech which I would like for you to be able to memorize. “And Jacob answered and said to Laban, What is my trespass? what is my sin, that thou hast hotly pursued after me? Whereas thou hast felt about all my stuff, what hast thou found of all thy household stuff? set it here before my brethren and thy brethren, that they may judge betwixt us two. These twenty years have I been with thee; thy ewes and thy she-goats have not cast their young, and the rams of thy flocks have I not eaten. That which was torn of the beasts I brought not unto thee; I bare the loss of it; of my hand didst thou require it, whether stolen by day or by night. Thus I was; in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep fled from mine eyes. These twenty years have I been in thy house; I served thee fourteen years for thy two daughters, and six years for thy flock; and thou hast changed my wages ten times. Except the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely now hadst thou sent me away empty. God hath seen mine affliction and the labour of my hands, and rebuked thee yesternight.” Old Laban could not say a word to that. The promise that God had made to Jacob that he would be with him had been literally fulfilled. Laban then proposes that a covenant be made between them. They erected and consecrated a pillar, that Laban’s crowd should never pass that pillar toward the Holy Land to do evil to Jacob, and Jacob’s crowd could never pass that pillar going to Laban’s country to do evil to him.
Now open wide your eyes and ears: “And Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha; but Jacob called it Galeed.” The first is Aramaic, and the second word is Hebrew, and they mean exactly the same thing. Dr. Joseph Parker of England has preached a great sermon on the text entitled “Logomachy,” i.e., strife about words. “And Laban said, This heap is witness between me and thee this day,” and he called it Mizpah. Here I am going to tell you a fragment of a very touching story. In the first year of the war, just before a young man had started to the army, he paid very pointed attention to a lady, and they became engaged. During the war, the man, in passing the time in absence and with new faces, changed his feelings. His first letters were very loving and glowing. Then they began to lose the glow and diminish in length, and at last he quit writing. One evening just before a terrible battle in which many were killed, I was standing by the side of this man when one of the men who had been on a furlough brought a letter and handed it to him. He looked at the letter and said, “Pshaw! that is from that bothersome woman.” He opened it and there wasn’t a thing in it except a piece of colored paper, and on it was written in capital letters: “Mizpah, THE LORD WITNESSETH BETWEEN ME AND THEE.”
He turned white as he looked at it. This woman knew the Bible story and knew that, where a covenant had been made in the name of God and God’s name brought in, whoever violated that covenant not only wronged a human being but was guilty of sin toward God. His hand shook as he looked at it. He told me about it, and I said, “If you are a man, you go right to your tent and send her a humble, penitent letter.” He said, “I won’t do it.” And I said, “Then watch out. That woman has quit appealing to you. She has appealed to God. Mizpah, the Lord witness between me and thee.” He says, “I reckon I can take care of myself.” The next day we went into battle. He was shot through the heart and fell on me. That saved my life. When the battle was over I went back and found him thoroughly dead, and in going through his pockets to send home to his family, I found that piece of paper and through the center of the word “Mizpah” the Yankee bullet had gone right into his heart.
My reason for calling your attention to this is that he is a profane person who is irreverent toward God in anything. He is profane in the East who breaks an oath, and it is counted an everlasting degradation. Whenever you agree to anything in the name of God, you bring God in as a witness. Then you do what is said in another Old Testament book, “When I swear to my hurt, I will keep my word.” Stick to your word. Notice when Jacob meets Laban it is diamond cut diamond, but when Jacob meets Esau, it is rapier meeting hammer.
QUESTIONS 1. What was the great event of Jacob’s life?
2. State the time, place, and circumstances of his conversion.
3. What New Testament passage explains Jacob’s ladder and who preached a great sermon on it?
4. What melting hymn was suggested by this incident?
5. What name did Jacob give to the place of his conversion, and why?
6. What vow did he make?
7. What was the evidence of his conversion?
8. What is the secret of a successful, religious life?
9. What do we find here which was mentioned in the Bible only once before this, and what is the author’s belief respecting that teaching?
10. How long was Jacob in Haran?
11. Contrast his condition when he went in with his condition when he came out.
12. Describe the meeting of Jacob and Rachel.
13. Why did Jacob weep after he kissed Rachel?
14, How did Jacob get Rachel and what evidence that he loved her?
15. What proverb based on this incident?
16. How was the law of lex talionis exemplified in Jacob’s case?
17. What do you think of the English poet’s testimony referred to?
18. Was Laban’s explanation to Jacob plausible and what good points of Jacob here comes out?
19. State some of the evils of polygamy.
20. Who were Jacob’s children by Leah? Rachel? Bilhah? Zilpah?
21. What the meaning of their names?
22. From what were these names derived?
23. What four lists of these names do we have in the Bible?
24. What was Jacob’s condition, at the end of fourteen years?
25. What business contract did he now make with Laban and what do you think of the way he executed his part?
26. How did Jacob get away from Laban and why did Rachel steal Laban’s teraphim?
27. How did Jacob get the start of Laban and where did Laban over-take him?
28. What kept Laban from killing Jacob?
29. What charge did Laban bring against Jacob?
30. What was Jacob’s reply?
31. Cite the passage that shows the hardness of Jacob’s life in Haran.
32. How was it finally settled?
33. What is the meaning of Mizpah and what illustration of this is given by the author?
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Gen 28:10 And Jacob went out from Beersheba, and went toward Haran.
Ver. 10. And Jacob went out from Beersheba. ] A long journey, but nothing so long as Christ took, from heaven to earth, to serve for a wife, his Church; who yet is more coy than Rachel, and can hardly be spoken with, though he stand clapping and calling, “Open to me, my sister, my spouse.” Stupenda dignatio , saith one; a wonderful condescending.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Genesis
THE HEAVENLY PATHWAY AND THE EARTHLY HEART
Gen 28:10 – Gen 28:22
From Abraham to Jacob is a great descent. The former embodies the nobler side of the Jewish character,-its capacity for religious ideas; its elevation above, and separation from, the nations; its consciousness of, and peaceful satisfaction in, a divine Friend; its consequent vocation in the world. These all were deep in the founder of the race, and flowed to it from him. Jacob, on the other hand, has in him the more ignoble qualities, which Christian treatment of the Jew has fostered, and which have become indissolubly attached to the name in popular usage. He is a crafty schemer, selfish, over-reaching, with a keen eye to the main chance. Whoever deals with him has to look sharply after his own interests. Self-advantage in its most earthly form is uppermost in him; and, like all timid, selfish men, shifty ways and evasions are his natural weapons. The great interest of his history lies in the slow process by which the patient God purified him, and out of this ‘stone raised up a worthy child to Abraham.’ We see in this context the first step in his education, and the very imperfect degree in which he profited by it.
1. Consider the vision and its accompanying promise. Jacob has fled from home on account of his nobler brother’s fierce wrath at the trick which their scheming mother and he had contrived. It was an ugly, heartless fraud, a crime against a doting father, as against Esau. Rebekah gets alarmed for her favourite; and her fertile brain hits upon another device to blind Isaac and get Jacob out of harm’s way, in the excuse that she cannot bear his marriage with a Hittite woman. Her exaggerated expressions of passionate dislike to ‘the daughters of Heth’ have no religious basis. They are partly feigned and partly petulance. So the poor old blind father is beguiled once more, and sends his son away. Starting under such auspices, and coming from such an atmosphere, and journeying back to Haran, the hole of the pit whence Abraham had been digged, and turning his back on the land where God had been with his house, the wanderer was not likely to be cherishing any lofty thoughts. His life was in danger; he was alone, a dim future was before him, perhaps his conscience was not very comfortable. These things would be in his mind as he lay down and gazed into the violet sky so far above him, burning with all its stars. Weary, and with a head full of sordid cares, plans, and possibly fears, he slept; and then there flamed on ‘that inward eye, which is the bliss of solitude’ to the pure, and its terror to the evil, this vision, which speaks indeed to his then need, as he discerned it, but reveals to him and to us the truth which ennobles all life, burns up the dross of earthward-turned aims, and selfish, crafty ways.
We are to conceive of the form of the vision as a broad stair or sloping ascent, rather than a ladder, reaching right from the sleeper’s side to the far-off heaven, its pathway peopled with messengers, and its summit touching the place where a glory shone that paled even the lustrous constellations of that pure sky. Jacob had thought himself alone; the vision peoples the wilderness. He had felt himself defenceless; the vision musters armies for his safety. He had been grovelling on earth, with no thoughts beyond its fleeting goods; the vision lifts his eyes from the low level on which they had been gazing. He had been conscious of but little connection with heaven; the vision shows him a path from his very side right into its depths. He had probably thought that he was leaving the presence of his father’s God when he left his father’s tent; the vision burns into his astonished heart the consciousness of God as there, in the solitude and the night.
The divine promise is the best commentary on the meaning of the vision. The familiar ancestral promise is repeated to him, and the blessing and the birthright thus confirmed. In addition, special assurances, the translation of the vision into word and adapted to his then wants, are given,-God’s presence in his wanderings, his protection, Jacob’s return to the land, and the promise of God’s persistent presence, working through all paradoxes of providence and sins of His servant, and incapable of staying its operations, or satisfying God’s heart, or vindicating His faithfulness, at any point short of complete accomplishment of His plighted word.
We pass from the lone desert and the mysterious twilight of Genesis to the beaten ways between Galilee and Jordan, and to the clear historic daylight of the gospel, and we hear Christ renewing the promise to the crafty Jacob, to one whom He called a son of Jacob in his after better days, ‘an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile.’ The very heart of Christ’s work was unveiled in the terms of this vision: From henceforth ‘ye shall see the heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.’ So, then, the fleeting vision was a transient revelation of a permanent reality, and a faint foreshadowing of the true communication between heaven and earth. Jesus Christ is the ladder between God and man. On Him all divine gifts descend; by Him all the angels of human devotion, consecration, and aspiration go up. This flat earth is not so far from the topmost heaven as sense thinks. The despairing question of Jewish wisdom, ‘Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? . . .What is his name, and what is his son’s name, if thou canst tell?’-which has likewise been the question of every age that has not been altogether sunk in sensual delights-is answered once for all in the incarnate and crucified and ascended Lord, by and in whom all heaven has stooped to earth, that earth might be lifted to heaven. Every child of man, though lonely and earthly, has the ladder-foot by his side,-like the sunbeam, which comes straight into the eyes of every gazer, wherever he stands. It becomes increasingly evident, in the controversies of these days, that there will remain for modern thought only the alternative,-either Jesus Christ is the means of communication between God and man, or there is no communication. Deism and theism are compromises, and cannot live. The cultivated world in both hemispheres is being more and more shut up to either accepting Christ as revealer, by whom alone we know, and as medium by whom alone we love and approach, God; or sinking into abysses of negations where choke-damp will stifle enthusiasm and poetry, as well as devotion and immortal hope.
Jacob’s vision was meant to teach him, and is meant to teach us, the nearness of God, and the swift directness of communication, whereby His help comes to us and our desires rise to Him. These and their kindred truths were to be to him, and should be to us, the parents of much nobleness. Here is the secret of elevation of aim and thought above the mean things of sense. We all, and especially the young, in whose veins the blood dances, and to whom life is in all its glory and freshness, are tempted to think of it as all. It does us good to have this vision of the eternal realities blazing in upon us, even if it seems to glare at us, rather than to shine with lambent light. The seen is but a thin veil of the unseen. Earth, which we are too apt to make a workshop, or a mere garden of pleasure, is a Bethel,-a house of God. Everywhere the ladder stands; everywhere the angels go up and down; everywhere the Face looks from the top. Nothing will save life from becoming, sooner or later, trivial, monotonous, and infinitely wearisome, but the continual vision of the present God, and the continual experience of the swift ascent and descent of our aspirations and His blessings.
It is the secret of purity too. How could Jacob indulge in his craft, and foul his conscience with sin, as long as he carried the memory of what he had seen in the solitary night on the uplands of Bethel? The direct result of the vision is the same command as Abraham received, ‘Walk before Me, and be thou perfect.’ Realise My presence, and let that kill the motions of sin, and quicken to service.
It is also the secret of peace. Hopes and fears, and dim uncertainty of the future, no doubt agitated the sleeper’s mind as he laid him down. His independent life was beginning. He had just left his father’s tents for the first time; and, though not a youth in years, he was in the position which youth holds with us. So to him, and to all young persons, here is shown the charm which will keep the heart calm, and preserve us from being ‘over exquisite to cast the fashion of uncertain evils,’ or too eagerly longing for possible good. ‘I am with thee’ should be enough to steady our souls; and the confidence that God will not leave us till He has accomplished His own purpose for us, should make us willing to let Him do as He will with ours.
2. Notice the imperfect reception of the divine teaching. Jacob’s startled exclamation on awakening from his dream indicates a very low level both of religious knowledge and feeling. Nor is there any reason for taking the words in any but their most natural sense; for it is a mistake to ascribe to him the knowledge of God due to later revelation, or, at this stage of his life, any depth of religious emotion. He is alarmed at the thought that God is near. Probably he had been accustomed to think of God’s presence as in some special way associated with his father’s encampment, and had not risen to the belief of His omnipresence. There seems no joyous leaping up of his heart at the thought that God is here. Dread, not unmingled with the superstitious fear that he had profaned a holy place by laying himself down in it, is his prevailing feeling, and he pleads ignorance as the excuse for his sacrilege. He does not draw the conclusion from the vision that all the earth is hallowed by a near God, but only that he has unwittingly stumbled on His house; and he does not learn that from every place there is an open door for the loving heart into the calm depths where God is throned, but only that here he unwittingly stands at the gate of heaven. So he misses the very inner purpose of the vision, and rather shrinks from it than welcomes it. Was that spasm of fear all that passed through his mind that night? Did he sleep again when the glory died out of the heaven? So the story would appear to suggest. But, in any case, we see here the effect of the sudden blazing in upon a heart not yet familiar with the Divine Friend, of the conviction that He is really near. Gracious as God’s promise was, it did not dissipate the creeping awe at His presence. It is an eloquent testimony of man’s consciousness of sin, that whensoever a present God becomes a reality to a worldly man, he trembles. ‘This place’ would not be ‘dreadful,’ but blessed, if it were not for the sense of discord between God and me.
The morning light brought other thoughts, when it filled the silent heavens, and where the ladder had stretched, there was but empty blue. The lesson is sinking into his mind. He lifts the rude stone and pours oil on it, as a symbol of consecration, as nameless races have done all over the world. His vow shows that he had but begun to learn in God’s school. He hedges about his promise with a punctilious repetition of God’s undertaking, as if resolved that there should be no mistake. Clause by clause he goes over it all, and puts an ‘if’ to it. God’s word should have kindled something liker faith than that. What a fall from ‘Abram believed in the Lord, and He counted it to him for righteousness’ ! Jacob barely believed, and will wait to see whether all will turn out as it has been promised. That is not the glad, swift response of a loving, trusting heart. Nor is he contented with repeating to God the terms of his engagement, but he adds a couple of clauses which strike him as being important, and as having been omitted. There was nothing about ‘bread to eat, and raiment to put on,’ nor about coming back again ‘in peace,’ so he adds these. A true ‘Jew,’-great at a bargain, and determined to get all he can, and to have no mistake about what he must get before he gives anything! Was Jesus thinking at all of the ancestor when He warned the descendants, in words which sound curiously like an echo of Jacob’s, not to be anxious ‘what ye shall eat,’ nor ‘what ye shall put on’? As the vow stands in the Authorised Version, it is farther open to the charge of suspending his worship of God upon the fulfilment of these conditions; but it is better to adopt the marginal rendering of the Revised Version, according to which the clause ‘then shall the Lord be my God’ is a part of the conditions, not of the vow, and is to be read ‘And [if] the Lord will be . . .then this stone . . .shall be,’ etc. If this rendering be adopted, as I think it should be, the vow proper is simply of outward service,-he will rear an altar, and he will tithe his substance. Not a very munificent pledge! And where in it is the surrender of the heart? Where is the outgoing of love and gratitude? Where the clasping of the hand of his heavenly Friend with calm rapture of thankful self-yielding, and steadfastness of implicit trust? God did not want Jacob’s altar, nor his tenths; He wanted Jacob. But many a weary year and many a sore sorrow have to leave their marks on him before the evil strain is pressed out of his blood; and by the unwearied long-suffering of his patient Friend and Teacher in heaven, the crafty, earthly-minded Jacob ‘the supplanter’ is turned into ‘Israel, the prince with God, in whom is no guile.’ The slower the scholar, the more wonderful the forbearance of the Teacher; and the more may we, who are slow scholars too, take heart to believe that He will not be soon angry with us, nor leave us until He has done that which He has spoken to us of.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Gen 28:10-17
10Then Jacob departed from Beersheba and went toward Haran. 11He came to a certain place and spent the night there, because the sun had set; and he took one of the stones of the place and put it under his head, and lay down in that place. 12He had a dream, and behold, a ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13And behold, the LORD stood above it and said, “I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your descendants. 14Your descendants will also be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed. 15Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” 16Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it.” 17He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”
Gen 28:10 “Then Jacob departed from Beersheba and went toward Haran” Hos 12:12 says that he was fleeing from his brother (cf. Gen 27:41-45).
Gen 28:11
NASB, NKJV,
NRSV, NJB,
LXX”and he came to a certain place”
TEV”to a holy place”
REB”to a certain shrine”
This seems to be a rather unusual phrase (lit. “the place,” BDB 879) for a random place. It refers to somewhere in the hill country of Ephraim, close to the site of the city of Luz. This area had some special connections with Abraham (cf. Gen 12:8; Gen 13:3-4).
Gen 28:12 “a ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven” The term for ladder (found only here in the OT) is from the root “to stack something up” (BDB 700, KB 757). The area is known for its flat stones. Instead of a ladder in the modern sense, it was probably a stair-step arrangement of these large stones. Jesus uses this staircase in Joh 1:51 to describe Himself.
“the angels of God were ascending and descending on it” The order seems to be reversed here, but it may be in this unique order to show the significance that the covenant God of Abraham was already with Jacob, and His angels were already guiding his daily life.
Gen 28:13
NASB, NKJV,
RSV, Pehsitta”the LORD stood above it”
NRSV, TEV,
JPSOA, NRSVthe LORD standing beside him”
NJB, NASB
(margin) “the LORD stood beside him”
NIV”above it stood the LORD”
LXX”the LORD stood upon it”
The VERB (BDB 662, KB 714, Niphal PARTICIPLE) means “stand.” The context or accompanying PREPOSITION must clarify the particulars. Here can mean “by” or “on.” This is another covenant renewal statement, the first official one to Jacob. The phrase “I am the God of your father” is a patriarchal title (i.e., Gen 26:24; Gen 28:13; Gen 31:5; Gen 31:29; Gen 31:42; Gen 31:53; Exo 3:6; Exo 3:15).
“the land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your descendants” This was spoken first to Abram (Gen 12:7; Gen 13:15; Gen 13:17; Gen 15:7-8; Gen 17:8), then to Isaac (Gen 26:3), and now to Jacob.
Gen 28:14 “be like the dust of the earth” YHWH promises a large number of descendants to the Patriarchs (cf. Gen 12:2; Gen 13:16; Gen 15:5; Gen 16:10; Gen 17:2; Gen 17:4-5). In a sense this was the fulfillment of the promise of an heir, but much more-many heirs. Those of us who are Christians see this in Gal 3:14 and Rom 2:28-29; Rom 8:15-17! Gen 3:15 is a reality.
“and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed” This is the major truth that the purpose of the call of Abraham was the redemption of the whole world (see H. H. Rowley, The Missionary Message of the Old Testament). This particular VERBAL form is Niphal in Hebrew and should be translated “shall be blessed.” This same form appears in Gen 12:3; Gen 18:18; Act 3:25; Gal 3:8. The Hithpael form appears in Gen 26:4; Gen 22:16-18 and should be translated “shall bless themselves.” These are two ways of looking at the same blessing. God will show a blessing through His people that others will see and desire. However, it will be found only through a relationship with the patriarchal God (i.e., YHWH).
Gen 28:15 “I am with you” The “I Am” God (cf. Gen 28:13) is personally present with Jacob. This is the greatest of God’s blessings (cf. Gen 26:3).
“I will not leave you” YHWH promises to never abandon his promises/people (e.g., Deu 31:6; Deu 31:8; Jos 1:5; Heb 13:5).
“until I have done what I have promised you” Note the surety of YHWH’s promises, see Deu 7:9 and Isa 55:11.
Gen 28:16
NASB, NKJV,
NRSV, REB”Surely the LORD is in this place”
TEVthe LORD is here”
JPSOA”Surely the LORD is present in this place”
The ADVERB “surely,” “truly” (BDB 38, cf. Exo 2:14; 1Sa 15:32; Isa 40:7; Isa 45:15; Jer 3:23 [twice]; Gen 4:10) denotes intensity.
“and I did not know it” Apparently Jacob felt that he had violated holy ground, but he did not know it was holy because it did not look unusual or different. This, in my opinion, negates the theory of some ancient commentators that this was a Canaanite holy site.
Gen 28:17 “He was afraid” Jacob’s attitude toward this dream is described as “fear” (BDB 431, KB 432, Qal IMPERFECT). He describes the place as “awesome” (BDB 431, KB 432, Niphal PARTICIPLE). Humans were/are fearful of seeing or being in the presence of a holy God or the spiritual realm (i.e., angels). Note God’s word to Moses at the burning bush in Exo 3:5 or the nation of Israel before Mt. Sinai in Exodus 19.
“This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven” Some commentators feel that this phrase “the gate of heaven” (BDB 1044 CONSTRUCT 1029) and the concept of a ladder reaching to heaven is reminiscent of several Babylon religious motifs (i.e., the Ziggurats). Although it is true that these motifs are found in Babylonian mythology, that does not mean that it is the source of Jacob’s thought.
This is a metaphor for the place where God and humans meet. Here the added concept of God’s angels going and coming denotes His active involvement in the daily affairs of humans, especially the covenant family.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
And. Note the Figure of speech Polysyndeton (App-6), emphasizing the items in verses: Gen 28:10-15.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Jacobs Vision at Bethel
Gen 28:10-22
This is the Ladder chapter, in which a wayward, weak man is seen holding fellowship with the Eternal God, who loves us, notwithstanding our unworthiness, and desire to lead us into a life of power and blessedness. It is all wonderful! Notice the four Beholds! Gen 28:12-15. Sunset. Overtaken on a moor by the swift fall of the Oriental night, Jacob had no alternative than to sleep in the open. But he slept to see! Night. There is an open way between heaven and earth for each of us. The movement of the tide and circulation of the blood are not more regular than the inter-communication between heaven and earth. Jacob may have thought that God was local: now he found Him to be omnipresent. Every lonely spot was His house, filled with angels. Morning. Worship, consecration, the vows of God. Put down thy foot on Gods promises. He will do more than He has said. Thou shalt come to thy Fathers house in peace.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Chapter 28
JACOB
“And Jacob went out from Beersheba, and went toward Haran.
Gen 28:10-22
Blessed is that man who possesses the key with which to open the Treasure Chest of Holy Scripture. That key is Christ. No one understands the Word of God, in whole or in part, who does not understand that the Book of God is all about the Son of God (Luk 24:27; Luk 24:44-47). In our Lords days upon this earth the religionists, those who claimed to believe the Word of God, kept sabbath days, and zealously defended their religious traditions, doctrines, and practices, were totally ignorant of the message of the Old Testament Scriptures which they claimed to believe. When he who is the Truth stood before them and told them the truth about God and themselves, they hated him, persecuted him and ultimately crucified him. Why? The Lord Jesus himself tells us, and you will see the reason – Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words? (Joh 5:46-47).
Things have not changed in the least. Like the Pharisees of old, the religious multitudes of our day, standing upon the Book, the blood, and the blessed hope, have missed the message of the Word of God. The message of the Bible is Jesus Christ himself. Every word written in Holy Scripture is inspired of God and intended by him to reveal who Christ is and what he did.
Our Savior said, Moses wrote of me.. The history, laws, types and pictures, visions and dreams, of which Moses wrote in the first five Books of the Bible, were designed to reveal the redemptive purpose and work of Gods grace in Jesus Christ. The events in the life of Jacob illustrate this beautifully. I grant that there are many things about Jacob which are difficult to understand; but the one things we do know about him is the fact that he is a picture of Gods grace. Jacob was a man loved of God and chosen by God to be an heir of eternal life (Gen 25:21-23; Gen 35:9-13; Rom 9:10-13).
His name means supplanter, one who takes the place of another through force or plotting (Gen 27:35-36). That well describes Jacob. He tricked his brother Esau into selling him the birthright (Gen 25:29-34). Then, through his mothers influence and help, he deceived his father Isaac, and tricked him into giving him the blessing reserved for the first-born (Gen 27:19-24). He supplanted his brother Esau. After such wicked, deceitful behavior, being a coward by nature, Jacob took the birthright and the blessing and fled from his fathers house, hoping to escape the wrath of his brother, Esau (Gen 27:41-44).
As he fled from Esau, when he was alone in the desert, God met Jacob in grace. What a night that must have been! There, in the desert, God spoke to Jacob, promised him his presence and his covenant mercies, and revealed to him the Lord Jesus Christ as the only way to God, the only way of salvation, grace, and eternal life. Everything Jacob experienced that night in the desert, between Beersheba and Haran, portrayed the work of Gods sovereign, saving grace upon chosen sinners.
A Lost Sinner
Gen 28:10-11 reveal Jacobs lost condition. Here is Jacob, alone in the desert, afraid and helpless. He has no pillow upon which to lay his head, but the cold, hard rocks of the earth. There is no more time for plotting, scheming, manipulating, and supplanting. He is alone, isolated, and weary. There are two reasons why Jacob was in such a horrible condition.
First, Jacob was in the mess he was in, because of his sin. The same is true of all the sons of Adam. We are what we are, proud, covetous, unhappy, and depressed, because of our sin; and we are where we are, separated from God, under the curse of the law, without help, without strength, and without hope, because of our sins. Lost man has no one to blame for his lost condition, but himself! Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you (Isa 59:2). Like us, Jacob was completely unworthy and utterly undeserving of Gods grace. God is just in condemning sinful men. He is altogether clear when he judges us (Psa 51:3-4). Do you understand this? It is essential that you do. God will never save a man until he brings him to know his lost condition, until he stops his mouth, and causes him to take sides with God against himself, justifying God in his own condemnation.
Second, Jacob was brought into this lowly, hopeless condition, because God was about to be gracious to him. The time of love had come, and God was about to speak to his heart (Hos 2:14). Therefore, he brought Jacob down. God knows how to bring sinners down (Psalms 107). Like the prodigal, Jacob came to the end of himself. Blessed is that man whom God bring down. If he abases, he will exalt. But he will exalt none, except those who are abased by him. He strips; and he clothes. But he will clothe none with the righteousness of Christ, except those whom he strips of self-righteousness. He kills; and he makes alive. But he will make none alive in Christ, except those whom he slays by his law.
A Saving Revelation
The Lord revealed his mercy to Jacob in a dream (Gen 28:12-14). When it pleases God, he reveals his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ in his people. In his Son, he reveals his mercy, love, and grace (Rom 5:6-8); and that revelation brings life to chosen sinners (Eph 2:1-7). Here is Jacob, the sinner, quiet and still, at last subdued by sovereign grace. God deals with him. There is nothing for him to say or do. As God spoke, he revealed a ladder set up upon the earth, reaching into heaven, That ladder is Christ.
1.The ladder was set up upon the earth, but the top of it reached into heaven. So the Lord Jesus Christ, although he stood upon the earth in the flesh, never left the bosom of the Father. He became a man. Yet, he never ceased to be the most high God (Joh 1:14; Joh 1:18; Joh 1:33-34; Php 2:6-8).
2.The angels of God went up and down on the ladder. As the ladder represents Christ our Mediator, so the angels of God ascending and descending upon it tell us that the only way sinful men and women can ascend up to God and find acceptance with him is by Christ the Mediator (Joh 14:6); and it is only by and through Christ that God comes to us. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.
3.The Lord God stood above the ladder and made all his rich promises of grace to Jacob (Gen 28:14). All the blessings and promises of grace, eternal life and heavenly glory are made and given to sinners in Christ and for Christs sake (Eph 1:3-7; Eph 4:32; 2Ti 1:9). As all the blessings of God come down to us by Christ, all our praise goes up to and is accepted of God through Christ (1Pe 2:5).
Grace Promised
Those promises which God made to Jacob (Gen 28:15) are the promises of God to all the sons of Jacob, the promises of God to every believer; and the promises of God are all yea and amen in Christ Jesus. Here are four things promised to Gods elect, four things every believer can be assured of by faith in Christ.
1.I am with thee. God is with us, always with us, in covenant mercy, redemptive grace, and constant love (Php 3:3-4). He is with us to save us, protect us, and do us good in all things (Rom 8:28-39).
2.I will keep thee. Not one of those sinners chosen by God in eternity, redeemed by Christ at Calvary, and called by the Spirit in grace shall ever perish. We are kept by the power of God (Mal 3:6; Joh 6:37-45; Joh 10:24-30).
3.I will bring thee again into this land. Canaan was a type of heaven. Christ, our Surety and good Shepherd, will bring Gods sheep home to glory (Joh 10:16). There is plenty of room in heaven for all who will to enter in by Christ Jesus; but when all things are finished and time shall be no more, there will be no vacancies. Every place prepared by Christ will be occupied by the one for whom it was prepared (Joh 14:1-3).
4.I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. Of Christ it is written, He shall not failThe pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand (Isa 42:4; Isa 53:10-11). He shall save his people! (Mat 1:21). (See Php 1:6 1Th 5:24). Gods elect are secure in Christ, as secure as the very throne and veracity of God himself!
Conversion at Bethel
Gen 28:16-19 describe Jacobs awakening and conversion by the grace of God. As soon as Jacob was awakened he sensed the presence of God and was filled with the fear of God. He found himself in the house of God, at the gate of heaven. There he built an altar for the glory of God and worshipped.
Jacob called the place where he was Bethel, though the name of the place before was Luz. Luz means separation. Bethel means House of God. God calls us to separation from the world, but as we leave the world we enter the house of God (1Co 6:14 to 1Co 7:1). That is a blessed separation, a separation by which we lose nothing and gain everything.
The House of God is the place of Gods presence. The house of God is not brick and mortar stacked together in ornate, stately buildings. The house of God is God meeting with his people in any place. The church of the living God is the assembly of Christ with his people. Our Lord prayed and preached in private homes, in the open air, on the mountain side, by the seashore, and in a fishing boat, as well as in the temple and synagogue.
Today, we place far too much emphasis upon the place of worship and far too little emphasis upon the presence of God. Until the third century, there was no such thing as a church building. Gods saints gathered wherever they could, and God met with them. Nothing makes any place sacred but Gods presence. Wherever God is present with his people, that is the house of God! In the days of its apostasy, God brought this indictment against Israel – Israel hath forgotten his Maker, and buildeth temples (Hos 8:14). It is an indictment which might well be brought against the church of our day. The House of God is the place of Gods presence. If we have that, we have everything! If we miss that, we have nothing. The house of God, the assembly of his saints is the place of worship. It is a place of reverence for him. It is the very gate of heaven!
A Vow Made
Jacobs vow of consecration (Gen 28:20-22) is the first time in Scripture we read of a vow being made to God. It is worthy of our notice. This vow of consecration was made by Jacob in response to what he had seen, heard, and experienced in his soul of Gods sovereign, saving grace in Christ. Believers baptism is a good parallel to this. Symbolically, when the believer rises up from the watery grave, he consecrates himself to walk with Christ in the newness of life (Rom 6:4-6).
The word if is poorly translated in Gen 28:20. Jacob is not here laying down mercenary, legal conditions upon which he is consecrating himself to God. The word should be translated since. It is an argumentative word. He is saying, Since God has promised such grace to me, Ill live for him (! Cor. Gen 6:19-20). His vow of consecration was remarkable (Gen 28:22).
This stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be Gods house. He was saying, I will worship the Lord God of this house and him only (Gen 35:1-7). He had many faults, but Jacob kept his vow.
Of all that thou shall give me, I will surely give the tenth unto thee. He vowed to honor God with the substance of his increase. It is written, Honor the Lord with thy substance, with the firstfruits of thine increase (Pro 3:9). The law of tithing had not yet been instituted. Jacob was under no obligation to give a tithe, except the obligation of love and gratitude. This was a voluntary act of his heart (2Co 9:7). It was directly connected with the worship of God and the house of God. Here, Gods servant, Jacob, teaches us some very important, needful lessons about giving.
1.By this promise of the tithe Jacob acknowledged that all he had came from God and belonged to God.
2.In giving the tithe, he demonstrated his faith in God to supply his needs.
3.The tithe was given to maintain the worship of God wherever he went.
4.What he gave, Jacob gave for the glory of God, the God of Bethel.
Jacob stands before us as a picture of grace. What a good picture he is. He was lost by nature. Christ was revealed to him and in him. He was possessor of all blessedness by the promise of God. This lost sinner was converted by the grace of God. Being converted by the grace of God, Jacob consecrated himself to the Son of God.
Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible
And Jacob went out
Bethel becomes, because of Jacob’s vision there, one of the significant places of Scripture. To the Christian it stands for a realization, however imperfect, of the heavenly and spiritual contents of faith, answering to Paul’s prayer in Eph 1:17-23. Dispensationally, the scene speaks of Israel the nation, cast out of the Land of Promise because of evil-doing there, but holding the promise of restoration and blessing; Gen 28:15; Deu 30:1-10. To “an Israelite indeed” Christ speaks of Jacob’s vision as to be fulfilled in the Son of man (cf); Gen 28:12; Joh 1:47-51.
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
Gen 11:31, Gen 32:10, Hos 12:12, Act 7:2, Act 25:13
Reciprocal: Gen 25:27 – a plain man Gen 27:43 – Haran Gen 29:4 – Of Haran Gen 35:1 – Bethel Gen 46:1 – Beersheba Psa 139:3 – my path Isa 37:12 – Haran
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
In spite of all his defects Jacob’s action in going forth to Haran was consistent with the purpose of God, and hence by a dream encouragement was ministered to him. At the time of Babel men sought to elevate themselves to heaven by a tower of their own construction, and it ended in scattering and confusion. But God has established a link between heaven and earth, indicated by the ladder of his dream, and this link in those days was made good by angelic administration. Jehovah Himself was at the top of the ladder and poor Jacob, the fugitive, at the bottom, needing a blessing and getting it.
Three things stand out clearly in this divine communication. First, though Jacob was running away from the land of promise, it was confirmed to him and to his seed, which was to be greatly multiplied and spread out in all directions. Second there was the promise of blessing for all the families of the earth in him and in his seed. Third, the promise of the Divine presence and preservation in all his wanderings, and his ultimate restoration to the land which was his according to purpose. He may have some bitter experiences under Divine government but God’s purpose will stand.
It may be that when the Lord uttered the words recorded in Joh 1:51, He alluded to this incident. If so, we have to notice an important difference. In the coming age the Son of Man will not be a mere “ladder,” but rather the administrative Centre of all things. Being Lord of all, angels will ascend and descend as He directs. The heavens and the earth will be brought into harmony and unity under His sway.
Verses Gen 28:16-22 show us how Jacob responded to the dream. In the first place, it awoke him to the realization of the presence of God. That we may be in the presence of God, and yet quite unaware of it, is a solemn thought. To Jacob it was not merely solemn; it was dreadful. But that was because he had no assured standing before God on the ground of redemption Only when the death and resurrection of Christ were accomplished facts could believers say “We also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” having received the reconciliation. For us the presence of God is not dreadful but delightful.
Then again, Jacob recognized that where Jehovah manifests His presence, there is the house of God. Right through the Scriptures runs the thought of the house of God in its various forms and aspects, but here is the first mention of it. It is remarkable moreover that Jacob connected “the gate of heaven” with “the house of God.” The first mention of a gate is in Gen 19:1, where Lot sat in the gate of Sodom, and this shows that the word is used not only to designate the place of entrance and exit but also the place where men of age and wisdom sat to execute judgment. In other words, gate has a figurative as well as a literal meaning, and where God dwells in His house, there is the place of Heaven’s administration and judgment.
And further, Jacob’s action in taking one of the stones that had served him for-a pillow, and anointing it as a pillar, and identifying it thus with God’s house, is remarkable and significant in the light of 1Ti 3:15. In ancient times pillars were used for support, as we see in Solomon’s Temple. But they were also set up as witnesses to certain facts. Three times do we read of Jacob rearing pillars; here and in Gen 31:1-55 and Gen 35:1-29, each time as a witness.
It is in this sense, we believe, that the word is used in 1Ti 3:15. The Church of the living God is the house of God and the pillar and ground, or basis, of the truth. The “church of the living God” is being built by “the Son of the living God” (Mat 16:16-18), and it is at the present time the standing witness to the truth in the power of the Spirit of God. It is worthy of note that in our chapter Jacob poured oil upon the pillar, which we may take as a figure of the anointing of the Spirit of God. His action originated the name, Bethel, which means, house of God.
But, though Jacob did all this, the ground that he took in his vow was about as selfish as ever to be found in a true saint of God. It came to this: – If God will be with me, and look after me, and do for me what I desire, then He shall be my God, and I will yield to Him a tenth of all that He gives me. A bargain such as this is barely above the level of a decent man of the world. Yet God bore with him and evidently accepted his feeble vow, and did for him all that he wished, and more also.
In Gen 29:1-35, we find Jacob resuming his journey, and the merciful hand of God, directing him and opening up his way, is at once manifested. His steps are guided to the very well where the sheep of Laban, his uncle, were watered and where he met his cousin Rachel. Into the house of Laban he was received with an effusive welcome, but only to find himself there in the hands of a man who was his equal in duplicity.
After Jacob had sojourned there a month, serving Laban, the question as to his wages was raised and, loving Rachel, he agreed to serve seven years for her. The story of how Laban deceived him at the end of the seven years is given to us in verses 23-30, and Laban had a plausible excuse for acting as he did. We cannot fail to see in this the working of the government of God and an illustration of our Lord’s words, “With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.” It was Jacob’s turn now to complain of being beguiled.
Moreover, there was discipline from the hand of God. Jacob’s love was centred on Rachel and in comparison with her Leah was hated, so it was ordered of God that, while Leah bore children, Rachel was barren. The closing verses of the chapter give us the birth of four sons and their names. It is worthy of note that in each case the name was given by the mother, and was related to her own circumstances and feelings. Jacob does not appear as having any say in the matter. During this period of his chequered career there is no record of his having an altar of sacrifice and communion. Being out of touch, he had no guidance as to the names of his children, and we shall see that this was the case with all his children except the last. Then, though Rachel named him, his father also named him, and Jacob’s name prevailed.
The rather sordid story of Jacob’s children, and of the devices of both Rachel and Leah, as they endeavoured to gain sons and thus establish themselves in his favour, is related in Gen 30:1-21. Here we have the origins of the tribes in these sons, who were named by Leah and Rachel. The handmaids did not name their own sons, and the four tribes descended from these do not appear to have made any particular mark in the subsequent history of the nation.
When we reach verse Gen 28:22, we find God begins to act, and we leave behind us the scheming of the two wives, though still it is Rachel who bestows the name of Joseph. Yet clearly here is a son who was born as the fruit of God acting in response to Rachel’s prayers, and the story is lifted to a higher level. The son appears, who is to play a great part in the history of the nation, and who is to become a striking type of Christ, perhaps the most striking that the Old Testament affords.
In verse 25, we find that the birth of Joseph helped to lift Jacob himself to a higher level and, as a consequence, his mind turned to the land that was his according to God’s purpose, and he desired to return thither. We may take it as axiomatic, and true in every dispensation, that when the saint enters into communion with God, the Divine purpose becomes to him all-important. Jacob freshly realized that there was a country that he could call, “mine own place.”
Laban, however, intruded into the question and ultimately his thoughts prevailed, and he delayed Jacob, as it turned out, for six years. Laban was a shrewd man and recognized that Jacob’s presence with him had brought blessing. He wished to retain that blessing, and was prepared to allow Jacob to settle his own wages. As a result there ensued a further battle of wits, and this time Jacob and not Laban gained the advantage.
Jacob bargained that all the spotted and speckled cattle should be separated and put under his sons, while he tended the others. Then, if these others produced young of the spotted and speckled sort, they were to be his and added to his flocks. The closing verses of this chapter reveal the device that he employed to increase his flocks at the expense of Laban’s. We observe how true he still is to his name – meaning Supplanter.
In reference to this matter, Jacob had said to Laban, “So shall my righteousness answer for me in time to come,” which would seem to indicate that he had rather a low idea of what is right in the sight of God. It was quite clear that in time past Laban had taken advantage of him, but to employ counter-devices, in order to reverse the situation, while quite according to the way of the world, is not according to God. It is true of course that Jacob did not walk in the light of God fully revealed as we do.
The effect of all this is seen in Gen 31:1-2. The sons of Laban saw that Jacob had largely despoiled their father of his flocks, and Laban himself began to regard him with disfavour. The situation became critical, and the Lord Himself intervened to end it. Back to his own land and kindred he was to go. In breaking the news of their impending departure to his wives he related how Laban had dealt crookedly with him, and how God had acted in his favour. We are now permitted to see how God had intervened and caused the agreement as to the spotted and speckled cattle to work in his favour. In the light of this our reflection would be that if he had rested with confidence in God, and not used the devices related in the last chapter, the end God purposed would have been reached, and his “righteousness” would have answered for him in a much more convincing way.
From all this we may draw a practical conclusion. We have no need nor right to resort to plans of our own, as though we could help God to achieve His purpose. If, on the other hand, God instructs us by His word to act, it is our duty and our wisdom to do as He says. Jacob asserted that Laban had changed his wages ten times. This, if a fact, was great provocation, but to have relied upon God would have saved him from actions also open to question.
In calling him back to the land of promise, God revealed Himself to him as “the God of Bethel,” reminding him of the pillar he anointed and the vow that he made. Thus he was called back to the beginning of his direct dealings with God. Such is ever God’s way with His people. We may wander away but back to the original spot, whence we departed, we have to come. The point of departure proves to be the place of recovery.
Rachel and Leah altogether supported Jacob in his determination to return. Their attitude shows that they were convinced of their father’s dishonourable and callous conduct, and furnishes us with further evidence of how Jacob had suffered at his hands. Their advice in the emergency could not be bettered – “Now then, whatsoever God hath said unto thee, do.” Complete trust and obedience to God is the only right thing. It reminds us of the words of Mary, the mother of our Lord, recorded in Joh 2:5. God alone has the right to demand such unquestioning obedience.
But in the manner of his departure we again see the character of Jacob revealed. Instead of dealing openly with Laban, meeting him face to face, and then departing with due notice, he stole away unawares while Laban was absent, shearing his sheep. In so doing he presented Laban with fresh ground of complaint, for he had submitted himself to being in the place of a servant, working for wages, though son-in-law to his master. Under those circumstances the parting ought to have been arranged by mutual consent.
A critical situation had been created, so critical that God intervened, speaking this time to Laban, who had no direct knowledge of Him, for he speaks of Him to Jacob as “the God of your father.” In a dream Laban was warned not to overtake Jacob with violence of speech or action and, having regard to this, he adopted an attitude only of remonstrance, with a note of reproach in it as to the stealing of his gods. Verse Gen 28:19 had told us that Rachel had stolen the “images,” or “seraphim” of her father. Laban regarded them as his “gods.”
Teraphim were small images, used for purposes of divination. The incident furnishes us with a sidelight as to the way in which spiritist practices had spread. These little “household divinities” were reverenced and valued, and oftentimes especially so by the women, hence Rachel’s anxiety to have them in her possession as they travelled away from her old home. Heathen practices are very infectious. Of Rachel’s action Jacob evidently knew nothing, so the accusation, correct though it was, stirred his anger and led to a statement of his case.
His words to Laban at last were very vigorous, and he told him to his face of the hard conditions of service that he had imposed. He attributed God’s warning to Laban as not merely a considerate intervention in regard to himself but as a rebuke to Laban, and so indeed it was without a doubt.
Verses 43 and 44, would indicate that Laban himself was conscious that this was the case, and so, while asserting his fatherly rights, he adopted a different tone altogether, and suggested that a covenant should be agreed and established between them. This was accordingly done.
Again we find Jacob raising up a pillar of witness and also a heap of stones, according to the custom of those primitive days. Jacob undertook to deal rightly by Laban’s daughters, and both agreed not to pass beyond the stones of witness to harm each other. We do not read on this occasion of the anointing of the pillar, but we do find that Jacob solemnized the occasion not only by an oath but also by sacrifice. The name of God was invoked, as we see in verse 53, and that as the God of Abraham and of Nahor, since both those patriarchs would have been venerated by Laban as well as by Jacob. In addition Jacob sware by the fear of Isaac his father. Such was the esteem accorded to parents and ancestors in those far-off days – very good in many ways. But there was the danger of the fear of Isaac, whom he could see, supplanting the fear of the God, whom he could not see. Hence the reminder of the unseen world that he got, as we find in the opening verse of Gen 32:1-32.
Fuente: F. B. Hole’s Old and New Testaments Commentary
Gen 28:10. Jacob went out from Beer-sheba Unattended and alone, God, in his wise providence, so ordering it, for the greater illustration of his care over, and kindness toward him. But the great simplicity, humility, and innocence of those times, made many things usual then, which would now appear ridiculous.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Gen 28:10-22. Yahweh Reveals Himself to Jacob at Bethel.This section is taken from J and E. To E Gen 28:11 f., Gen 28:17 f., Gen 28:20-21 a, Gen 28:22 may be assigned, to J Gen 28:10, Gen 28:13-16, and perhaps Gen 28:19 a. This may be an insertion, so perhaps Gen 28:19 b, Gen 28:21 b. The fuller and finer story belongs to E, who as a North Israelite was much more interested than J in the great northern sanctuary, Jerusalems chief rival. He tells how Bethel came to be a shrine for the children of Jacob, and why tithes (Amo 4:4) were offered at it. Jacob chances on a place and lies there for the night with a stone for his pillow. He dreams of a ladder reaching from earth to heaven, with the angels passing up and down upon it. In terror he recognises that this is Gods house, earths entrance into heaven. He sets up the stone as a pillar (massebah, pp. 98f.) and anoints it with oil. This stone was presumably the most sacred object in the later sanctuary. Then he vows that in return for food, raiment, and safe return, this stone shall be Gods house, and he will give back to God a tenth of all that God has given him. The narrative reflects very ancient ideas. Earth and heaven are close together, connected by a stairway, with heavens gate at the foot; the angels are not winged (unlike the seraphim or cherubim), and need the stairway to pass from one to the other. The stone is a house of God, as Jacob learns by the dream; it was a very widespread belief that certain stones were inhabited by a deity. It was also customary for people to sleep at sanctuaries that they might receive oracles in their dreams. Jacob practises incubation unintentionally; he shudders at his involuntary trespass on sacred ground and unconscious desecration of Gods house into a pillow. The stairway may have been suggested by the terraces of stone in which the hill rises near by.
Js story has not been fully preserved. It must have told how he lay down to sleep. In his sleep Yahweh stands by him (mg.), reveals Himself by His name, promises him the land, personal protection, and a safe return. He wakes and recognises that, all unknown to him, Yahweh was in the place, to which (if Gen 28:19 a belongs to J) he gives the name Bethel, formerly Luz (Jdg 1:23).
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
6. Jacob’s vision at Bethel 28:10-22
"From a ’stone pillow’ to a ’stone pillar,’ this account tells how Jacob’s lodging place at Bethel became the most celebrated place of worship among the patriarchal narratives." [Note: Mathews, Genesis 11:27-50:26, p. 442.]
Yahweh appeared at the top of an angel-filled stairway restating the promise to Abraham and adding more promises of blessing and protection for Jacob. The patriarch acknowledged God’s presence, memorialized the place with a monument stone and a name, and vowed to worship the Lord there if He did bless and protect him.
"The two most significant events in the life of Jacob were nocturnal theophanies. The first was this dream at Bethel when he was fleeing from the land of Canaan, which ironically was his by virtue of the blessing. The other was his fight at Peniel when he was attempting to return to the land. Each divine encounter was a life-changing event." [Note: Allen P. Ross, "Jacob’s Visions: The Founding of Bethel," Bibliotheca Sacra 142:567 (July-September 1985):226.]
Bethel receives more mention in the Old Testament than any other city but Jerusalem. This indicates its importance in biblical history.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
The "ladder" (Gen 28:12, Heb. sullam) evidently resembled a stairway or ramp. Some interpreters take it as an allusion to a ziggurat while others believe it refers to the slope or ascent of the mountain of Bethel. [Note: See C. Houtman, "What Did Jacob See In His Dream At Bethel?" Vetus Testamentum 27:3 (July 1977):337-51.]
"The ladder was a visible symbol of the real and uninterrupted fellowship between God in heaven and His people upon earth. The angels upon it carry up the wants of men to God, and bring down the assistance and protection of God to men. The ladder stood there upon the earth, just where Jacob was lying in solitude, poor, helpless, and forsaken by men. Above in heaven stood Jehovah, and explained in words the symbol which he saw. Proclaiming Himself to Jacob as the God of his fathers, He not only confirmed to him all the promises of the fathers in their fullest extent, but promised him protection on his journey and a safe return to his home (Gen 28:13-15). But as the fulfillment of this promise to Jacob was still far off, God added the firm assurance, ’I will not leave thee till I have done (carried out) what I have told thee.’" [Note: Keil and Delitzsch, 1:281-82.]
Other visions of God’s heavenly throneroom appear in 1Ki 22:19-22; Job 1:6-8; Job 2:1-3; Isaiah 6; Ezekiel 1; Zec 1:10; Zec 6:5; Revelation 4-5; et al. This was God’s first revelation to Jacob, and it came in a dream (cf. Joh 1:51). Other passages contain promises of the land (Gen 12:7; Gen 13:14-16; Gen 15:18; Gen 17:8; Gen 24:7), but this one (Gen 28:13-14) is closest in terminology to the one in chapter 13, which also features a Bethel setting.
Jacob was the second person in the Bible to hear the assurance "I am with you" (Gen 28:15). Isaac was the first (cf. Gen 26:3; Gen 26:24). This was a promise that God later repeated to Moses (Exo 3:12); Joshua (Jos 1:5), Gideon (Jdg 6:16), regarding Immanuel (Isa 7:14; Mat 1:23), and to all Christians (Mat 28:20; Heb 13:5).
Perhaps God’s revelation surprised Jacob because he was preparing to leave the Promised Land (Gen 28:16-17). He may have felt that God would abandon him since he was leaving the land that God had promised his forefathers.
The "house of God" (Gen 28:17, Bethel) is the place where God dwells. The "gate of heaven" is the place where Jacob entered heaven (in his dream).
"The term ’fear’ is used in the Bible to describe a mixture of terror and adoration, a worshipful fear (cf. Exo 19:16)." [Note: Ross, Creation and . . ., p. 491.]
"As Abraham’s vision anticipated narratives from the latter part of the Pentateuch, so Jacob’s vision anticipated the events which were to come in the next several chapters." [Note: Sailhamer, The Pentateuch . . ., p. 193.]