Jacob is on his way to stay with his uncle Laban in order to avoid the wrath of Esau and to have a good marriage arranged for himself. On the first day of his journey he apparently travels about forty miles from his father's home at Beersheba, according to some commentaries, ending up in the area that will come to be called Bethel.
"Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep." (Genesis 28:10-11) A relatively fit person can walk about four miles per hour on level ground, so based on that it would take ten hours to travel forty miles, and that's without any rest stops. The ground Jacob has covered is likely not all smooth and level. If he has truly traveled forty miles in one day then he must have set out at first light and kept going until it was too dark to see. The Bible makes no mention of him traveling on a donkey or camel, although he might have, but in Chapter 28 we get the sense that Jacob is utterly alone. And yet he isn't, for the Lord is with him. Sometimes we feel utterly alone, don't we? We'll be going through a hard time and we'll be trying to make it through the long hours of the night all by ourselves. But the Lord is with us, even when in our distress we can't feel His presence. Jacob doesn't feel the Lord's presence when he lies down in exhaustion and loneliness, but the Lord is there.
"He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it." (Genesis 28:12) Scholars have differing opinions on what the stairway represents. But the Lord Jesus said something that I feel goes along with this passage: "Very truly I tell you, you will see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man." (John 1:51) In the Lord's statement, He is the stairway. He is the only way to heaven and to the Father. I think perhaps the stairway in Jacob's dream symbolizes Christ. And from the top of the stairway, God the Father speaks to Jacob.
"There above it stood the Lord, and He said: 'I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.'" (Genesis 28:13-15) This is the covenant promise, the same promise God made to Abraham and to Isaac. As far as we know, this is the first time the Lord personally speaks to Jacob, and when He does He makes it clear that no matter how hopeless things may look right now, all is not lost. The covenant has not been broken. God is still going to keep His promise to make a great nation from the family line of Abraham and God still intends for the Redeemer to come from this family line and more specifically from Jacob's line. Jacob hasn't made wise decisions but his puny human mistakes are not powerful enough to thwart the plans of God. As Jacob lies alone in a field in the dark, he must feel like he's irreparably messed up his life. He won the birthright and the blessing but he's now living in exile from the very things the birthright and the blessing should have guaranteed him. He thought he was the son of Isaac through whom God would fulfill the covenant promise, but now he thinks he has negated God's promise by his actions. Sometimes, of course, we can behave in such a way that we cause ourselves to miss out on blessings the Lord wants to give us, but there are some plans and promises of God that are irrevocable. Nothing any man or woman does can change them, and this is an example of an irrevocable promise of God. The Redeemer is coming from the family of Abraham, through his son Isaac, and through Isaac's son Jacob.
"When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, 'Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.'" (Genesis 28:16) I love this verse! How many times in our lives have we felt alone in our sorrows only to realize later that the Lord was with us the whole time, strengthening us and protecting us? I've been through times of such distress that I couldn't feel the presence of God, but looking back on those times I can see that He was with me every second, giving me the strength to go on day after day.
Jacob has been driven away from all that's familiar to him. Whether or not he ever felt the presence of God in Beersheba, in his mind he accepted that the Lord was there with his family. He knew his father worshiped the Lord and that the Lord had done great things for both his father Isaac and for his grandfather Abraham. But out here in the dark wilderness? Out here so far away from family and friends? Jacob couldn't feel certain in his mind that God was in this place. To his way of thinking, perhaps God stayed behind in Beersheba with Isaac. Perhaps he thought God wasn't big enough to be in more than one place at once. But on this night Jacob gets his first glimpse of the awesome omnipresence of God. God is powerful enough to be everywhere all at once, and God is able to be in Beersheba with Isaac and to be in the wilderness with Jacob at the same time. What a revelation this must have been! Jacob is so overwhelmed by this knowledge that he begins to develop a fear (a holy and healthy reverence) for the Lord.
"He was afraid and said, 'How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.'" (Genesis 28:17) As we said earlier in Genesis, the places where God meets with us and speaks with us become holy ground to us. It could be that up til now Jacob thought God only met with His followers at the altars Isaac and Abraham set up. This is similar to the erroneous belief that we can only pray to God and meet with God in church. But God doesn't live at church. God goes home with each of us. God goes with us to work and to school. God goes with us to the doctor or to the hospital. God stands beside us while we grieve over a casket at the funeral home or graveyard. Jacob knows now that God is accessible in more places than at Isaac's altar in Beersheba. God is accessible in the night and in the desert. God is going to be accessible when Jacob arrives in Harran. But to commemorate the first place God spoke personally to him, Jacob sets up a small altar and gives the place where God spoke to him a name.
"Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. He called that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz." (Genesis 28:18-19) The nearby town was called Luz, which means "almond tree". Jacob may have been trying to reach Luz by nightfall but didn't quite make it there, having to sleep out in the open instead. But if that's the case then I think God intended for Jacob not to reach his destination. Would Jacob have been in the right frame of mind in a noisy, busy Canaanite city to hear the voice of God in the night? Or was the silence of a lonely campsite a better setting? Because the Lord spoke to Jacob in this location, he names it Bethel which means "house of God". There is a great deal of value in going to church, but the house of God can be anywhere we want to talk to God. We can talk to him while we drive in our cars or while we kneel beside our beds or while we bow our heads in church. Wherever we commune with the Lord is sanctified by His presence and becomes holy ground.
"Then Jacob made a vow, saying, 'If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father's household, then the Lord will be my God and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God's house, and of all that You give me I will give you a tenth.'" (Genesis 28:20-22) Jacob's personal relationship with the Lord is so new that he wants to see the Lord prove Himself. He doesn't yet have experience in walking with the Lord in his daily life and observing how the Lord works things out. He knows what the Lord promised him but at this point he's too new in the faith to wholeheartedly accept that when the Lord says, "I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go," He really will be with him every second of every day, providing for him and protecting him. I don't feel the need to criticize Jacob for not yet being able to place all of his trust in the Lord. We all have to start somewhere and this is where Jacob starts his walk with the Lord. When you were a new believer, you didn't quite know what to expect from the Lord, did you? Even the act of praying was new and unfamiliar to you. Studying and memorizing His word was a habit you had to learn. That's where Jacob is right now. He knows what the Lord has said but he hasn't yet seen the Lord in action fulfilling what He's promised. As each day goes on, and as Jacob sees the Lord working in every circumstance that comes his way, Jacob's faith will grow.
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