Genesis 28:14

Jacob had bought Esau’s birthright (Genesis 25:29–34), and at his mother Rebekah’s urging he had taken by deceit the blessing Isaac meant for Esau (Genesis 27). Esau then planned to kill him (Genesis 27:41). Rebekah learned of it and sent Jacob to her brother Laban in Haran until Esau’s anger cooled (Genesis 27:42–45), and the reason given to Isaac was that Jacob should take a wife from their own kin (Genesis 27:46, Genesis 28:1–2). So the first verse of this passage, “And Jacob went out from Beersheba, and went toward Haran,” is the first step of an exile Jacob brought on himself.

His name tells his story so far. Yaʻăqôb comes from ʻâqab and means heel-catcher or supplanter. It was given at his birth, when he came out holding his brother’s heel (Genesis 25:26), and by now Jacob has supplanted Esau twice. The verb “went out”, yâtsâʼ, is the ordinary word for going or coming out, and here it carries Jacob away from the home of his fathers.

Beersheba, whose name means “well of the oath” or “well of seven”, lay in the south of Canaan, and it was full of family memory. Abraham made a covenant there and called on the name of the LORD (Genesis 21:31–33), and the LORD appeared to Isaac there (Genesis 26:23–25). Jacob leaves all of that behind.

Haran, Chârân, a name from a root meaning parched, was a city far to the north in Mesopotamia, in the region of Padan-aram, and the journey there ran to hundreds of miles and many weeks. Terah had brought Abram’s family to Haran (Genesis 11:31), and from there Abram set out at God’s call for the land of promise (Genesis 12:1–4). Jacob is walking his grandfather’s road the other way, out of the land God promised and back to where the family began. Travelers on such a road usually went in company for safety, and Jacob goes alone.

All the same, this flight is in God’s hands. Jacob’s sin drove him out, and the road it put him on leads to Bethel, to his marriage, to the birth of the sons who became the twelve tribes, and at last back home. God works all things together for good to those who love him and are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28), and Jacob’s exile is one of those things. Hebrews says that Abraham lived in the land of promise as a stranger, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise (Hebrews 11:8–10). Jacob now learns that life of a pilgrim for himself.

“And he lighted upon a certain place.” The verb pâgaʻ means to meet, come upon or reach, and it is used of meeting something by chance. Jacob stopped at this spot because the sun had set, and the place he happened upon became the place where God met him.

The word for place, mâqôwm, means a place or spot, from a root meaning to stand. The KJV uses “place” three times in this one verse: “a certain place”, “the stones of that place” and “lay down in that place”. The place begins without a name, and after this night Jacob names it Bethel, “the house of God” (Genesis 28:19). What made it holy was what God did there.

Travel in that age was hard, and for a man alone it was dangerous, with wild animals and robbers in the open country between settled lands. At nightfall a traveler looked for a cave, a tree or a stopping place for caravans. Jacob simply lies down in the open. “He took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows.” The word mᵉraʼăshâh means a headpiece, something at the head, and so a head-rest or pillow. Travelers caught out without provisions did rest their heads on stones, and for the son of a wealthy household it shows how low Jacob has come. All he has is the ground and its stones. Later Jacob sets up the stone he slept on as a pillar to mark the place where God spoke to him.

Lying down to sleep in such a place, Jacob is as exposed as a man can be, and his safety through the night rests with God. Scripture says that there is no such place where God is absent: “If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there” (Psalm 139:7–10). God says to his people through Isaiah, “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee” (Isaiah 43:2). Jacob, a fugitive with stones for a pillow, is about to learn it.

“And he dreamed.” Châlam is the verb for dreaming. Dreams are one of the ways God spoke to his servants in Scripture, as he did with Joseph and Daniel, and in Genesis itself God came to Abimelech and to Laban the Syrian in a dream by night. This dream is God’s message to Jacob, given while he slept.

“Behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven.” The word çullâm is given as a staircase or ladder, from a root meaning to cast up or raise. Its foot is on the earth where Jacob lies, and its top reaches God’s own dwelling place. The picture recalls the tower of Babel, which men built so that its top might reach to heaven. This ladder is set up by God, and the LORD stands above it.

“And, behold, the LORD stood above it.” “LORD” in capitals is how the KJV prints Yᵉhôvâh, God’s personal name, sometimes written Jehovah. It is the name of the God who is, eternal and self-existent, and above all the name of the God who keeps his covenant. The verb nâtsab means to stand or to be stationed. The angels are on the ladder, the LORD is above it, and he speaks to Jacob himself.

“I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac.” God introduces himself through a history Jacob already knows, so that Jacob will understand that the God who made promises to his grandfather and his father is now speaking to him. These are the promises God first gave to Abram when he called him (Genesis 12:1–3), and God names himself the same way to Moses at the burning bush, as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Exodus 3:6).

“And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth.” ʻÂphâr means dust, dry earth or loose soil. Dust cannot be counted, and God had used the same picture for Abraham’s offspring (Genesis 13:16), and elsewhere the stars. Jacob is one man sleeping alone on a hillside, and God tells him his family will grow into a multitude past numbering. The promise to Abraham that God would make of him a great nation (Genesis 12:2) now runs through Jacob.

“Thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south.” Naming all four directions means every direction. Jacob’s descendants will grow and spread out across the land God gives them.

“And in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” This is the widest promise in the passage, and it reaches past Israel to the whole world. The verb bârak comes from a root meaning to kneel. It is used of people blessing God in worship and of God blessing people with good. God first said these words to Abram (Genesis 12:3), and now he says them to Jacob. The purpose of the covenant was always larger than one nation. Israel was meant to be a light to the nations, and through this family God would bring blessing to the world. Peter told the people of Jerusalem that they were the children of this very covenant (Acts 3:25), and Paul says that in this promise the Scripture preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham (Galatians 3:8).

In verses 13 and 14 God said what he would give. In verse 15 he says that he himself will see it done, and he makes four promises that answer Jacob’s need on the road.

“And, behold, I am with thee.” This is God’s personal presence, given to a man who has just left everyone he knows. God made the same promise to Moses when he sent him to Pharaoh (Exodus 3:12) and to Joshua when he took up Moses’ work (Joshua 1:5).

“And will keep thee in all places whither thou goest.” The verb shâmar means to hedge about, as with thorns, and so to guard, protect and attend to. God will guard Jacob’s life and his purpose, on the road and in Haran and wherever else he goes.

“And will bring thee again into this land.” Jacob is leaving the land of promise, and God guarantees that he will come back to it. The covenant line will live in the land God gave it.

“For I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.” The verb ʻâzab means to loosen or let go, and so to relinquish or forsake. God’s “until” sets the end point at the full completion of everything he has promised, the land, the multitude of descendants and the blessing of the nations. Moses gave Israel the same word before they crossed the Jordan (Deuteronomy 31:6), and Hebrews gives it to every believer: “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5).

The verb for “spoken”, dâbar, is the ordinary word to speak, mention or tell. What makes these words certain is the God who speaks them. God is not a man, that he should lie (Numbers 23:19), and his word does not return to him empty (Isaiah 55:11). His promises to Jacob rest on his own character and power. Israel would hold on to this kind of promise through long years away from the land, in Egypt and later in Babylon.

Jesus takes up this dream himself. He tells Nathanael, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man” (John 1:51). What Jacob saw in a dream is fulfilled in Christ. He is the one place where heaven and earth meet, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5). Through his death and resurrection he has opened a new and living way into God’s presence, so that we may draw near with full assurance of faith (Hebrews 10:19–22).

Jacob called the place of his dream the house of God. In Christ God came to dwell with us in the flesh (John 1:14), and Jesus spoke of his own body as the temple (John 2:19). The promise “I am with thee” comes to its fullest in him, for he is Immanuel, “God with us” (Matthew 1:23), and he told his disciples, “lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (Matthew 28:20). God promised to bring Jacob back to the land, and in Christ believers have come to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God (Hebrews 12:22). Jacob would later receive a new name, Israel, and anyone who is in Christ is a new creature (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Jacob went to sleep with nothing but the ground and its stones, a deceiver running from the trouble he had made. He woke with the promises of God, a God who had come to him first and spoken to him by name. The passage shows us a God whose faithfulness to his word reaches past the failures of the people he chooses, who is present in the bare places of the world as surely as in his house, and who means his blessing for all the families of the earth.

The promise of verse 15 is the heart of it. God is with his people, he keeps them wherever they go, he brings them home, and he does not leave them until he has done all he has spoken. In Christ that promise is ours, and the heaven Jacob saw opened is open to us through him.