Genesis 28:20

Jacob had taken his brother’s birthright and blessing by deceit, and Esau meant to kill him, so his mother sent him away to her brother in Haran (Genesis 27:41–45). He was also going there at his parents’ wish to find a wife from his own kin. On the long road from Beersheba he stopped for the night at a lonely spot, put a stone under his head and slept. In his dream a ladder stood on the earth and reached to heaven, the angels of God went up and down on it, and the LORD stood above it (Genesis 28:10–15). The LORD gave Jacob the promises he had made to Abraham and to Isaac (Genesis 12:1–3, Genesis 26:2–5): the land, descendants beyond counting, a blessing for all the families of the earth through his seed, and his own presence and protection until he brought Jacob home.

Jacob’s first words on waking are “Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not.” His name, Yaʻăqôb, means “heel-catcher” or “supplanter”, and his life so far had matched it. It is this Jacob, the schemer running from what he had done, whom God comes to find. God spoke first, before Jacob had prayed, built anything or promised anything, and that is grace. This night begins a long work of God in him that will one day bring him a new name, Israel, which means “struggles with God” or “God strives”.

“Surely”, ʼâkên, is a word of certainty. Jacob has no doubt about what has happened. The “place”, maqom, was an empty stretch of wilderness with nothing to mark it, and now it is the place where the LORD has spoken. The name Jacob uses is Yᵉhôvâh, the LORD, the personal name of the God of his fathers, so he knows exactly who has met him.

“And he was afraid” uses yârêʼ, a verb that means to fear and also, in a moral sense, to revere. “Dreadful” comes from the same root and here means awe-inspiring. Jacob trembles because he has met the holy God, and his fear is the awe that belongs to that meeting. Moses felt the same at the burning bush, where God told him to put off his shoes because the ground was holy (Exodus 3:5), and Isaiah when he saw the Lord in his vision (Isaiah 6:1–5). Awe and reverence before God’s majesty are the right human response whenever he draws near.

Jacob repeats the word “this” three times: this place, this is none other, this is the gate. The ground he slept on is the place he means. He calls it “the house of God”. Bayith is the ordinary word for a house and comes from a root meaning to build, and it also means a household or family and, later, a temple. No building stood there. Jacob calls the spot God’s house because God has shown himself there and made it a sanctuary. One of the psalms later sings of longing for God’s house, where a single day in his courts is better than a thousand elsewhere (Psalm 84:10).

He also calls it “the gate of heaven”. Shaʻar means an opening, a door or a gate, from a root meaning to split or open, and it is often used of the entrance to a city. In the dream the angels came and went on the ladder, and the LORD spoke from above it, so Jacob speaks of the place as an entrance where heaven and earth meet and God speaks to man.

“Jacob rose up early in the morning.” The verb shâkam means to rise early and, by extension, to persist. Its root pictures loading the back of a man or a beast before a day’s journey. Jacob acts at first light, at once, while the night is fresh in his mind.

He takes the stone, ʼeben, that had been his pillow. It is an ordinary field stone, and the word is traced to the root for building. He stands it upright as a pillar, a matstsêbâh, which means something set up: a pillar, a memorial stone or a sacred pillar. In those days such stones marked boundaries, recalled treaties or victories, and set apart sacred places. The same word can also mean an idol, and so the law of Moses later forbade Israel to set up pillars of the kind used in the worship of other gods (Deuteronomy 16:22). Jacob’s pillar stood long before that law, as a memorial to the living God who had spoken to him. He set up another pillar years later (Genesis 31:45), and Samuel set up a stone called Ebenezer to remember God’s help (1 Samuel 7:12). God’s people have marked the places of his faithfulness with stones they could see.

Then Jacob pours oil on the top of it. Shemen is oil, especially olive oil, often perfumed, and it can stand for richness. Oil was valuable, and pouring it out set the stone apart for God, consecrating it. Later God commanded Moses to anoint the tabernacle and everything in it so that they would be most holy (Exodus 30:26–29), and priests and kings were anointed for their work. Jacob’s anointing of the stone is an early picture of that same setting apart.

“He called the name of that place Bethel.” The verb qârâʼ means to call out, to address by name or to proclaim, and here Jacob gives the place its name. Bêyth-ʼÊl means “house of God”, from bayith, house, and El, God. The name puts into one word what Jacob had said the night before: “this is none other but the house of God”.

The city there had been called Lûwz, Luz, a name that probably means almond tree. It lay in the hill country of Canaan, and it became an important place in Israel’s history. Jacob built no house for God there at this time. The name marks it as the place where God had made himself known, and the anointed pillar stood as its memorial. Jacob later came back to Bethel and named the place again (Genesis 35:15). After Israel entered the land, the house of Joseph took the city once called Luz (Judges 1:23), and Hosea recalled God meeting Jacob at Bethel (Hosea 12:4). Bethel’s later story was a sad one too. King Jeroboam made it a centre of idol worship (1 Kings 12:29), which shows that a place blessed by God’s presence can still be turned to false worship.

“And Jacob vowed a vow.” The verb nâdar means to make a vow, a solemn promise to God, and here it is joined to its own noun, neder, so that the Hebrew says “vowed a vow”, which underlines how serious the promise is. This is the first time Jacob binds himself to God. A vow made to God had to be kept (Numbers 30:2), and the law warns against delay in paying one (Deuteronomy 23:21–23). Vows were often made in the hope of a blessing or a deliverance, as Hannah’s was at Shiloh.

“And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God’s house.” The anointed pillar is to mark the place as God’s, a place for worship in the years ahead and a reminder of what God had promised there.

“And of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.” The verbs are nâthan, to give, a word used very broadly, and ʻâsar, to tithe, to give a tenth. Jacob’s words “all that thou shalt give me” own God as the giver of everything he will have, and the tenth he promises acknowledges that it all belongs to God. Abraham had already given a tenth to Melchizedek (Genesis 14:20), so Jacob is following his grandfather. Later the law said that the tithe of the land is the LORD’s and holy to him (Leviticus 27:30), Israel was to bring the firstfruits of the land into God’s house (Exodus 23:19), and Malachi called the people to bring the whole tithe into the storehouse (Malachi 3:10). Proverbs says to honour the LORD with our substance and the firstfruits of our increase (Proverbs 3:9–10).

Jesus points to this night 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). The ladder Jacob saw, joining earth to heaven, finds its fulfilment in Jesus, the one mediator through whom God comes to us and we come to God. He is Emmanuel, “God with us” (Matthew 1:23), so the presence that Jacob found in one place is given to us in a person. Jacob said, “this is none other but the house of God”, and in Christ the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14), and in him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily (Colossians 2:9). Jacob called the place “the gate of heaven”, and Jesus says, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved” (John 10:9) and that no one comes to the Father but by him (John 14:6). No man has seen God at any time, and the Son has declared him (John 1:18).

The promises Jacob heard are all kept in Christ. Every promise of God is “yea” and “Amen” in him (2 Corinthians 1:20). He is the seed of Abraham (Galatians 3:16), and all who belong to Christ, Jew and Gentile, are Abraham’s seed and heirs of the promise (Galatians 3:29). The oil Jacob poured on the stone looks ahead to the Anointed One, the Messiah, on whom the Spirit of the Lord rested (Luke 4:18–19) and whom God anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power (Acts 10:38).

The house of God that began as one stone is now built of people. Believers are “lively stones” built up into a spiritual house (1 Peter 2:5), a holy temple in the Lord with Christ as the chief cornerstone (Ephesians 2:19–22), and the body of each believer is a temple of the Holy Ghost (1 Corinthians 6:19).

Each of Jacob’s requests has its answer in Christ as well. He asked for bread, and Jesus is the bread of life (John 6:35). He asked for raiment, and God clothes his people with the garments of salvation and the robe of righteousness (Isaiah 61:10). He asked to come home in peace, and Christ “is our peace” (Ephesians 2:14), who brings us into the rest that remains for the people of God (Hebrews 4:9–10). Christ is all, and in all (Colossians 3:11). Jacob promised a tenth, and the gospel calls for our whole selves, our bodies offered as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1).

Jacob went to sleep a lonely fugitive with a stone for a pillow, and he woke in the house of God. The LORD had been in that place before Jacob arrived, and he came to a man who had done nothing to deserve him. That is how God still meets his people, on the road, in hard seasons and in places that look like nothing at all.

The God who promised Jacob land and nations also heard him ask for bread and a coat, and he cares for the daily needs of his people just as fully. He is holy, and the right answer to his nearness is the awe Jacob felt. He is also generous, and Jacob’s tenth shows a man learning that everything he would have came from God’s hand. Like Jacob, we can set up our own memorials of God’s faithfulness and give back to him from what he has given.