Genesis 28:1-5

PART FORTY
THE STORY OF JACOB; THE JOURNEY TO PADDAN-ARAM

(Genesis 27:46 to Genesis 28:22)

1. The Biblical Account

46 And Rebekah said to Isaac, I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth: if Jacob take a wife of the daughters of Heth, such as these, of the daughters of the land, what good shall my life do me? 1 And Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him and charged him, and said unto him, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan. 2 Arise, go to Paddan-aram, to the house of Bethuel thy mother's father; and take thee a wife from thence of the daughters of Laban thy mother's brother. 3 And God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a company of peoples; 4 and give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee; that thou mayest inherit the land of thy soojournings, which God gave unto Abraham, 5 And Isaac sent away Jacob: and he went to Paddan-aram unto Laban, son of Bethuel the Syrian, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob's and Esau's mother.

6 Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan-aram, to take him a wife from thence; and that as he blessed him he gave him a charge, saying, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan; 7 and that Jacob obeyed his father and his mother, and was gone to Paddan-aram: 8 and Esau saw that the daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father; 9 and Esau went unto Ishmael, and took, besides the wives that he had, Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael Abraham's son, the sister of Nebaioth, to be his wife.
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 one of the stones of the place, and put it under his head, 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, Jehovah stood above it, and said, I am Jehovah, the God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land where on 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 whithersoever 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. 16 And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely Jehovah is in this place; and I knew it not. 17 And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.

18 And Jacob rose up 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 upon the top of it. 19 And he called the name of that place Beth-el: but the name of the city was Luz at the first. 20 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, 21 so that 1 come again to my father's house in peace, and Jehovah will be my God, 22 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.
2. Jacob's Blessing and Departure (Genesis 27:45 to Genesis 28:5). We are told by the critics that we have here two accounts of Jacob's departure differentiated by dissimilar motivations; In one version, the motive is fear of Esau's revenge; in the other, it is Rebecca's aversion to Hittite women and her determination that Jacob shall choose a wife from among her own Aramaean relatives. In their eagerness to find material for separate documents, or evidence of duplicate accounts, the critics seem to be ever ready to sacrifice the force and beauty of the narratives with which they deal. They dissect them to the quick, rending them into feeble or incoherent fragments, or they pare them down by the assumption of doublets to the baldest forms of intelligible statement, and thus strip them of those affecting details, which lend them such a charm, because so true to nature. This involves the absurdity of assuming that two jejune or fragmentary accounts, pieced mechanically together, have produced narratives which are not only consistent and complete, but full of animation and dramatic power. An attempt is made to establish a difference between J and E on one hand, and P on the other, as to the reason why Jacob went to Paddan-Aram. According to the former (Genesis 27:1-45), it is to flee from his brother, whom he has enraged by defrauding him of his father's blessing. According to the latter (Genesis 26:34-35; Genesis 28:1-9), that he may not marry among the Canaanites, as Esau had done, to the great grief of his parents, but obtain a wife from among his own kindred. P, we are told, knows of no hostility between the brothers. But all this is spoiled by the statement in Genesis 28:7, that -Jacob obeyed his father and his mother, and was gone to Paddan-Aram.-' His father sent him to get a wife (Genesis 28:1-9), but his mother to escape Esau's fury (Genesis 27:42-45); and there is no incompatibility between these two objects. In order to gain Isaac over to her plan without acquainting him with Esau's murderous designs, Rebekah simply urges her dissatisfaction with the wives of Esau, and her apprehension that Jacob might contract a similar marriage with someone of the daughters of the land. Isaac had one object in mind, Rebekah another. There is nothing for the critics to do, therefore, but to pronounce the unwelcome words, -and his mother,-' an interpolation. In order to prove their point they must first adjust the text to suit it. But tinkering the text in a single passage will not relieve them in the present instance. The hostility of Esau is embedded in the entire narrative, and cannot be surrendered from it. Why did Jacob go alone and unattended in quest of a wife, without the retinue or the costly presents for his bride, befitting his rank and wealth? When Abraham desired a wife for Isaac he sent a princely embassy to woo Rebekah, and conduct her to her future home. Why was Jacob's suit so differently managed, although Isaac imitated Abraham in everything else? And why did Jacob remain away from his parents and his home, and from the land sacred as the gift of God, for so many long years till his twelve sons were born (Genesis 35:26 P)? This is wholly unaccounted for except by the deadly hostility of Esau (UBG, 330, 331). (It should be recalled that J stands for the Jahvistic Code, E for Elohistic, and P for the Priestly. See my Genesis, I, pp. 47-70)

In order to obtain Isaac's consent to the plan, without hurting his feelings by telling him of Esau's murderous intentions, she [Rebekah] spoke to him of her troubles on account of the Hittite wives of Esau, and the weariness of life that she should feel if Jacob also were to marry one of the daughters of the land, and so introduced the idea of sending Jacob to her relations in Mesopotamia, with a view to his marriage there (BCOTP, 280). The true state of Esau's spirit is shown by his resolve to kill his brother as soon as his father should die. To avert the danger, Rebekah sent away Jacob to her family at Haran. Isaac approved the plan, as securing a proper marriage for his son, to whom he repeated the blessing of Abraham, and sent him away to Paddan-aram (Genesis 32:10) (OTH, 96). The first verse of ch. 28 so obviously follows the last verse of ch. 27 that we see no pertinent reason for assuming separate accounts of the motive for Jacob's departure.

Note also the blessing with which Isaac sent Jacob on his way, Genesis 28:1-4. The Jehovah of the blessing is at the same time the God of universal nature, Elohim, who from his general beneficence will bestow -the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine,-' In taking leave of Jacob, Isaac pronounces upon him the blessing of Abraham (Genesis 28:4); he is thus led to borrow the language of that signal revelation to Abraham when Jehovah made himself known as God Almighty (Genesis 17:1), and gave him promises with a special emphasis, which are here repeated. Hence the El Shaddai (Genesis 27:3) and Elohim (Genesis 27:4) (UBG, 332). The blessing to Abraham was that he should teach man the knowledge of the true God which would become a blessing to him. Isaac now blessed Jacob that his seed might be worthy to give such teaching, in the merit of which they would possess the Promised Land (SC, 157). Note the phrase, company of peoples, Genesis 27:3. This would seem to point forward to the tribes that were to spring from the loins of Jacob. By the words of Genesis 27:4, Isaac conveys the most important part of the patriarchal blessing, the part relative to the Messiah, which he had not quite ventured to bestow previously when he still thought he was dealing with Esau. Sobered by the failure of his attempt and made wiser, he freely gives what he fully understands to have been divinely destined for Jacob. -The blessing of Abraham-' is fully as much as was promised to him but no more. Since previously (Genesis 27:27-29)Isaac also had not ventured to bestow the land of promise on the one who presumably was Esau, now he unmistakably bestows it on Jacob, that which is now a -land of sojourning-' where the patriarchs have as yet no permanent possession except a burial place.. God -gave-' this land to Abraham, of course, only by promise but none the less actually (EG, 767, 768).

Note well the aftermath of treachery in this case: Rebekah and Jacob never saw each other again. Jacob had lost a mother's love, a father's love, and a brother's loveall sacrificed to selfish ambition. He was almost like Cainall alone in the world. We may be certain that, our sins, sooner or later, find us out (Numbers 32:23).

Review Questions

See Genesis 28:20-22.