1 Isaac summoned Jacob and blessed him and commanded him, “Do not marry a Canaanite woman.
2 Go to Paddan-aram, to the house of Bethuel, your mother’s father, and choose a wife for yourself from the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother.
3 May God Al mighty bless you and make you increase to become a group of nations.
4 May he grant you and your descendants the blessings of Abraham, so that you may take possession of the land where you live now, and that Yahweh gave to Abraham.
5 Isaac sent Jacob away and he went to Paddan-aram to Laban, the son of Bethuel, the Aramean, brother to Rebekah.
6 Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him to Paddan-aram to choose a wife for himself, and in blessing him had commanded him, “Do not marry a Canaanite woman.”
7 And in obedience to his father and mother, Jacob had gone to Paddan-aram.
8 So Esau understood how displeasing the Canaanite women were to his father Isaac.
9 So he went to Ishmael and chose a wife for himself besides those he already had—Mahalath, daughter of Ishmael, son of Abraham and sister of Nebaioth.
Jacob’s dream
10 Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran.
11 When he reached a certain place the sun had set and he spent the night there. He took one of the stones that were there and using it as a pillow, he lay down to sleep.
12 While Jacob was sleeping, he had a dream in which a ladder stood on the earth with its top reaching to heaven and on it were angels of God going up and coming down.
13 And Yahweh was standing there near him and said, “I am Yahweh, the God of your father, Abraham, and the God of Isaac. The land on which you sleep, I give to you and your descendants.
14 Your descendants will be numerous like the specks of dust of the earth and you will spread out to the west and the east, to the north and the south. Through you and your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed.
15 See, I am with you and I will keep you safe wher ever you go. I will bring you back to this land and not leave you until I have done what I promised.”
16 Jacob woke from his dream and said, “Truly Yahweh was in this place and I was not aware of it.”
17 He was afraid and said, “How full of awe is this place! It is nothing less than a House of God; it is the Gate to Heaven!”
18 Then Jacob rose early and took the stone he had put under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on the top of it.
19 He named that place Bethel although before that it was called Luz.
20 Then Jacob made a vow, “If Yahweh will be with me and keep me safe during this journey I am making, if he gives me bread to eat and clothes to wear,
21 and if I return in peace to my father’s house, then Yahweh will be my God.
22 This stone which I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me, I will give back a tenth.”
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Comments Genesis, Chapter 28
• 28.10 Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran. Jacob goes to the land of his ancestors in search of work and a wife. On the road, he has a vision in which God renews his Covenant with him.
Unlike Abraham, whom God called when he was already old and who knew the value of life, Jacob is a young man who becomes aware of his vocation gradually. First, he buys the rights of the firstborn from Esau whom he has judged and considered irresponsible; but he still does not know the price of God’s blessing to his fathers. Then, his mother has to give him courage so that he can take the risk of stealing the blessing. He lets her persuade him and only afterwards does he understand the consequences of his action: he has to escape in order to save his life.
But just when Jacob has to face the hazar dous life of a foreigner and a fugitive, he meets God and for the first time he becomes conscious of his own responsibility: he is the bearer of God’s promises to the world. People be come responsible when they realize that they are accountable to others and must answer for their actions. Jacob understands that he will be accountable to the God who has chosen him.
Yahweh was in this place! Jacob, alone and defenseless, goes to sleep near a city inhabited by strangers. But God renews with him the promises made to his fathers and assures him of his protection: some day this land will be his.
This is the gate to heaven. Jacob has seen the heavens open and the angels of God forming a living bridge between heaven and earth: this is an image of the communion with God which people seek in vain with their various religions. These may give us some external knowledge of God and satisfy our religious instincts. Even if we interiorize our search for God, we are sinful people who cannot find his inner presence without being called by him.
The only bridge between God and human kind is Christ: Son of God become man, both God and human. Later, in referring to this text (Jn 1:51) Jesus will declare that he is the Gate to heaven, because in him, God has embraced humanity.
He called it Bethel. Here, as in previous chap ters, we find popular legends. Bethel means the house of God and the biblical author attributes to Jacob this naming of the place as well as the custom of paying a tithe to the temple of Bethel. This had been built many centuries before Jacob.
DREAMS
All of us are impressed by dreams and we try to interpret them. Most of the time they do not foretell anything but simply reveal what is going on within us, in our subconscious, and disclose something of what we cannot know clearly about our own spirit. Psychologists may use dreams to discover significant experiences or wounds suffered in the past.
Dreams may also indicate and express pre-monitions and intuitions. The Bible shows us God (or his angels) using dreams to communicate with us. In this, God takes people as they are with the underground part of their soul.
When God intervenes through a dream, we know it by its consequences. Jesus says “The tree is known by its fruits.” In such cases, it is God himself who gives the interpretation: we do not need to resort to anyone and God fills us with a sense of complete peace.
People whose faith has been purified and formed cannot attribute to dreams the same im portance given them by the primitive people of biblical times. We also know that the Spirit of Darkness can disguise himself as an angel (2 Cor 12:10). When, in our days, large segments of humankind tend to lead their lives according to dreams, it has little to do with faith. In the very Bible itself, besides the condemnations of Dt 18:10, we can also read in Jer 29:8 his attack directed against those who induce the dreams they wish to have (see also Sir 24:1).