On Genesis, Part 39: In the Hands of Yahweh
On Genesis, Part 39: In the Hands of Yahweh
In Genesis chapter 25, there is a description of a pregnant Rebekah suffering from the struggle of the baby in her womb, where Yahweh God had answered and told her that there were two nations in her womb, representing two distinct peoples, and that the elder would be subordinate to the younger. Much later, in Malachi chapter 1, Yahweh announced that He had loved Jacob, and hated Esau. But from the time they were born, Yahweh had no exchanges with Esau, while Esau evidently had never sought God. Apparently, Yahweh permitted nothing which would cause him harm, but gave him every opportunity which Jacob also had been afforded, and he only harmed himself by his own choices. So it is fully evident that Yahweh’s words to Rebekah were prophetic, but He did not express His hatred for Esau until long after Esau himself had exhibited the behavior and the attitudes for which he was hated, in the words of the prophet Malachi.
In the closing verses of that same chapter, there was an event recorded where Esau had sold his birthright to Jacob for a measly bowl of soup. That act was a vivid demonstration of the fact that Esau had despised his birthright rather than having cherished it, since in a time of discomfort, he was willing to give it away in exchange for so little. Esau, having hungered, had no thought nor care for the God who could feed him. Then in Genesis chapter 27 we had seen the rejection of Esau, and the reasons for his rejection were stated explicitly on two occasions. The first of those is in the description of Esau’s wives by Moses where at the end of chapter 26 he wrote “34 And Esau was forty years old when he took to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite: 35 Which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah.” So if Esau lost his birthright, it is a direct result of this grief which he had caused his parents, as he had taken wives of the people from whom Abraham had admonished his own servant not to procure a wife for Isaac, for which he had even bound that servant to an oath.
Then, after Rebekah had made certain that Jacob received the blessing of the firstborn son rather than Esau, she informed her husband as to the reasons for which she had done that, where we read, as it is recorded at the end of Genesis chapter 27: “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 which are of the daughters of the land, what good shall my life do me?” These are not random words spoken in some context other than what had just occurred. These words were clearly spoken to Isaac in regard to the deception of Isaac by which Jacob had obtained the blessing, and Rebekah is thereby taking responsibility for that act with a full explanation of why it was done. She must have also remembered the words which Yahweh had told her when she was still pregnant, seventy years earlier. Jacob’s having received the blessing marked the continued fulfillment of those words.
So now that Jacob had the blessing, and Rebekah did not want to see him throw it away, as Esau had already done, her words to Jacob at the end of chapter 27 fully prove that it was for that same reason that she made sure that Esau did not receive the blessing in the first place, for his having taken as wives the daughters of Heth. But as we also explained, while the text informs us that Esau had taken his Hittite wives when he was but forty years of age, Jacob is not sent to Haran by his father, which we shall see here in Genesis chapter 28, until he is about seventy years of age. So from the end of Genesis chapter 25 up to this point in the narrative, at the beginning of Genesis chapter 28, a period of thirty years has elapsed. Now here, there is a sense of urgency for which Jacob is sent to Haran, as Esau has vowed to kill him. So it is at this same time that Jacob had received the blessing, and within days he was sent to Haran.
Here it is evident that Esau was an impulsive man who did not restrain his passions. It is also manifest that he had evidently never consulted his parents on the issue of marriage, and to him, it seems that a wife was only a hole, which is a rather vulgar but blatantly honest analogy which we had made earlier in this commentary. Sadly, even today many men are like Esau and imitate his behavior. However in stark contrast to Esau’s impulsive character, Jacob was described as a perfect, or at least, as a complete man who was reserved and who did restrain his passions, and he had even waited for seventy years for instructions from his father before he went to find a wife. It is apparent that Jacob left his fate to God.
So unlike Esau, as we shall see in this chapter of Genesis, to Jacob a wife was evidently much more than a hole, she was a heritage. When a man chooses a wife, he is choosing his heritage. Therefore Jacob stands in contrast to Esau as an example to all men, that choosing a wife, men are making a choice as to whether they shall maintain their own heritage, or give it up to others. Then in that regard, as we have also witnessed and attested, here Jacob’s mother Rebekah had also demonstrated the value and character of a good Christian woman as a safeguard of the heritage of her husband. Doing that, Rebekah was also acting in the interests of an obedient son, one who had waited on his father. The heritage of Abraham would be preserved by the fortitude of Rebekah and the obedience of Jacob in contrast to the seeming indifference of Isaac in preference for his son Esau, who had clearly despised his own heritage.
Then throughout the course of these events, Jacob, who knew that Esau despised his birthright when he compelled him to sell it many years earlier, certainly seems to have put his fate in the hands of Yahweh his God, by waiting patiently rather than having made any rash decisions on his own to take any actions concerning his own future. Now, as it is described in the opening verses of Genesis chapter 28, Jacob’s father Isaac finally realizes the significance of what his wife had done, and in acknowledgment of that he informs Jacob that the promises of Abraham would be his, but with a certain condition which further serves to demonstrate why Esau had been rejected, as it also fully validates the actions of Rebekah and Jacob. Clearly, Isaac told him that he would have those promises if he took a wife of his own people.
So with that, we shall commence with Genesis chapter 28:
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.
This is the same warning which Abraham had given to his servant, when he sent him to Padanaram to fetch a wife for Isaac. So we must also note that Isaac, like Jacob after him, had also never taken a wife until he received one from his father. Esau, having taken wives without his father, had erred and failed miserably by selecting wives for himself. But Abraham obtained a wife for Isaac when he was only forty, and now Jacob is seventy. So Jacob patiently left himself in the hands of Yahweh his God, and remained obedient to Isaac even in spite of the want of attention from his father, as his father had planned to leave the blessing to Esau in spite of Esau’s sin.
Now the Word of Yahweh God is seen to be true, as Jacob is vindicated and Esau is rejected for having rejected, or at least, having disregarded the will of Abraham. The fact that after all these years, Isaac, who himself had never set foot in Padanaram, was conscious of his family there, demonstrates that these men were all conscious of their family history, and must have heard of the acts of Abraham as well as of his enmity towards the Canaanites. As we have also seen, Esau and Jacob were fifteen years old when Abraham died, so it is very likely that they knew him. And it is also quite likely that both brothers knew how and under what circumstances their parents had been married, and both of them had very likely also heard the story of the servant who was sent to Haran to bring back Rebekah.
These conclusions may be dismissed as conjecture, but it is even greater conjecture to imagine that parents who are concerned with their heritage because they had great promises from God would fail to communicate such things to their sons over the course of at least forty years. For example, while the historical books of Scripture record very little interaction between David and Solomon, aside from the instructions which David gave him in 1 Kings chapter 1, the entire Book of Proverbs recorded by Solomon contains the instructions of a father to a son. In the ancient world, there were no schools as we know them, and a mother trained a son through the basic functions of life as a toddler, while once he was old enough, a father and a grandfather educated him and prepared him for life as a man. That education was provided without televisions, cell phones, and even without printed books.
Telling his son not to take wives in the manner in which Esau had taken wives, he now tells him where to find a wife:
2 Arise, go to Padanaram, 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.
In Genesis chapter 27 Rebekah is portrayed as having urgently wanted Jacob to go to Padanaram, as Esau had expressed a desire to kill him, where she is recorded as having said, in part: “43 Now therefore, my son, obey my voice; and arise, flee thou to Laban my brother to Haran; 44 And tarry with him a few days, until thy brother's fury turn away…” So at this point in the Septuagint, the text maintains that urgency where the opening clause of this verse has Isaac saying “Rise and depart quickly into Mesopotamia…” There it also has Mesopotamia rather than Padanaram, which is a more specific area in the northwestern portion of Mesopotamia. The translators of the Septuagint made the substitution consistently, which indicates that by the 3rd century BC, the name Padanaram had fallen from use.
Now Isaac continues his instructions to Jacob:
3 And God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people; 4 And give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee; that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave unto Abraham.
Rather than “multitude of people” in verse 3, the Septuagint has “assembly of nations”, the Hebrew word for multitude being קהל or qahal (# 6951), which means congregation or assembly, it is often translated into Greek as συναγωγή or synagogue, which is a compound Greek word. The word עם or am (# 5971) is properly a people, as in a nation or a tribe, and here in the plural form עמים or amim it was translated into Greek with a plural form of ἔθνος, or nations. So here Isaac tells Jacob that his descendants would be not only a nation, but a company or a large group of nations.
As Genesis is written, there are several times in which Yahweh God had given promises such as these to Abraham, but there is not one time where we read that Yahweh had uttered these promises directly to Isaac. So this once again demonstrates the fact that Abraham had fully related his experiences with Yahweh to his son Isaac, and much earlier than this, in Genesis chapter 25, Isaac was fully conscious of the God of Abraham, where we read that he had “intreated the Lord for his wife, because she was barren.” Furthermore, speaking these words to Jacob, where Isaac referred to the blessings and promises which Yahweh had made to Abraham, Jacob must have already been familiar with those things, and therefore he, as well as his brother, must have been instructed concerning them in his youth. All of this supports our previous conjecture, that Abraham and Isaac had educated their sons and related their experiences to them, so that Esau had no excuse for his own actions.
But here Isaac also tells his son Jacob to go to his own kindred to take a wife, and informs him that if he does so, then under that condition Yahweh God would bless him and give to him the blessings of Abraham. This wording also proves beyond doubt that Esau had not been blessed on account of his race-mixing fornication, as Jacob is told that he would receive the promises if he did not commit such fornication. Moreover, Jacob is seventy years old, and it is apparent that Isaac had not made such provisions for him in the past, because his own focus was still on Esau, but Rebekah’s actions had changed that and awakened Isaac to face, or at least, to realize the truth of the matter. So in that regard also, the words of Isaac here are an admission that Esau could not have the blessing of Abraham, because he had taken wives who were not of his own kindred, but were rather of the accursed Hittites.
Perhaps Isaac had also put his own fate into the hands of Yahweh, for which reason he did not turn his son Esau away on account of his wives. But through Rebekah’s actions, which were in accord with the words which Yahweh had spoken to her when she was pregnant, Yahweh had also spoken to Isaac when he was deceived into giving Jacob the blessing, since if Yahweh’s words to Rebekah were true, that “the elder shall serve the younger”, then it was Jacob who had to have the blessing, since the blessing was also a prayer that all of Jacob’s brethren be subject to him. So Yahweh spoke to Isaac through the actions of Rebekah, and Isaac accepted that, where after it was discovered that he had blessed Jacob in place of Esau, he exclaimed that “he shall be blessed”, meaning that he would not retract that blessing.
5 And Isaac sent away Jacob: and he went to Padanaram unto Laban, son of Bethuel the Syrian, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob’s and Esau’s mother.
Rather than “Jacob’s and Esau’s mother”, as it also is in the Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate has only “his mother.” This may reflect a divergence among early Hebrew copies of the manuscripts, but evidently, and unfortunately, no portion of Genesis chapters 28 through 31 had survived in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
When Abraham had sent his servant for a wife for Isaac, Laban was already of age, and answered the servant in his father’s presence. For example, in Genesis chapter 24 where the servant inquired of them we read “50 Then Laban and Bethuel answered and said, The thing proceedeth from the Lord: we cannot speak unto thee bad or good.” There it is also apparent that they believed, or at least, admitted the God to whom the servant had referred, but that may have been from the perspective of their own pagan superstition, as they were still pagans who had maintained their own gods. Rebekah had spent twenty years with Isaac before she gave birth to Jacob and Esau. So now, at least ninety years later, it is certain that Bethuel has passed on, since he is not mentioned again after this time, and when Jacob arrives in Padanaram, it is evident that Laban is the head of the household. If we imagine that Laban was at least thirty years of age when he met Abraham’s servant, and since Jacob in now seventy here, his uncle Laban must have been at least fifty years older, and perhaps even older than that. Here Isaac is a hundred and thirty years old.
As we had explained in the last segment of this commentary, The Rejection of Esau, Jacob was seventy years old when he went to Haran. We know this, because Joseph was an officer before pharaoh at age thirty, and then after seven years of plenty, two years of famine and some travel time, about ten years later Jacob appeared before pharaoh at the age of a hundred and thirty. So Joseph was born in Haran shortly before he left there, forty years sooner when he was about ninety years old. Having spent twenty years there, he was seventy when he first arrived. So Laban, who was already at least thirty when he spoke to Abraham’s servant, is at least a hundred and twenty now, since Jacob is seventy and he was not born until twenty years after his father had taken Rebekah to wife.
6 When Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob, and sent him away to Padanaram, 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 Padanaram; 8 And Esau seeing that the daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father;
Here we shall interrupt the account before the conclusion, where it finally struck Esau after thirty years, and after he had lost his blessing, that perhaps he should not have married Canaanite women, and he realizes he must do something to rectify the situation. The words “pleased not Isaac” here are an understatement. The Septuagint Greek and its translation by Brenton are actually much closer to the meaning of the Hebrew text, where it says in verse 8: “And Esau also having seen that the daughters of Chanaan were evil before his father Isaac…” Literally, we would translate the Hebrew of verse 8 to read: “And Esau had seen that the daughters of Canaan are evil in the eyes of Isaac his father.”
But even though Moses also explains here that Esau had seen that “Jacob obeyed his father and mother”, Esau himself once again fails to consult with them as to what he may do, if anything, in order to please them. Rather, once again he takes matters into his own hands, instead of committing himself to the hands of Yahweh by honoring his parents:
9 Then went Esau unto Ishmael, and took unto the wives which he had Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife.
The sister of Nebajoth: this name seems to have clung to the Ishmaelites, some of whom would be called Nabataeans in later history, and even well into historical times, although other etymologies for the modern form of the name are provided by academic historians. In subsequent Biblical and historical narratives, it is quite evident that the Edomites and Nabataeans remained quite close to one another throughout their history, but the Edomites also continued to mingle with the Canaanite Hurrians, the Horites of Scripture, which is fully evident in the genealogy of Esau in Genesis chapter 36.
Here Esau had failed once again, since much earlier, in Genesis chapter 21, Sarah had asserted her rights as the wife of Abraham where we read: “10 Wherefore she said unto Abraham, Cast out this bondwoman and her son: for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.” Then Yahweh upheld her words, where we continue and read: “11 And the thing was very grievous in Abraham's sight because of his son. 12 And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called.”
Therefore, since Ishmael was prohibited any share in the inheritance with Isaac in this manner, Esau could not possibly please his parents by taking a wife of the daughters of Ishmael, yet he did so on his own initiative. However nothing more is said of the matter until we read the words of Paul of Tarsus in Hebrews chapter 12, who had spoken of Esau as an example warning of the consequences of rebellion and said “16 Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. 17 For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.”
When Jacob received the blessing, Esau cried but he could not get it back, and now, when he realized that he must rectify his sins, he failed once again, because neither could the progeny of Ishmael inherit the blessing. Esau is a type for the fleshly man of worldly achievement who does not consider the things of the Spirit, and he is also a type for men who do not seek the will or counsel of their fathers. So Esau is also a type for men who take the matters of life wholly into their own hands, rather than seeking the counsel of Yahweh God and putting their fate into His hands. The end of those men will always follow the pattern of Esau.
The pattern is manifest in chapter 3 of the Wisdom of Solomon, from our own translation: “10 But the impious shall have punishment just as they imagined, they who have no care for the just and departing from Yahweh. 11 For he who is despising wisdom and discipline is miserable, and their hope is empty and labors unprofitable, and their works useless. 12 Their wives are senseless and their children wicked, cursed is their origin.”
Esau, having neglected the will of his parents, and therefore also the will of his God, had chosen his wives senselessly, and therefore the origin of his children is accursed. There is a similar warning in Isaiah chapter 17, where we read: “10 Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the rock of thy strength, therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants, and shalt set it with strange slips: 11 In the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish: but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.” But Jacob obeyed his father:
10 And Jacob went out from Beersheba, 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 of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep.
The presumed sites of ancient Beersheba and Haran are about four hundred and fifty miles apart, as the proverbial crow flies, so Jacob must have had a trip of at least 500 miles. Since Isaac was a man with a great wealth of servants and flocks, Jacob certainly did not have to walk the journey, but even on camel it would take him as long as two weeks to reach his destination. In the world of the patriarchs, large horses which could be ridden by men were very rare, and they were not generally imported from Persia and points further east until much later times. So to use horses for travel, a chariot was a necessity and even then, under good conditions a team of horses may only cover about 30 miles or so in a day.
Later in this chapter we learn that this place where Jacob had stopped would become the site of Bethel, in what would later be the land of Ephraim. So it is about 50 miles northeast of Beersheba, and it is not clear whether this is Jacob’s first stop, but it is unlikely that he covered such a distance in a single day. He is probably stopping here for the second night of his journey, as that would be consistent with the distance travelled thus far. Sleeping on stones, Jacob nevertheless managed to attain a deep sleep, which is evident from the dream which he had:
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, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon 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.
Like all other Old Testament prophecies, Jacob's Ladder can only be properly understood from a Christian perspective.
The significance of this dream is that the angels represent the fulfillment of the promises which are described here as having been made to Jacob concerning his seed at the very same time he when he had been observing these angels. Jacob’s descendants being of both the creation of Adam, since he shall take his wives from of his own people, and also being from of the promises which Yahweh God Himself had made to him here, and to his fathers before him, it is Jacob’s descendants who are therefore born from above, as they are from of Yahweh God Himself products of His promises. For that reason, Yahshua Christ is recorded as having said in John chapter 3 (3:7) that “unless a man should be born from above, he is not able to see the Kingdom of Yahweh.” So the angels on the ladder ascending into and descending from heaven represent the origin and destination of the seed which is promised to Jacob here.
The Wisdom of Solomon also understood this, and in chapter 19 he equated the seed of Jacob at the time of the giving of the law to a renewal of the Adamic creation where he wrote: “6 For the whole creation within its own race was again perfectly formed from above, serving Your commandments in order that Your sons may be kept unharmed.” Just a few verses earlier than that, Solomon had also explained that the twelve tribes of Israel are the Society, or the “world” of the Scriptures, where he wrote near the end of chapter 18 and said: “24 For upon the garment reaching to the feet was the whole Society, and the glory of the fathers carved upon the four rows of stones, and Your majesty upon the diadem of his head. ” Those four rows, each containing three stones, represent the twelve tribes of Israel, and they are the only tribes represented on the garment of the high priest.
Furthermore, the children of Israel are Yahweh’s witnesses in the earth, and by their very presence they are an affront to the devils and the so-called “princes of this world”. In that regard they are also Yahweh’s servant race, and therefore they stand as messengers, or angels, of the Truth of God in the face of His enemies. This we read in part, from Isaiah chapter 41: “8 But thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend.” Then further on, from chapter 43: “1 But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine…. 10 Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.”
So in that respect, living as the witnesses of Yahweh in the earth, the children of Israel are represented by the angels, or messengers, moving up and down the ladder in Jacob’s dream. Then, the fact that the messengers of Yahweh, the apostles and prophets, all came from Israel, His Word has gone out to the world, both to His adversaries as well as His people, through the children of Israel. Therefore the interpretation is certain.
Then, as we have already remarked regarding the similar promise to what had been spoken to Jacob here, which was spoken earlier to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12, where we read that “in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed”, and perceiving the Genesis account through Christian eyes, Paul of Tarsus had understood the reference to “all the families of the earth” as a prophetic statement which referred to the future families of Israel, the descendants of Jacob who inherited the promise to Abraham that his seed would inherit the earth. So Paul explained that where he wrote, in Galatians chapter 3, that “6 Just as ‘Abraham had trusted Yahweh, and it was accounted to him for righteousness’ 7 then you know that they from faith, they are sons of Abraham. 8 And the writing having foreseen that from faith Yahweh would deem the Nations righteous, announced to Abraham beforehand that ‘In you shall all the Nations be blessed.’ 9 So those from faith are blessed along with the believing Abraham.” But where Paul mentioned “they from faith”, he must have meant they from of the faith of Abraham, and the promise which Abraham had believed is the substance of that faith, that “I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great”.
Now Yahweh offers a further assurance, and Jacob would thereby know that he was destined to live out his entire life in the hands of Yahweh his God:
15 And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither 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.
Jacob, being in the hands of Yahweh, certainly would live out his life in that regard, even when it is seemingly to his hurt, which we shall discuss further in relation to his time with Laban, who had taken advantage of and exploited him, and also to the rape of his daughter Dinah which is recorded in Genesis chapter 34.
The dream comes to an end:
16 And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord 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 but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.
Jacob will name the place Bethel for this reason, as he now believes that Yahweh God lives here in this place, and Bethel is a Hebrew phrase meaning “house of God”.
The vision was frightening, and therefore it must have been very powerful, even if it forebode nothing but blessings for Jacob himself. His reaction here is a pagan reaction, as the pagans traditionally saw their gods as inhabiting a particular land or area in which they were imagined to reside. But culturally, perhaps that is the only way that Jacob could of understood the dream at the time, and it is evident in many places in Scripture that God speaks to men on terms that the men themselves would understand. The story of the prophet Jonah is a remarkable example which exhibits that phenomenon. Furthermore, Jacob’s interpretation of his dream need not be the same as our own, since his perspective was still mostly pagan in spite of the experiences of Abraham and Isaac, and we now have the advantage of hindsight and a Christian perspective.
18 And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it.
The setting up of a pillar as a witness for some event or something else having significance which needed to be memorialized must have also been a culturally pagan practice. Later, in Genesis chapter 31, after Rachel had stolen her father’s household gods, which was unknown to Jacob, and Laban had sought them but could not find them, he set up a pillar as a memorial of an oath he would ask Jacob to make, that Jacob not come north of the pillar to do him harm. That is because the possession of the household gods gave the holder special inheritance rights to a man’s estate.
So we read, in part: “48 And Laban said, This heap is a witness between me and thee this day. Therefore was the name of it called Galeed; 49 And Mizpah; for he said, The Lord watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another. 50 If thou shalt afflict my daughters, or if thou shalt take other wives beside my daughters, no man is with us; see, God is witness betwixt me and thee. 51 And Laban said to Jacob, Behold this heap, and behold this pillar, which I have cast betwixt me and thee; 52 This heap be witness, and this pillar be witness, that I will not pass over this heap to thee, and that thou shalt not pass over this heap and this pillar unto me, for harm. 53 The God of Abraham, and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge betwixt us. And Jacob sware by the fear of his father Isaac.” Where Laban referred to the god of Nahor, and the god of Terah their father, that was not a reference to the God of Abraham, but rather, Nahor was a pagan like his father Terah, as we read in Judges chapter 24: “2 … Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they served other gods.” The same thing is mentioned on two other occasions later in that chapter.
Now Jacob names the place accordingly, and the name would cleave to it, as he visits it again after he returns from Haran, in Genesis chapter 35:
19 And he called the name of that place Bethel: but the name of that city was called Luz at the first.
As we have said, Bethel means “house of God”. Rather than Luz, the Septuagint has a compound word, Ουλαμλους as the former name of Bethel, which we may transliterate as Brenton had, as Ulam-Luz. But we cannot tell how the translators may have known that, or if perhaps they had made a mistake, or if not, then perhaps a portion of the name had fallen out of the manuscripts subsequent to its translation. Either way, the name is obscure, as there is no record of it in inscriptions. In the three other places which we are about to mention, rather than Ulam-Luz, the Septuagint has only Louza.
On three other occasions in Scripture, in Genesis chapter 35, Joshua chapter 18, and Judges chapter 1, we are informed that the name of Bethel was originally Luz, but in Joshua chapter 16, we read, where it is speaking of the border of Ephraim, “1 And the lot of the children of Joseph fell from Jordan by Jericho, unto the water of Jericho on the east, to the wilderness that goeth up from Jericho throughout mount Bethel, 2 And goeth out from Bethel to Luz, and passeth along unto the borders of Archi to Ataroth…” But in the Septuagint, Luz is not mentioned at all in verse 2, and it seems to be more trustworthy in that regard, becauseif Bethel is Luz, one cannot travel from Bethel to Luz.
Now in response to the vision which he had and the promises he had received, Jacob commits himself into the hands of Yahweh:
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 I come again to my father’s house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God: 22 And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.
Jacob’s father Abraham had unconditional promises from God, and these promises made to Jacob here are also given without condition, even if his father Isaac had given him the condition that he marry women of his own kindred. So like Abraham, here Jacob vows to act accordingly, and to remain faithful to the God of the promises, even though nothing in return was requested of him. So with that it is evident that the character of Jacob is very much like the character of Abraham.
Furthermore, there were no conditions or obligations laid upon Jacob here on account of the promises to his ancestors, and especially on account of the unconditional promises to Abraham. So when Paul had explained that “the children of the promise are counted for the seed” in Romans chapter 9, where he discussed the promise which Yahweh had given to Rebekah he wrote: “11 Then not yet having been born, nor having performed any good or evil, (that the purpose of Yahweh concerning the chosen endures, not from rituals, but from the calling,) 12 to her it was said, ‘the elder will serve the younger:’ 13 just as it is written, ‘Jakob I love, and Esau I hated.’” So the purpose of God in having called Abraham is established in Jacob. But it could not be established in Esau, and Esau’s own deeds had brought him to that fate, in spite of the fact that Yahweh, being God, had foreseen his errors, as His promise to Rebekah also illustrates.
Here Jacob’s words, where he asks that God “will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on”, evoke the words of Christ as they are found in Luke chapter 12: “22 Then He said to His students: ‘For this reason I say to you, do not have care for the soul, what you should eat, nor for the body, what you should be clothed in. 23 For the soul is greater than food and the body than clothing. 24 Observe the crows, that they do not sow, nor do they harvest. With them is no treasury nor storehouse, and Yahweh feeds them. How much more are you worth than the birds? 25 Who caring among you is able to add a cubit to his stature? 26 Therefore if you are not able to do the least, why should you care about the rest? 27 Observe the lilies, how they grow. They neither labor nor do they spin yarn, but I say to you, not even Solomon in all his honor was clothed as one of these! 28 And if the grass is in the field today, and tomorrow being cast into a furnace Yahweh clothes thusly, how much more you, you of little faith? 29 Then you do not seek what you should eat and what you should drink, and do not get excited. 30 For all these things the nations of the Society seek after, but your Father knows that you have need of these things. 31 Moreover, you seek His Kingdom, and these things shall be added to you. 32 Fear not, little flock, because it has pleased your Father to give to you the Kingdom!’” This is the attitude which Jacob had, and according to Christ Himself, it is also the attitude which all Christians should have in regard to those things.
Jacob’s journey continues, so we shall commence with Genesis chapter 29:
1 Then Jacob went on his journey, and came into the land of the people of the east.
Here it seems that Haran might more appropriately have been considered to have been in the north, rather than the east. Traveling from Beersheba to Haran in straight lines, first going east and then turning north, so that one doesn’t have to swim, one would have to walk about 250 miles east and then over 380 miles north in order to accomplish the journey. But perhaps Haran was esteemed to be in the land of the east, rather than in the land of the north, simply because it was in Mesopotamia, which was generally considered to be east of Canaan.
2 And he looked, and behold a well in the field, and, lo, there were three flocks of sheep lying by it; for out of that well they watered the flocks: and a great stone was upon the well’s mouth. 3 And thither were all the flocks gathered: and they rolled the stone from the well’s mouth, and watered the sheep, and put the stone again upon the well’s mouth in his place.
The text here is only explanatory, since when Jacob speaks to the shepherds in the subsequent verses, the sheep have not yet been watered. Evidently there was no structure built up around the well, which is sort of crude, but perhaps for some reason it was not feasible to build one, as wells are often temporary or seasonal. So a stone rolled over the mouth of the well would keep animals, and even people, from falling into it, especially at night.
4 And Jacob said unto them, My brethren, whence be ye? And they said, Of Haran are we. 5 And he said unto them, Know ye Laban the son of Nahor? And they said, We know him. 6 And he said unto them, Is he well? And they said, He is well: and, behold, Rachel his daughter cometh with the sheep.
As we had said, since Laban spoke to Abraham’s servant along with his father Bethuel, he must have been of age at that time, so he was at least thirty years old. Now, ninety years later, he is at least a hundred and twenty, or about ten years younger than Isaac if he was only thirty when he saw Abraham’s servant. He may have been much older. We are never told the age of Rachel, but of course she must have been able to bear children, so ostensibly, she was significantly younger than Jacob.
7 And he said, Lo, it is yet high day, neither is it time that the cattle should be gathered together: water ye the sheep, and go and feed them.
Of course, Jacob had experience with cattle as he must have helped to manage his father’s flocks and herds for at least fifty years. Here the word cattle is used as opposed to sheep, so while sheep may be part of the cattle, generally speaking, here the word for cattle, מקנה or miqneh (# 4735), is evidently used to describe larger animals. The word is defined by Strong’s in part as “something bought, i.e. property, but only live stock…”
8 And they said, We cannot, until all the flocks be gathered together, and till they roll the stone from the well’s mouth; then we water the sheep.
And they roll the stone: this indicates that these shepherds were young, and perhaps not strong enough yet to roll the stone for themselves. But Jacob would not have known how many sheep were yet to gather, so the shepherds would wait until they all came together so that they would not have to remove the stone and replace it more than once, even if they could roll it.
9 And while he yet spake with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep: for she kept them.
We do not know if Rachel was the keeper of her father’s sheep, or a keeper of her father’s sheep, since we never learn whether the young shepherds, those who evidently could not move the stone, belonged to Laban or to another man in the area. It was also evidently uncommon, at least, for women to be a shepherd, since I could not locate another example outside of references to pagan idols. There are references to shepherd boys, however, for example in an Akkadian fable titled Dispute Between the Date Palm and the Tamarisk where we read in part as the Date Palm brags: “My cluster is luxuriant; (though) I lift it high, shepherd boys make out of it big sticks.” [1]
10 And it came to pass, when Jacob saw Rachel the daughter of Laban his mother’s brother, and the sheep of Laban his mother’s brother, that Jacob went near, and rolled the stone from the well’s mouth, and watered the flock of Laban his mother’s brother.
Finally, laying eyes on Rachel for the first time:
11 And Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice, and wept.
Evidently Jacob loved Rachel as soon as he had seen her, just as Isaac had loved Rebekah as soon as he had seen her. However the circumstances were quite different, and from this point Jacobwould have to wait another fourteen years to have her as his wife.
Yahweh willing, we shall return next week to resume our Genesis commentary with this verse.
[1 Ancient Near Eastern Texts Related to the Old Testament 3rd edition, James Pritchard, editor, 1969, Harvard University Press, pp. 410-411.]