4 And may God give you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your seed, so that the land of your wanderings, which God gave to Abraham, may be your heritage.
Now the Lord said to Abram, Go out from your country and from your family and from your father's house, into the land to which I will be your guide: And I will make of you a great nation, blessing you and making your name great; and you will be a blessing: To them who are good to you will I give blessing, and on him who does you wrong will I put my curse: and you will become a name of blessing to all the families of the earth.
And the Lord had said to Abram, after Lot was parted from him, From this place where you are take a look to the north and to the south, to the east and to the west: For all the land which you see I will give to you and to your seed for ever. And I will make your children like the dust of the earth, so that if the dust of the earth may be numbered, then will your children be numbered. Come, go through all the land from one end to the other for I will give it to you.
And he took him out into the open air, and said to him, Let your eyes be lifted to heaven, and see if the stars may be numbered; even so will your seed be. And he had faith in the Lord, and it was put to his account as righteousness. And he said to him, I am the Lord, who took you from Ur of the Chaldees, to give you this land for your heritage.
In that day the Lord made an agreement with Abram, and said, To your seed have I given this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates: The Kenite, the Kenizzite, and the Kadmonite, And the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Rephaim, And the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Girgashite, and the Jebusite.
I will make you very fertile, so that nations will come from you and kings will be your offspring. And I will make between me and you and your seed after you through all generations, an eternal agreement to be a God to you and to your seed after you. And to you and to your seed after you, I will give the land in which you are living, all the land of Canaan for an eternal heritage; and I will be their God.
That I will certainly give you my blessing, and your seed will be increased like the stars of heaven and the sand by the seaside; your seed will take the land of those who are against them; And your seed will be a blessing to all the nations of the earth, because you have done what I gave you orders to do.
O you seed of Abraham, his servant, you children of Jacob, his loved ones. He is the Lord our God: he is judge of all the earth. He has kept his agreement in mind for ever, the word which he gave for a thousand generations; The agreement which he made with Abraham, and his oath to Isaac; And he gave it to Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an eternal agreement; Saying, To you will I give the land of Canaan, the measured line of your heritage: When they were still small in number, and strange in the land;
Happy are those who have forgiveness for their wrongdoing, and whose sins are covered. Happy is the man against whom no sin is recorded by the Lord.
By faith he was a wanderer in the land of the agreement, as in a strange land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, who had a part with him in the same heritage: For he was looking for the strong town, whose builder and maker is God. And by faith Sarah herself had power to give birth, when she was very old, because she had faith in him who gave his word; So that from one man, who was near to death, came children in number as the stars in heaven, or as the sand by the seaside, which may not be numbered. All these came to their end in faith, not having had the heritage; but having seen it with delight far away, they gave witness that they were wanderers and not of the earth.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Genesis 28
Commentary on Genesis 28 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 28
Ge 28:1-19. Jacob's Departure.
1. Isaac called Jacob and blessed him—He entered fully into Rebekah's feelings, and the burden of his parting counsel to his son was to avoid a marriage alliance with any but the Mesopotamian branch of the family. At the same time he gave him a solemn blessing—pronounced before unwittingly, now designedly, and with a cordial spirit. It is more explicitly and fully given, and Jacob was thus acknowledged "the heir of the promise."
6-9. when Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob, &c.—Desirous to humor his parents and, if possible, get the last will revoked, he became wise when too late (see Mt 25:10), and hoped by gratifying his parents in one thing to atone for all his former delinquencies. But he only made bad worse, and though he did not marry a "wife of the daughters of Canaan," he married into a family which God had rejected. It showed a partial reformation, but no repentance, for he gave no proofs of abating his vindictive purposes against his brother, nor cherishing that pious spirit that would have gratified his father—he was like Micah (see Jud 17:13).
10. Jacob went out, &c.—His departure from his father's house was an ignominious flight; and for fear of being pursued or waylaid by his vindictive brother, he did not take the common road, but went by lonely and unfrequented paths, which increased the length and dangers of the journey.
11. he lighted upon a certain place—By a forced march he had reached Beth-el, about forty-eight miles from Beer-sheba, and had to spend the night in the open field.
he took of the stones, etc.—"The nature of the soil is an existing comment on the record of the stony territory where Jacob lay" [Clarke's Travels].
12. he dreamed … and behold a ladder—Some writers are of opinion that it was not a literal ladder that is meant, as it is impossible to conceive any imagery stranger and more unnatural than that of a ladder, whose base was on earth, while its top reached heaven, without having any thing on which to rest its upper extremity. They suppose that the little heap of stones, on which his head reclined for a pillow, being the miniature model of the object that appeared to his imagination, the latter was a gigantic mountain pile, whose sides, indented in the rock, gave it the appearance of a scaling ladder. There can be no doubt that this use of the original term was common among the early Hebrews; as Josephus, describing the town of Ptolemais (Acre), says it was bounded by a mountain, which, from its projecting sides, was called "the ladder," and the stairs that led down to the city are, in the original, termed a ladder (Ne 3:15) though they were only a flight of steps cut in the side of the rock. But whether the image presented to the mental eye of Jacob were a common ladder, or such a mountain pile as has been described, the design of this vision was to afford comfort, encouragement, and confidence to the lonely fugitive, both in his present circumstances and as to his future prospects. His thoughts during the day must have been painful—he would be his own self-accuser that he had brought exile and privation upon himself—and above all, that though he had obtained the forgiveness of his father, he had much reason to fear lest God might have forsaken him. Solitude affords time for reflection; and it was now that God began to bring Jacob under a course of religious instruction and training. To dispel his fears and allay the inward tumult of his mind, nothing was better fitted than the vision of the gigantic ladder, which reached from himself to heaven, and on which the angels were continually ascending and descending from God Himself on their benevolent errands (Joh 1:51).
13. The Lord stood above it, and said—That Jacob might be at no loss to know the purport of the vision, he heard the divine voice; and the announcement of His name, together with a renewal of the covenant, and an assurance of personal protection, produced at once the most solemnizing and inspiriting effect on his mind.
16. Jacob awaked out of his sleep—His language and his conduct were alike that of a man whose mind was pervaded by sentiments of solemn awe, of fervent piety, and lively gratitude (Jer 31:36).
18, 19. Jacob set up a stone, etc.—The mere setting up of the stone might have been as a future memorial to mark the spot; and this practice is still common in the East, in memory of a religious vow or engagement. But the pouring oil upon it was a consecration. Accordingly he gave it a new name, Beth-el, "the house of God" (Ho 12:4); and it will not appear a thing forced or unnatural to call a stone a house, when one considers the common practice in warm countries of sitting in the open air by or on a stone, as are those of this place, "broad sheets of bare rock, some of them standing like the cromlechs of Druidical monuments" [Stanley].
Ge 28:20-22. Jacob's Vow.
20. Jacob vowed a vow—His words are not to be considered as implying a doubt, far less as stating the condition or terms on which he would dedicate himself to God. Let "if" be changed into "since," and the language will appear a proper expression of Jacob's faith—an evidence of his having truly embraced the promise. How edifying often to meditate on Jacob at Beth-el.