Chapter 28

So Isaac summoned Jacob to him, and gave him his blessing, and laid this charge upon him: It is not for thee to marry a woman of Chanaanite stock;

rather bestir thyself, and make thy way to Mesopotamia of the Syrians; there dwelt thy mother’s father, Bathuel, there thou mayest wed one of the daughters of thy uncle Laban.

God Almighty bless thee, and make thy posterity thrive and increase, so that a multitude of nations may spring from thee.

May he grant to thee, and to thy race after thee, the blessing which he promised to thy grandfather Abraham; possession of the land in which thou dwellest now as a stranger.

Jacob took leave of him, and set out on his journey to Mesopotamia of the Syrians, to the home of his uncle Laban, son of Bathuel, the Syrian.

An ill day for Esau; here was Jacob sent with his father’s blessing to find himself a wife in Syria; forbidden, as he would win that blessing, to marry a Chanaanite;

here was Jacob gone all the way to Mesopotamia in obedience to his parents’ whim!

These women of Chanaan, Esau thought, are little to my father’s liking;

so he betook himself to Ismael,1 and married a third wife, Maheleth, daughter to Abraham’s son Ismael, and sister to Nabaioth.

Meanwhile Jacob had left Bersabee, and was on his way to Haran.

There was a place he reached as nightfall overtook him, so that he must lie down and rest; so he took one of the stones that lay around him, to make a pillow of it, and went to sleep.

He dreamed that he saw a ladder standing on the earth, with its top reaching up into heaven; a stairway for the angels of God to go up and come down.

Over this ladder the Lord himself leaned down, and spoke to Jacob, I am the Lord, he said, the God of thy father Abraham, the God of Isaac; this ground on which thou liest sleeping is my gift to thee and to thy posterity.

Thy race shall be countless as the dust of the earth; to west and east, to north and south thou shalt overflow thy frontiers, till all the families on earth find a blessing in thee, and in this race of thine.

I myself will watch over thee wherever thou goest, and bring thee back to this land again; before I have done with thee, all my promises to thee shall be fulfilled.

When he awoke from his dream, Jacob said to himself, Why, this is the Lord’s dwelling-place, and I slept here unaware of it!

And he shuddered; What a fearsome place is this! said he. This can be nothing other than the house of God; this is the gate of Heaven.

So it was that, when he rose in the morning, Jacob took the stone which had been his pillow, and set it up there as a monument, and poured oil upon it;

and he called the place Bethel, the House of God, that was called Luza till then.

And there he took a vow; If God will be with me, he said, and watch over me on this journey of mine, and give me bread to eat and clothes to cover my back,

till at last I return safe to my father’s house, then the Lord shall be my God.

This stone, too, which I have set up as a monument, shall be called the House of God. And of all the gifts thou sendest me, a tenth part shall be the offering I make thee.