Jacob's Dream — TDW Kids

“Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran” (28:10). Jacob was not going on an adventure. He was running for his life because of what he had done in chapter 27. Why he was running. Jacob had lied to his blind father and taken his brother's blessing. Esau had said, “I will kill my brother Jacob” (27:41). Rebekah sent him away to her brother Laban, hundreds of miles to the north. Where he stopped. “He came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set” (28:11). It was not a special place, and Jacob had not planned to stop there. He took one of the stones, put it at his head, and went to sleep on the ground. What he deserved. Jacob might have expected God to punish him, or at least to stay silent. He had even used God's name in a lie (27:20). But that night, alone and far from home, God came to him. Grace often finds people at their lowest point.

28:10-11 tells us only a few plain facts, but they show how low Jacob had fallen. The departure. Beersheba to Haran is a journey of several hundred miles. Jacob leaves as a fugitive, under threat of death (27:41-45), with Isaac's charge to marry from Laban's family (28:1-5). He travels alone. Abraham's servant made the same trip in chapter 24 with ten camels and gifts, but no servants or camels go with Jacob. “A certain place.” The Hebrew is bammaqom (say: bah-mah-KOME), “the place,” and the word maqom comes again and again in 28:11-19. The place has no name yet. Only in 28:19, after God has met him there, does Jacob name it Bethel. The stone. “He took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head” (28:11). The same stone becomes the pillar of 28:18. An ordinary rock at night becomes a memorial by morning. Grace, not merit. God appears to Jacob without being asked. Jacob has not prayed, repented or offered a sacrifice. This matches 25:23, where God's choice was announced before birth, and Romans 5:8: “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Jacob was in big trouble. He had lied to his father. His brother wanted to kill him. Now he was running away, all alone. He had no tent and no bed. He used a stone for a pillow. Jacob did not deserve anything good from God. But that is exactly where God came to him. God does not wait for us to be good first. He comes to us when we need Him most. Jacob was about to find that out. His worst night would become the night God met him.

Jacob ran away because of his lie. He was all alone. He slept outside with a stone for a pillow.

“Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it” (28:12). Heaven and earth joined. Jacob was lying on the ground in the dark, as low as a person can be. And the ladder stood right there, “set up on the earth,” reaching all the way up. The picture says that heaven is not closed off. God has made a way between His place and ours. Angels busy at work. The angels are not standing still. They are going up and coming down, like messengers carrying things between heaven and earth. Psalm 91:11 says God gives His angels charge over His people. Jesus explains it. Centuries later, Jesus told Nathanael, “hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man” (John 1:51). Jesus took Jacob's ladder and said, in effect, “That is Me.” Jesus is the way between God and people. “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).

In 28:12-13 the word vehinneh (say: veh-hin-NEH), “and behold,” comes three times, as Jacob sees one wonder after another. The sullam. This word is used only here in the Old Testament. It is usually translated “ladder,” but it may mean a stairway or ramp, perhaps like the stepped approach of a temple tower. It reminds us of Babel, where people wanted “a tower whose top is in the heavens” (11:4). At Babel people tried to build their way up to heaven; at Bethel God shows a way that comes down from Him. Ascending and descending. The angels go up first and then come down, which means they were already on earth with Jacob. He was not abandoned in the wilderness; heaven's messengers were there. John 1:51. Jesus' words to Nathanael quote this verse directly and put “the Son of Man” where the ladder was. Two verses earlier He had called Nathanael “an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit” (John 1:47), which seems to point back to Jacob, the deceiver who became Israel. Jesus Himself tells us what the vision means: He is the meeting place of heaven and earth.

In his dream, Jacob saw a ladder. It stood on the ground where he was lying. And it reached all the way up to heaven. Angels were going up and coming down. What did it mean? It meant heaven was not far away. God was not far away. Even in a lonely place, God was close to Jacob. Jesus said He is like that ladder. He is the way God comes close to us. We could never climb up to God ourselves. So God made a way down to us.

Jacob dreamed of a big ladder. It went all the way to heaven. Angels went up and down on it.

“And behold, the Lord stood above it and said” (28:13). God does not scold Jacob or remind him of his lies. He speaks a promise. The family promise. First, the promise God made to Abraham and Isaac passes to Jacob: the land “on which you lie,” descendants “as the dust of the earth,” and “in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (28:13-14). The blessing Jacob tried to steal in chapter 27 God now gives him freely, face to face. The personal promise. Then God says something just for Jacob, alone and afraid: “Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you” (28:15). No conditions. God never says “if you behave” or “once you have said sorry.” Every part of 28:15 is God's own “I will.” That is grace: God's promise rests on God, not on us. Hebrews 13:5 gives the same promise to every believer: “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

28:13-15 is the heart of what God said to Jacob. Who God is. “I am the LORD God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac” (28:13). Abraham is called Jacob's “father” in the broad sense of ancestor. The LORD tells Jacob who He is by reminding him of His faithfulness to his family: He is the God who keeps promises from one generation to the next. Abraham's promise passed on. Land (13:15), seed “as the dust of the earth” (13:16) and blessing for all nations (12:3) are repeated almost word for word. What Isaac passed on in 27:28-29 and 28:3-4, God now confirms directly, with no disguise and no deceit. Something new (28:15). God says “I” again and again: “I am with you… will keep you… will bring you back… will not leave you.” The verb shamar (say: shah-MAR), “keep” or “guard,” is the same word Psalm 121 uses: “the Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in.” God will repeat this promise of His presence throughout Jacob's life (31:3; 46:4). No conditions. God's words contain no “if.” The promise lasts “until I have done what I have spoken to you,” so God's own word is the measure of His faithfulness. Jacob will answer with an “if” of his own in 28:20, but God spoke first, and He spoke with no conditions at all.

Then the Lord spoke to Jacob. He gave him the same promise He gave Abraham. He promised land, a huge family, and a blessing for the world. Then God added something just for Jacob. “I am with you.” “I will protect you wherever you go.” “I will bring you home.” “I will not leave you.” Did Jacob have to earn this? No! God did not say, “If you are good.” He just promised. That is called grace. God keeps His promises because He is good, not because we are.

God said, “I am with you.” “I will keep you safe.” “I will bring you home.” God is with us too!

“Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it’” (28:16). Awake to God. God had been there all along. Jacob simply had not known it. He was afraid, in the sense of deep awe: “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!” (28:17). A marker. In the morning he set up his stone pillow as a pillar and poured oil on it (28:18). He named the place Bethel, which means “house of God” (28:19). The stone did not make the place holy. It marked the place where God had spoken. Jacob's vow. “If God will be with me, and keep me… then the Lord shall be my God” (28:20-21). Was Jacob still the deal-maker of chapter 25, bargaining with God? Or was he taking God at His word and repeating back what God had just promised? Either way, it is a beginning, not a finish. He promises to give God “a tenth” of all he receives (28:22). Years later God will call Jacob back to this very place (35:1). The God of Bethel kept every word.

In 28:16-22 Jacob responds to God in three ways: he wakes up to God's presence, he marks the place, and he makes a vow. Waking up. “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it” (28:16). The word “surely” is akhen (say: ah-KHEN). God had not just arrived; Jacob had just noticed. His fear (vayira, 28:17) is reverent awe, and he calls the place “house of God” (beit Elohim) and “gate of heaven,” a place where God meets people. The pillar. The stone becomes a matsevah (say: mats-say-VAH), a standing pillar, anointed with oil (28:18). The name Bethel replaces Luz (28:19). God will later call Himself “the God of Bethel, where you anointed the pillar and where you made a vow to Me” (31:13). The vow. 28:20-22 begins with im, “if.” It may be Jacob the bargainer speaking, or it may mean something closer to “since,” as Jacob repeats God's own promises back to Him. Either way, Jacob's vow answers a promise God had already given with no conditions. The tenth in 28:22, like Abram's in 14:20, is a free gift of thanks. God kept His word. In 35:1-7 God sends Jacob back to Bethel, and he builds an altar to “El Bethel,” the God who appeared to him “when he fled from the face of his brother.”

When Jacob woke up, he was amazed. “Surely the Lord is in this place,” he said. “And I did not know it!” God had been there all along. Jacob named the place Bethel, house of God. He stood up his stone pillow as a marker. Then Jacob made a promise. He said if God took care of him, he would follow God. He would give back a tenth of everything. Jacob was just starting to trust God. He still had a lot to learn. But God would keep teaching him. And one day God would bring him back to Bethel.

Jacob woke up. “God is here!” he said. He called the place Bethel, God's house. He promised to follow God.