Genesis 28: 10 22 God’s Promise To Jacob

Target year level: Year Three

World behind the text

The authors of Genesis have fitted together ancient stories from Israelite folklore to produce an engaging narrative of Abraham’s grandchildren, Esau and Jacob, and of God’s blessing that issues in the twelve sons of Jacob, and so in the tribes that would one day form the people of Israel. (Michael Fallon pp 150 – 151 - pdf)

Bethel or Beth-El, (meaning ‘house of God’) is a historic city and ceremonial centre. Bethel was located 18 km north of Jerusalem. The current village on the site is on the West Bank and is called Baytn or Beitin. The earliest religious reference to Bethel is traced to the natural circle of stones in the vicinity. Abraham is said to have pitched his tent nearby and built an altar (Gen 12:8). Jacob is said to have had his vision of a ladder while at Bethel. He built an altar there and called the place Beth-El, the house of God (Gen 28:10-22). There are references to Bethel throughout the Bible. The first king of the northern kingdom of Israel, Jeroboam I, who ruled from 922 to 901 BCE, restored Bethel’s cultic significance by erecting a shrine there and fostering cults alien to Judaism. Bethel was captured by the Romans under Vespasian on their march to Jerusalem in the 1st century CE.

World of the text

This is a story of a family with plenty of family conflicts. As we will see, it begins in conflict. Jacob and Esau are twins. Esau is the first one born, and so by convention is in a key position of power in the family as regards authority and inheritance. However, even in the womb there is a struggle and this struggle dominates the narrative till finally it is the second born, Jacob, who prevails. And there is much more to the struggle than this. The drama plays out because it is God who has ordained it to be this way, and we have no idea why. We are so used to claiming God for the way things are, for the positions of power that are set up by human convention (see Deuteronomy 21:15-17), that we ought to be scandalised by this story. It is about God who will not be bound by our conventions.

This is about God who is free, for whom ‘the first will be last, and the last first’ (Matthew 19:30). This is a story about God who chooses ‘what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are’ (1 Corinthians 1:28). This is a story about God who has a preferential option for the poor and who hears their cry.

This is a story of God’s blessing that, like the wind ‘blows where it wills’ (John 3:8). Nor does the blessing mean an untroubled life. Jacob is always in conflict: with Esau throughout the narrative; with his uncle, Laban (Gen:29-31); with his wife Rachel (30:1-2); with his sons (34:30); and, most significantly of all, with God (32:22-29). The prophet Hosea sums up his life: ‘In the womb he tried to supplant his brother, and in his manhood he strove with God’ (Hosea 12:3). Yet, throughout his troubled life, Jacob encounters God, just as the people of Israel, throughout their troubled history, experienced the guiding hand of the God who has chosen them in love, for a mission to the world God loves. The authors of the narrative and their readers have lived through and were part of a history of human unfaithfulness. They have also experienced proofs of YHWH’s faithfulness through it all. This is a major theme of these stories.