April 23, 2024
Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.
Reading along with us in Genesis? Here’s today’s reading:
Genesis 28 (NIV)
1 So Isaac called for Jacob and blessed him. Then he commanded him: “Do not marry a Canaanite woman. 2 Go at once to Paddan Aram, to the house of your mother’s father Bethuel. Take a wife for yourself there, from among the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother.……Continue Reading
Genesis 28
Issac sent Jacob away to find a wife at Rebekah’s brother. Issac said the lord will bless you and your descendants with the things he promised Abraham. Esau heard this, so he went to Ishmael, son of Abraham, and found a wife to add to the others.
Jacob had a wonderful dream that showed a staircase to heaven. Angels of God were going up and down and God was at the top. Jacob awoke and said this must be the house of God and the gate to Heaven. He said the Lord will be my God and this pillar dedicated as God’s house and everything that is given to Jacob a tenth will go to God. And this must begin where tithes are given and still applies today! What a beautiful dream to have!
Isn’t it interesting that God communicates with us in dreams. The dreamer must interpret the meaning, just like all the parables the Christ Jesus.
A touch of too little too late for Esau in valuing his father’s advice to never marry a Canaanite women. He had already traded away his birthright but this did show some remorse for that action and a desire to get things right.
Jacob recieves an amazing promise of God and it reveals his spiritual immaturity. First, while it make sense to take the rock and make the place in which he experienced this message from God through his dream special, he doesn’t seem to really grasp the idea that God will be with him where ever he is.
Then he makes this vow to God that feels more like a negotiation. “If God be with me and keep me” we know God keeps His promises there is no need to wonder and make deals. We let God down all the time but He never lets us down. Jacob is looking at God with an earthlty mind and not acknowledging His unconditional love, His unchanging truth, and unending power.
Jacob has a dream and saw a ladder reaching up to Heaven and angels of God ascending and descending on it. The Lord spoke to him in the dream and promised Jacob that his seed would be as the dust of the earth. Jacob wakes up and says that if the Lord will be with him and keep him in the way and provide him food and clothes and he returns to his father`s house in peace that the Lord will be his God. He will also give God a tenth of what he has. It seems like a lot of conditions to ask God before he makes God his God. But he also vows that he will give God a tenth of what he gains. At any rate God blesses him despite Laban’s deceitfulness. God is in control and uses even the bad or deceitful as in this case to bring about His promise to Abraham and latter Jacob. All despite the foolish choices that they make or even that we may make. Thank the Lord for His loving, patience, and mercy toward us.
Genesis 28
Genesis 28 and Luke 16-24.
Jacob travels to find a wife. During his time away he fell and had a peaceful dream. He can see angels, heaven and brightness. Jacob knew he was safe because he saw God in his dream and believed.
Genesis 28
Genesis 28
Marriage. Isaac blessed, charged Jacob not to marry a Canaanite. He obeyed.
My parents were my best defense against evil influences; though our home was Catholic, we were rather moral, compared to other kids I knew. When I chose not to heed advice, the consequences were on me.
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the tribes will receive advice, take or leave it, and bear the burden and mess of the aftermath. They will recieve all of God’s blessing too.
Blessed be God, thank you for the Scriptures! -reb
How amazing is God’s grace that He would bless and use a man like Jacob and give Him this awesome picture of the angelic/divine realm. Now he does have some spiritual awareness of the significance of this dream and what is revealed to him. He marks the area and recognizes God’s presence where he hadn’t recognized it before. And yet the conniver/supplanter makes a deal with God. It is a very human thing to tell God that if He does such and such, then we will do such and such. But that is no way to engage with the holy and awesome God of the heavens. He is true and right regardless of what He does and there is no standing that we have before Him from which we could make a deal. God has done far too much for us to be compromised with making bargains with Him. We follow because of who He is and He blesses and provides because of who He is. Now God does promise to bless obedience, but how directly those are connected is God’s prevue.
God reiterates his promise to Jacob that he made to Abraham and Isaac. It’s good to see the reinforcement of the promise through the generations.
Genesis 28
So Jacob obeys his father and he is blessed by the Lord. And the Lord says “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go…I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” When we walk with God, he walks with us and we can be joyful that we are recipients of his promises. “in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells”. 2 Peter 3:13