His feet ached. This was all a bit much; he didn't like it. But he needed distance from the lethal wrath boiling beneath his brother's skin. It's the third or fourth day since Jacob said his hasty goodbyes to Mom and Dad, and got shipped off to a far and foreign land to save his life and wed a wife. Now Esau was comfy at home with his growing gaggle of wives and kids, while Jacob, 'spite birthright and blessing, was “separated from his family..., wandering off in fear,”1 “alone in the backcountry... without his flock or sheepdogs to ease the loneliness.”2 This was a rather new experience for Jacob, the man who stayed in the comfort of tents, who'd never gone a day in his life without seeing his mom, “who had been reared at home and had never experienced the rigors of travel.”3 Now he traipsed over stick and stone in solitude. This was Esau's thing, no? He's the man of the field, the rugged outdoorsman, stalking and surviving solo (Genesis 25:27). This felt like a taunt, as if somebody'd said to Jacob, “You want to play dress-up in Esau's clothes and say you're him? Fine, now go live his life.”
Jacob trudged northward, his sights set on Harran, Mom's hometown. There Dad had commissioned him to go, go and finally – finally! – get married, to one of his girl cousins in Uncle Laban's house. But Jacob grumbled under his breath. When Grandpa Abraham sent his steward to find Rebekah for Isaac, the steward went with a platoon of fellow-servants and ten camels loaded with supplies and treasure. Jacob got shoved out the door with nary a donkey to ride, “only that he carried a staff in his hand.”4 Other than the clothes on his back and some meager rations, Jacob's hiking “alone and empty-handed.”5 At least when the sons of Grandpa's concubines were shooed off, they got parting gifts, consolation prizes (Genesis 25:2-6). Dad had sent him penniless, praying God would bless Jacob's future seed, but how was he supposed to get a wife and raise up kids when he's got nothing to offer Uncle Laban as a bride-price? And that's assuming he even survives the trip there, what with bandits, marauders, vicious beasts, spirits of sickness along the way. Why should Jacob even expect to reach Harran in one piece, with no defense against attack and nobody with him to watch his back?
Jacob's heart returned to the day he left. As a parting word, Dad prayed Jacob receive from El Shaddai “the blessing of Abraham” (Genesis 28:4). But as the sounds of sheep and goats had faded to wind and crickets, Jacob's brain pondered the gulf in the kinship he felt with Grandpa. What linked Jacob, a lost man, with Abraham the adventurer, that holy elder whose absence all the world couldn't fill – Abraham, whose faith raised him to chase down armies, whose love begged the salvation of his despisers, whose devotion defied death and all its powers? “Having fallen prey to guilt and solitary despair,”6 Jacob's wondering, why would Isaac's God answer a prayer for Jacob to be blessed with Abraham's blessing? Why, when Jacob had exploited a brother's weakness to secure a birthright? Why, when Jacob had lied to his blind father's face, had swindled Esau out of a priceless moment? Why, when Jacob's heart so bubbles over with greed and guile, would Dad wish good things for him – and why would a God whose name Jacob abused be inclined to ever grant such a wish?
Dad prayed for Jacob to hope for ownership of this land – yeah, the same land Jacob was being kicked out of (Genesis 28:4)! Oh, Dad couched it as a mission with a purpose, but Jacob heard an eviction notice. Nor was he fooled by Mom's idle assurances that she'd send for him in a few days once Esau's temper found something new to glom onto (Genesis 27:44-45). No, pretty words couldn't disguise it: Jacob's heart told him he'd been rejected, cast off, banished, disinherited, replaced by his big brother who gets to keep living in the land of promise Jacob bids goodbye. This was an exile. Years of patience and planning for birthright and blessing have been for nothing but destruction. Jacob's “lost everything – his brother, father, and mother; his past, present, and future.”7 A distant home in obscurity, or more dreadfully rotting as roadkill, was surely his destiny.
Daylight's fading fast now, quicker than expected. “His past beclouded, his future uncertain, exposed and alone, he feels his own isolation and insufficiency as the eerie darkness settles upon him.”8 Jacob spies a town a little over half a mile to his left – Luz, he thinks it is (Genesis 28:19). He might just be able to reach it in time; should he go there and plead for hospitality. Sordid stories of old Sodom ring bells in the back of his mind. Civilization has its own predators. No, Jacob “disdained to seek lodging” in Luz, preferring to “pass the night in the open air.”9 Jacob spied a level area on the hilltop up ahead, and it looked promising.10 “He met the place, and he lodged there, because the sun had gone down” (Genesis 28:11). The Bible won't tell of a sunrise in Jacob's life for quite some time, after he's faced this “long night of an exile of his own making.”11
As Jacob found the plateau “dark, stony, and hard,”12 he looked around and saw loose stones – maybe, though he didn't know it, the ruins of Abraham's altar (Genesis 12:8). The biggest one he shifted on the ground to rest his head atop, and others he set around it as a protective fence.13 Under the dim light of the moon, Jacob reclined on the bare earth, draped his outer cloak over himself as a blanket, and slowly surrendered to his exhaustion. “Full of self-pity, he fell asleep,”14 sound and deep, “under the stars with a stone for a pillow.”15
And there “he dreamed” (Genesis 28:12). This is just the second time the Bible's mentioned dreaming, the first having been when the God spoke to King Abimelech in the night to warn him not to steal Jacob's grandma (Genesis 20:3). Jacob, too, always the smooth-talker, is only in his sleep unguarded enough to “dream as God would have him dream,” a dream that can unmask his waking world and show what he's been blind to.16 We get the opportunity here to experience Jacob's dream along with him, as three details catch his attention, one by one.
First, “behold, a stairway standing into earth, and the head of it reached into the heavens!” (Genesis 28:12). It isn't quite clear whether this is a ladder, a stairway, or a ramp, but that last phrase should tickle our memories of a spot seventeen chapters ago, when the Bible fiercely lampooned the Mesopotamian habit of building temple-towers called ziggurats to bridge heaven and earth – “a tower with its head in the heavens” (Genesis 11:4). But Jacob now sees what the Babel-builders only wished they could've achieved. There it is, but this stairway isn't built from the ground up; it's “stretching from heaven down to earth.”17
A second detail now catches Jacob's eye. “And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it!” (Genesis 28:12). The people of Babel told stories of gods in heaven and gods under the earth sending their messengers back and forth, up and down, “the long staircase of heaven.”18 That's what Jacob sees, messengers of God shuttling up and down, ascending to contemplate the glories of God's face and descending on missions of activity in his world,19 “occupying themselves with the business of God.”20 The result of the incessant traffic is “an unceasing connection between upper and lower spheres.”21 Their movements attest “that God does not leave anyone outside his care and providence, but governs the universe with his holy angels as his ministers.”22 It seemed now that “heavenly powers in their legions encircled Jacob” as they stepped down to his patch of earth.23 For “even in his sleep, there were angels who were commanded to ascend and descend around him to protect him.”24 Jacob's jaw drops. He'd thought he was alone and undefended. This was anything but.
Then, one last detail to see, Jacob, beyond the stairway and its up-and-down angels: “And behold! the LORD stood above it” (Genesis 28:13), “the Ruler of Angels set fast upon the stairway..., standing over bodies, over souls, over doings, over words, over angels, over earth, over... all things seen and unseen,” as “the Charioteer of all that vast creation.”25 But the same phrase could just as well be read as “the LORD stood beside him,” as in, next to Jacob. Maybe, without needing to move as the angels do, God appears in Jacob's dream in both places, “at once both near and far,” upon the top of the staircase and standing by Jacob's head.26
And he speaks: “I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac” (Genesis 28:13). Of course he introduces himself; this is the first time God has appeared to Jacob.27 Until now, Jacob has been living on his family's faith, on stories passed down of grandpa's god, of dad's god. That's why Jacob spoke to his dad about “the LORD your God” (Genesis 27:20). It's finally Jacob's turn to meet this God himself. And in that, God identifies Jacob as son, not so much of Isaac, but of Abraham. Before sending him off, Isaac had prayed over Jacob's head for the blessings God gave to Father Abraham, that Jacob might – somehow, despite all behavioral signs – be accepted as successor of Abraham's hopes and Abraham's dreams; that God bless Jacob and make him fruitful, would give Jacob and his future seed the very land promised to the seed of Abraham (Genesis 28:3-4). But those were just Isaac's wishes, Isaac's prayers for Jacob. Now, God himself has sought out Jacob in the darkness and made an answer: Yes! Jacob's seed will be “like the dust of the earth,” and the very fact that Jacob lies on this cold, hard ground is a property claim no less than Abraham's many footsteps (Genesis 28:13-14). Where Jacob has been obsessively “struggling to snatch blessing from others, God is freely offering it to him” as to the rightful heir of Father Abraham, the man who spurned Babel.28
Most of what God declares here to Jacob is a repeat of things we've already heard with Abraham. But God then catches Jacob's attention: “And behold!” Yes, Jacob, see this as clearly in your mind's eye as the dazzling ramp, as the awesome angels! “Behold,” Jacob, “I am with you” – this much Isaac had also heard in the night once (Genesis 26:24) – “and I will keep you in everywhere you go” (Genesis 28:15). God's telling him, “Don't think you're making the journey alone! You have me as a companion, you have me as a protector in all your journey.”29 God, so far from forsaking Jacob in his failures and fears, in his doubts and his duplicity, is making a bid for Jacob, is committing to Jacob. God will be his guardian and guide. God will see to it that he makes it.
Like the builders of Babel, Jacob has been afraid to leave his home, “lest we be scattered on the face of all the earth,” broken apart and cast out (Genesis 11:4). God now tells Jacob that not only is he going with Jacob, not only will he guard Jacob's path, but “I will bring you back to this ground,” to this Canaanite soil beneath your back, “for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you” (Genesis 28:15). God commits not to give up on Jacob, not to forsake Jacob, until the job's done, until Jacob is once more in his native land. Jacob gets the promise that what befell the builders of Babel is not what lies in store for him.30 If the angels of God who go down get to go back up again, then why shouldn't Jacob, descending into exile, come back up this holy hill – and why shouldn't the assembly of peoples multiplied from Jacob harbor the same hope of homecoming?31
Isaac had prayed that Jacob might “take possession of the land of your sojournings that God gave to Abraham” (Genesis 28:4); God agrees: “The land on which you lie, I will give to you and to your seed” (Genesis 28:13). And where Babel ended when “the LORD scattered them from there over the face of all the earth,” a dispersal that weakened their cohesion and strength, Jacob “shall explode to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south” (Genesis 28:14). That promise would be repeated centuries later, that “you will explode to the right and to the left, and your seed will possess the nations” (Isaiah 54:3). Impelled by divine power, Jacob's destiny is to burst forth from this hill to all directions. But not to dominate; not to self-aggrandize. You, Jacob, “in you shall be blessed all the families of the ground – and in your seed” (Genesis 28:14). Jacob, whose latest deed was hurling his own family into chaos to hoard blessings for himself, must become the very opposite: the touchstone of blessing for all the families who settle the soil, including Laban's, including Esau's.32
God's promises startle Jacob awake. His eyes fling open to the stars glittering above. His nostrils inhale the scent of Canaanite dirt. It was a dream. His conscious mind struggles and stumbles to digest the dream Jacob's had. I don't know if any of you have ever seen visions and heard the voice of the Lord in a dream, like Jacob did. I have. Trust me when I say, waking up and taking it in is a big shock to the system.
Jacob first has to process the imagery that poked the eye of his mind. Having been a silent and passive observer in his dream, at last Jacob speaks, whispering in the darkness: “Surely the LORD is present in this place – and I... I didn't know!” (Genesis 28:16). Then, we read, “Jacob feared” (Genesis 28:17). It seems an odd reaction, until we consider how horrified Jacob might be to have trespassed on holy ground unawares. He hadn't come with expectation, hadn't purposed a sacred pilgrimage; he was just a tired man, curling up in a suitable spot.33 He hadn't approached in ritual cleanliness, hadn't hurled off his sandals to stand before a burning bush (cf. Exodus 3:5).34 No, Jacob didn't recognize holy ground, and certainly not that this was where the Almighty gets his mail delivered! Jacob's sense of solitude is shattered, and he isn't sure he's more comfortable now than before. So Jacob feared – Jacob revered – and, his mind reeling, he muttered in the dark of night, “How frightful is this place” – or, “How awesome is this place!” What, Jacob, runs the tingles down your spine? “This is none other than the house of God! And this is the gate of the heavens!” (Genesis 28:17).
When those builders long ago left their city, it was named Babel, which Genesis explains as 'mixed up' (Genesis 11:9) although to the Babylonians, Bab-ili meant 'Gate of God.'35 They'd “call its name Babylon, 'The Homes of the Great Gods.'”36 Jacob now retorts, “No, no, absolutely not – this, here, is where heaven's gate stands open; this is the house of God,” the place Babel only pretends to be.37 So he names this place not 'Babel' but 'Bethel,' 'House of God' (Genesis 28:19), “this place where heaven and earth meet” by that stairway.38 So far from being “very remote from God” like he'd felt, Jacob had been sleeping under God's own care – not so much roughing it as couchsurfing at God's pad!39 As the author of “Amazing Grace” liked to sing it, “Kings are often waking kept, / rack'd with care on beds of state; / never king like Jacob slept, / for he lay at heaven's gate!”40
Whether he dozed back off in reassurance or contemplated with racing mind the vision he'd seen, eventually the rays of dawn began to dim the stars and restore shape and color to the ground.41 Unsurprisingly, later Jewish readers surmised that this was New Year's Day.42 When better to meet God and begin life again? Seizing the stone from his head, Jacob hauled it upright, making of it a pillar or, literally, a standing stone, setting it where God had stood by him in the dream.43 He set it there, this stone that touched his head as he dreamt the dream, to “immortalize the dream,”44 “to keep the memory fresh for future ages.”45 This standing stone models the stairway that stood on earth, and he pours oil on its head because the stairway's head was in the holy heavens.46 And Jacob chooses solid, natural stone, unlike the Babel-builders who used “brick in lieu of stone” (Genesis 11:3).47 Maybe that's the key here. Where's Jacob being sent? To Harran, to Mom's brother Laban. And Laban's name sounds awfully like the Hebrew word for 'brick' in the Babel chapter. As Jacob readies himself to live with his Uncle Brick in the long shadow of Babel, he needs to remember that “there is no Rock like our God” (1 Samuel 2:2), that “the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” (Psalm 118:22).
Having memorialized and named this place of divine encounter, Jacob has to grapple with the message and not just its medium. We read here that “Jacob vowed a vow” – the first vow in the Bible, and a strangely long one, too. A vow wasn't the same thing as an oath, a promise, or a covenant. It was a special commitment, made only to God and only in situations of dire need, where somebody would voluntarily assume an obligation to repay the vow at the holy place, if and only if the vow's terms were accepted and fulfilled by God.48
Jacob lists out the terms and conditions for his vow – terms and conditions totally adapted from what God has just promised him in his dream, but gently emphasizing the parts that mean most to him in the moment. Jacob craves that sense of God being with him, guarding him with angels, keeping him safe down this road that he must travel, his highway in the night (Kyrie eleison...). Jacob has a keen sense of his newfound poverty, and he begs from God the basics of life, “bread to eat and clothing to wear” (Genesis 28:20), this time not food to swap for birthrights or borrowed garments for identity fraud.49 And where God had pledged to bring Jacob back to Bethel's ground, Jacob's desire is to “come again to my father's house in peace” (Genesis 28:21) – the peace of safe return and, Jacob might hope, the peace of a repaired relationship and a restored family.50
So what does Jacob's vow commit him to? “Then the LORD shall be to me for a God,” he says (Genesis 28:21). We mentioned already how the LORD was Abraham's God, is Isaac's God, but the question now has become, will this God also become “the God of Jacob” (Psalm 146:5)? Jacob, newly under construction, is opening his heart to the possibility of that same kind of personal relationship. What's more, “this stone, which I have set up for a standing stone, shall be the house of God” (Genesis 28:22). A standing stone could be called a 'house of gods' when it was erected to monitor the fulfillment of a vow or treaty.51 But in the broader sweep of the Bible, Jacob means more than that. He's vowing to make this Bethel his sanctuary, almost a proto-temple, “for in that place there was going to be a house of God.”52 And “of all that you give me,” he now prays directly to God – of whatever you see fit to provide, whatever you increase me to by the time I come home as you promised – from that abundance, “with tithe I will give a tenth to you” (Genesis 28:22), as Abraham did to Melchizedek (Genesis 14:20). This is “a binding commitment of thanksgiving” from Jacob, to seal the deal once exile is over.53
There. Jacob's vow is made. “This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice” and get a move on (Psalm 118:24). Those who founded Babel had, we read, “journeyed from the east” (Genesis 11:2), so now “Jacob lifted up his legs and came to the land of the children of the east” (Genesis 29:1), confident that he'd found elsewhere the place that made good all Babel's empty promises.54 The Jacob who lifts his legs toward the east is a somewhat different Jacob than the one who drearily and ignorantly napped on holy ground. As he goes forth, “his spiritual sensitivity has been transformed.”55 He's now “instructed in what was lacking in his faith.”56 The old Jacob was a bit of a Babylonian at heart, a man who's striven to build himself access to heavenly blessings with craft and cunning, who's sought to make a birthright for himself lest he be passed over and forgotten; but this Jacob might just be waking up to the notion that real hope isn't man-made, can't be bought or extorted, can't be orchestrated and gamed by his imposing wit – man shall not live by his wits alone.57 So this exilic journey may be “a time of distress for Jacob, yet,” he knows, “he shall be saved out of it” by grace (Jeremiah 30:7).
When the sons and daughters of Jacob surged forth and ascended from Egyptian captivity, and Joshua had led them into the land and put down many petty kings, including the king of Luz (Joshua 12:16), the people could at last see for themselves, centuries later, the stone which Jacob had raised; they could lie down on that hill, close their eyes, and try to picture his dream from the very dirt where he'd dreamed it. As Hosea put it centuries still later, Jacob “met God at Bethel, and there God spoke with us” (Hosea 12:4). In the person of Jacob, the whole people had dreamed this dream, the whole people had met God, the whole people had heard God's promises.
In the days of the judges, Bethel was one of the places Samuel governed from (1 Samuel 7:16); and we read how “the people of Israel arose and went up to Bethel and inquired of God” (Judges 20:18), how “the people came to Bethel and sat there till evening before God” (Judges 21:2). In crisis, you could actually go to this House of God recognized by Jacob and be in God's presence, sit before him, hear from him in your need. When Samuel at last took a flask of oil and poured it on the stony head of Saul, he announced a sign in the form of “three young men ascending to God at Bethel” who would meet Saul like angels on the way (1 Samuel 10:3).
But once Saul's anointed king, it's a long time before we hear much of that place again; our focus is drawn to the Tent of Meeting that's been pitched “at Shiloh which is north of Bethel” (Judges 21:19), which functions as “the House of the LORD” (1 Samuel 1:24), where God “made [his] name dwell at first” (Jeremiah 7:12). But on account of Jacob's people being deceitful, God then “forsook his dwelling at Shiloh, the tent where he dwelt among mankind” (Psalm 78:60). Then he “chose David his servant and took him from the sheepfolds,” and “brought him to shepherd Jacob his people” (Psalm 78:70-71). David came to reign south of Bethel, in a city called Jerusalem. And there, as Jacob did, David had a fearsome vision: an angel, not moving up and down, but standing by with destruction in his hands (2 Samuel 24:16-17).
Standing on the hill at ground zero, according to the Chronicles, David “was afraid of the sword of the angel of the LORD,” but when terms of peace were reached, “then David said, 'This is the House of the LORD God, and this is the altar of burnt offering for Israel'” (1 Chronicles 21:30–22:1). The Chronicler puts in David's mouth words that deliberately echo Jacob's waking cry.58 This place – near not Luz, but Jerusalem – is the House of God, for which David promptly ordered that stones be cut (1 Chronicles 22:2). And the sacrificial altar there would be the stairway, the heavenly gate. To it would priests ascend and descend by the ramp, to send up from earth to heaven the offerings by flame, much as flame had already descended to the earthen altar.59 This Temple Mount is, in effect, David's new Bethel, sanctified to take over from Jacob's.
But when the kingdom was ripped asunder through the folly of David's grandson, the rebellious Jeroboam who set up his throne in the north feared letting his people acknowledge the gate of heaven was where David's scions ruled. So Jeroboam did an awful thing. He turned people back to the old Bethel by corrupting it. He “made two calves of gold..., and he set one in Bethel..., and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places that he had made” (2 Kings 12:28-32). Though Bethel still harbored some disciples who knew the truth (2 Kings 2:3), it became a travesty and a shame. “Come to Bethel and transgress,” mocked the prophet Amos, “bring your tithes every three days” (Amos 4:4). Bethel's high priest Amaziah banned Amos from preaching there, on the grounds that it was, not a house of God, but “a house of the kingdom” (Amos 7:13). Bethel was no longer Bethel. Hence, God warned through Amos, “do not seek Bethel... Bethel shall come to nothing” (Amos 5:5), for “on the day I punish Israel for his transgressions, I will punish the altars of Bethel” (Amos 3:14). Sure enough, once God's judgment brought an end to the breakaway northern kingdom, David's heir Josiah “pulled down and burned... the altar at Bethel..., reducing it to dust” (2 Kings 23:15). No longer was that place the house of God; no longer was it the gate of heaven; no longer was the spot the stuff of dreams. “By this,” prophesied the great Isaiah, “the guilt of Jacob will be atoned for” (Isaiah 27:9).
Though the hill lost its sanctity, the faithful kept looking back at what Jacob once dreamt there. As a new age dawned, some first-century Jews reflected that God's Wisdom had there “guided [Jacob] in right ways, showed him the kingdom of God, and gave him knowledge of holy things” (Wisdom 10:10). “The kingdom of God” – that, they concluded, was what was revealed to Jacob in his dream. Others began to imagine the stairway, or ladder (as they pictured it), as a symbol of the course of future history of the kingdoms of man, its rungs representing to a frightened Jacob years yet to come and the challenges to be surmounted by Israel on the way.60
In the lands of the former northern kingdom, there lived a man whose name was Nathanael, whose friend urged him to come meet the One to whom Moses and all prophets had testified (John 1:45-46). Upon coming in view, that Promised One declared of Nathanael, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit,” no guile (John 1:47) – in other words, a man from Jacob's seed who has already become what we hope to watch Jacob learn to be.61 Surprised and astonished by Jesus' knowledge of him, Nathanael cried out in words appropriate for today's Feast of Christ the King, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” (John 1:49), “anointing the stone by his confession.”62
But hear how Jesus answered Nathanael: “Because I said, 'I saw you under the fig tree,' do you believe? You will see greater things than these! … You will see heaven opened!” (John 1:50-51). This is the kind of language used by explaining angels in Jewish books of apocalypse, where heavenly mediators of revelation introduce the character to escalating visions of awesome mysteries, inviting him over and over to see and believe what God has to show.63 That's what Jesus promises Nathanael, an apocalyptic mystery infinitely precious and secret.
Turning to not Nathanael only but to all the disciples who share his seed of faith, Jesus announces, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on – the Son of Man!” (John 1:51). Jesus has primed Nathanael to remember Jacob, and now promises to show him (and us) Jacob's dream – only in place of the ladder, in place of the stairway, is none other than the Son of Man, Jesus in the flesh!64 What is Jesus saying? He's “the link between heaven and earth,”65 “the living medium of commerce between heaven and earth,”66 “the place where heaven and earth, God and humankind, meet.”67
If Jews thought of Jacob's dream as a revelation of the kingdom of God, that kingdom is wherever Jesus walks. If Jews thought of Jacob's ladder as the course of ages to come, Jesus is the shape of past, present, and future. If later rabbis went so far as to imagine that angels went up and came down because Jacob's image was engraved on the throne of God and they wanted to compare image to substance,68 Jesus is “the image of the invisible God” himself (Colossians 1:15), the One whom angels most long to see and serve.69 More than King of Israel, more even than King of Nations, he is “Lord of the Angels as well,” whose royal ministers they all are.70 When Jacob dreamed his dream, when the Lord God stood over and beside him, he “foresaw Christ on earth.”71
Jesus is “the Temple of God and also the Gate,”72 he is “the Christian's Bethel.”73 And nowhere do we see this more astoundingly than at the cross, “the tree which was set up from earth to heaven,”74 “and for the nations it was like a staircase unto God.”75 “The ladder which Jacob saw,” said ancient readers of the dream, “depicts the cross of our salvation,”76 and who should be “the Lord leaning on the ladder” if not Christ crucified for all?77 If angels descended to see a dreaming Jacob, “they beheld him, how he embraced his staff and fell asleep on the mountain peak,” and gazed in him at “the image of the crucifixion.”78 In fact, Jacob's dream revealed “the future fellowship of men and angels through the cross of Christ,”79 for “when it was lifted up, it joined terrestrial creatures with the celestial ones.”80 This, the cosmic fellowship through Christ crucified, is the Christian Bethel where, in the open heavens, our spirits behold the glory of the Risen King, the exalted Son of Man.81 On him do we see our angel-brethren in Christ ascending to worship and descending as “ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation” through him (Hebrews 1:14).
The stone which Jacob anointed after his dream, memorializing his dream, was first and foremost an image of Jesus as the Anointed One of God.82 It was “a sign pointing to Christ,”83 “depicting the mystery of Christ,”84 the “Rock anointed for our sakes,”85 “anointed with the Holy Spirit by the Father and risen from the dead.”86 But “in this rock, the mystery of the Church is also represented.”87 Jacob “set up a column and anointed it to God, and that column is the Church..., the mainstay of the truth,”88 “the entryway for taking possession of the kingdom of heaven.”89 Within it, suggested St. Augustine, the angels are the pastors and “evangelists who preached Christ,” who ascend to declare the heights of Christ's divinity and who descend to press close the dearness of Christ's humanity, and in so doing “climb up and climb down the Son of Man.”90 In setting up this cornerstone of the House of God, Jacob “began construction of the Church..., and he sealed the mystery by the oil, so that it would shine brightly” in the world.91 We are the sign, to our own and to all who need to hear, that they are not alone – that God is with us, that open heavens are near, that the God of Jacob made will not forsake the world until he has fulfilled what he has spoken: “Behold, I make all things new!” (Revelation 21:5). Amen.
1 Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch 4.1.3, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 137:192.
2 Yair Zakovitch, Jacob: Unexpected Patriarch (Yale University Press, 2012), 47.
3 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 54.16, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 87:100.
4 Caesarius of Arles, Sermon 87.2, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 47:30.
5 Elie Assis, Identity in Conflict: The Struggle between Esau and Jacob, Edom and Israel (Eisenbrauns, 2016), 38.
6 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 199.
7 Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 318.
8 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 413.
9 Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 1.278-279, in Loeb Classical Library 242:135-137.
10 Aharon Tavger, “'And He Called the Name of That Place Bethel' (Gen. 28:19): Historical-Geography and Archaeology of the Sanctuary of Bethel,” in Benedikt Hensel, ed., The History of the Jacob Cycle (Genesis 25-35) (Mohr Siebeck, 2021), 212-214.
11 Philip H. Kern, Jacob's Story as Christian Scripture (Cascade Books, 2021), 26.
12 Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2001), 395.
13 Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 318.
14 Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 26.1.1, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 91:173.
15 Stephen K. Ray, Genesis: A Bible Study Guide and Commentary (Ignatius Press, 2023), 263.
16 David W. Cotter, Genesis (Liturgical Press, 2003), 212; Michael B. Hundley, Yahweh among the Gods: The Divine in Genesis, Exodus, and the Ancient Near East (Cambridge University Press, 2022), 228.
17 Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2001), 390.
18 Nergal and Ereshkigal, lines 52'-53', in Benjamin R. Foster, Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature, 3rd ed. (CDL Press, 2005), 514; cf. Yair Zakovitch, Jacob: Unexpected Patriarch (Yale University Press, 2012), 48.
19 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae II-II, q.181, a.4, ad 2, in The Works of St. Thomas Aquinas 18:708.
20 Iain W. Provan, Seriously Dangerous Religion: What the Old Testament Really Says and Why It Matters (Baylor University Press, 2014), 184.
21 Yair Zakovitch, Jacob: Unexpected Patriarch (Yale University Press, 2012), 48.
22 Theodoret of Cyrus, Questions on Genesis 84, in Library of Early Christianity 1:167.
23 Jacob of Serugh, Homily 74.52, in Texts from Christian Late Antiquity 58:20.
24 Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 26.1.2, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 91:173-174.
25 Philo of Alexandria, On Dreams 1.157, in Loeb Classical Library 275:379.
26 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 414 n. 12.
27 Michael B. Hundley, Yahweh among the Gods: The Divine in Genesis, Exodus, and the Ancient Near East (Cambridge University Press, 2022), 228.
28 Jacob McKeown, Genesis (Eerdmans, 2008), 139.
29 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 54.20, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 87:102.
30 Yair Zakovitch, Jacob: Unexpected Patriarch (Yale University Press, 2012), 57.
31 Yitzhak Peleg, Going Up and Going Down: A Key to Interpreting Jacob's Dream (Genesis 28:10-22) (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015), 249.
32 John Goldingay, Genesis (Baker Academic, 2020), 451; Philip H. Kern, Jacob's Story as Christian Scripture (Cascade Books, 2021), 28.
33 Chad Bird, Limping with God: Jacob and the Old Testament Guide to Messy Discipleship (1517 Publications, 2022), 60.
34 William P. Brown, “Manifest Diversity: The Presence of God in Genesis,” in Nathan MacDonald, et al., eds., Genesis and Christian Theology (Eerdmans, 2012), 16.
35 Stephanie Dalley, The City of Babylon: A History, c.2000 BC – AD 116 (Cambridge University Press, 2021), 23.
36 Enuma Elish V.129, in Wilfrid G. Lambert, Babylonian Creation Myths (Eisenbrauns, 2013), 105.
37 Yair Zakovitch, Jacob: Unexpected Patriarch (Yale University Press, 2012), 57.
38 David W. Cotter, Genesis (Liturgical Press, 2003), 216.
39 Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 26.1.2, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 91:174.
40 John Newton, hymn I.9, verse 2, in Olney Hymns, in Three Books (W. Oliver, 1779), 12.
41 Yair Zakovitch, Jacob: Unexpected Patriarch (Yale University Press, 2012), 51.
42 Jubilees 27:19, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:108.
43 Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 322.
44 James Chukwuma Okoye, Genesis 12-50: A Narrative-Theological Commentary (Cascade Books, 2020), 227.
45 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 54.23, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 87:103; cf. Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 199.
46 Yair Zakovitch, Jacob: Unexpected Patriarch (Yale University Press, 2012), 52.
47 Yair Zakovitch, Jacob: Unexpected Patriarch (Yale University Press, 2012), 56.
48 Daniel Hankore, The Abduction of Dinah: Genesis 28:10–35:15 as a Votive Narrative (James Clarke & Co., 2013), 71-73.
49 Yair Zakovitch, Jacob: Unexpected Patriarch (Yale University Press, 2012), 53.
50 Jacob Goldingay, Genesis (Baker Academic, 2020), 454.
51 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 201.
52 Augustine of Hippo, Questions on the Heptateuch 1.85, in The Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/14:47.
53 Daniel Hankore, The Abduction of Dinah: Genesis 28:10–35:15 as a Votive Narrative (James Clarke & Co., 2013), 117.
54 Yair Zakovitch, Jacob: Unexpected Patriarch (Yale University Press, 2012), 56.
55 Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2001), 396.
56 Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch 4.1.3, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 137:193.
57 Paul D. Vrolijk, Jacob's Wealth: An Examination into the Nature and Role of Material Possessions in the Jacob-Cycle (Gen. 25:19–35:29) (Brill, 2011), 109.
58 Yair Zakovitch, Jacob: Unexpected Patriarch (Yale University Press, 2012), 58-59; Yitzhak Peleg, Going Up and Going Down: A Key to Interpreting Jacob's Dream (Genesis 28:10-22) (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015), 264-265.
59 Genesis Rabbah 68.12, in Harry Freedman, tr., Midrash Rabbah (Soncino Press, 1983), 2:625.
60 Ladder of Jacob 5.2-5, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:409; cf. Genesis Rabbah 68.14, in Harry Freedman, tr., Midrash Rabbah (Soncino Press, 1983), 2:629; and see James L. Kugel, The Ladder of Jacob: Ancient Interpretations of the Biblical Story of Jacob and His Children (Princeton University Press, 2006), 24-30.
61 Thomas G. Weinandy, Jesus Becoming Jesus, vol. 2: A Theological Interpretation of the Gospel of John: Prologue and the Book of Signs (Catholic University of America Press, 2021), 77.
62 Augustine of Hippo, Answer to Faustus the Manichean 12.26, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/20:142.
63 Benjamin E. Reynolds, John among the Apocalypses: Jewish Apocalyptic Tradition and the 'Apocalyptic' Gospel (Oxford University Press, 2020), 47.
64 Alan R. Kerr, The Temple of Jesus' Body: The Temple Theme in the Gospel of John (Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 164.
65 Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Baker Academic, 2003), 1:489.
66 R. R. Reno, Genesis (Brazos Press, 2010), 235.
67 Ben Witherington III, John's Wisdom: A Commentary on the Fourth Gospel (Eerdmans, 1995), 72.
68 Targum Neofiti Genesis 28:12, in Aramaic Bible 1A:140, and Genesis Rabbah 68.12, in Harry Freedman, tr., Midrash Rabbah (Soncino Press, 1983), 2:626.
69 Chad Bird, Limping with God: Jacob and the Old Testament Guide to Messy Discipleship (1517 Publishing, 2022), 68-69.
70 John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of John 21, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 33:203.
71 Ambrose of Milan, Jacob and the Happy Life 2.4 §16, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 65:156.
72 Tertullian of Carthage, Against Marcion 3.24, in Ernest Evans, Tertullian: Adversus Marcionem (Oxford University Press, 1972), 251.
73 Ben Witherington III, John's Wisdom: A Commentary on the Fourth Gospel (Eerdmans, 1995), 72.
74 Irenaeus of Lyons, Demonstrations 45, in Popular Patristics Series 17:70.
75 Jacob of Serugh, Homily 74.178, in Texts from Christian Late Antiquity 58:34.
76 Cave of Treasures 31.17, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures 1:564.
77 Caesarius of Arles, Sermon 87.4, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 47:31.
78 Jacob of Serugh, Homily 74.61-62, in Texts from Christian Late Antiquity 58:22.
79 Ambrose of Milan, On His Brother Satyrus 2.100, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 22:242.
80 Jacob of Serugh, Homily 74.98, in Texts from Christian Late Antiquity 58:26.
81 Philip H. Kern, Jacob's Story as Christian Scripture (Cascade Books, 2021), 27; Martinus C. de Boer, John 1-6 (T&T Clark, 2025), 357.
82 Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 86.3, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 6:285.
83 Augustine of Hippo, Homilies on the Gospel of John 7.23, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century III/12:166.
84 Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 26.2.2, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 91:174.
85 Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 28.18, in Popular Patristics Series 23:50.
86 Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch 4.1.4, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 137:195.
87 Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 26.3, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 91:174.
88 Ambrose of Milan, Jacob and the Happy Life 2.5 §20, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 65:157.
89 Augustine of Hippo, Questions on the Heptateuch 1.83, in The Works of Saint Augustine I/14:46.
90 Augustine of Hippo, Answer to Faustus the Manichean 12.26, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/20:142, and Homilies on the Gospel of John 7.23, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century III/12:166.
91 Jacob of Serugh, Homily 74.201, 274, in Texts from Christian Late Antiquity 58:36, 44.
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