A.1. Isaac sends Jacob to Paddan-Aram, 28:1–5
28:1 Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him, and charged him, “You shall not marry one of the Canaanite women. 2 Go at once to Paddan-aram to the house of Bethuel, your mother’s father; and take as wife from there one of the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother. 3 May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and numerous, that you may become a company of peoples. 4 May he give to you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your offspring with you, so that you may take possession of the land where you now live as an alien—land that God gave to Abraham.” 5 Thus Isaac sent Jacob away; and he went to Paddan-aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob’s and Esau’s mother.
This account of Isaac's parting words to Jacob employs what is called a chiastic form, meaning the the two parts are stated first in one order and then in the reverse (A-B-B'-A'). The narrator (Moses) says that Isaac "blessed him and charged him" (v. 1), while in what follows it is the charge that comes first (v. 2), followed by the blessing (vv. 3-4).
28:2
As Jacob's father, Isaac has the authority to order him. This order has come as a result of Isaac's coming to recognize that it is this youngest of his twin sons whom God has chosen to be the channel of the promise to Abraham, and as a result of seeing how his oder son Esau has intermarried with the local women apparently without seeking his father's permission. As Abraham had sent to the land of his relatives for a bride for Isaac, so now Isaac himself will send his chief heir to that same area to secure a bride. The stricture that Jacob must not take a bride from any other family in Paddan-Aram is made clear by the terms "one of the daughters of Laban, your mother's (Rebekah's) brother. The choice of Rebekah had been made by God in answer to the prayer of Abraham's servant. There is room in the phrase "one of the daughters" for a choice now also. No hint is given, however, that Jacob will eventually take two of Laban's daughters as wives. Isaac also makes no explanation for this restricting of the choice of a wife for his son, no comment about how Laban's daughters will be more godly or more free from the worship of other gods.
28:3-4
The form of an ancient blessing normally began with the invoking of a particular god or goddess who would perform the action of the blessing. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob employed a number of titles and names for the one God whom they worshiped. Foremost among these, because it later became the normal name for Israel's God, was Yahweh. But the patriarchs used other names with equal frequency, and it was only at the time of the exodus from Egypt that the name Yahweh became truly meaningful and its true significance understood by God's people.
Jacob will later refer to the god of Isaac as פַּחַד יִצְחַק paḥad Yitshaq 'the Fear of Isaac' (31:42). But Isaac himself here invokes God as El Shaddai. The first part of this name, El, is the Hebrew and Canaanite noun meaning "god" (with a lower case 'g'). But the meaning of the second part, Shaddai (שַׁדָּי), is even today disputed. Some render it 'Almighty', although the oldest attested translation, the ancient Greek version of the OT made three centuries before Christ, takes Shaddai as the possessive pronoun "my" (Greek: ὁ δὲ θεός μου 'my God'). What is more important than its precise translation is the fact that Isaac uses it to describe God in his role of multiplying the offspring of Jacob. The best translation of the final clause in v. 3 is "may he make you into a confederation/association (קָהָל) of tribes," which of course is precisely what God did: he gave Jacob twelve sons, and these eventually became the twelve tribes of Israel.
In v. 4 Isaac turns to describing the ultimate goal of this proliferation of offspring: it is the "blessing" (בְּרָכָה εὐλογία) given to Abraham. This is what Jacob did not consciously seek, when he earlier swindled Esau out of birthright and blessing—nor did it result in that being conferred at that time (see the lesson on Genesis 25 and the one on chapter 27), but which now will be given to him properly as the fulfillment of God's original purpose. We also see that this blessing will have an immediate fulfillment as well as a later, much fuller one. For Isaac first asks that the blessing be given "to you," i.e., to Jacob during his own lifetime, but then amends this to "to you and to your offspring with you." And one historical event in the future which will signify a major step toward the fulfillment of that blessing will be Israel's taking possession of the Promised Land after the exodus (recorded in the Book of Joshua).
A.2. Esau marries Ishmael's daughter, 28:6–9
Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan-aram to take a wife from there, and that as he blessed him he charged him, “You shall not marry one of the Canaanite women,” 7 and that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and gone to Paddan-aram. 8 So when Esau saw that the Canaanite women did not please his father Isaac, 9 Esau went to Ishmael and took Mahalath daughter of Abraham’s son Ishmael, and sister of Nebaioth, to be his wife in addition to the wives he had.
Both Isaac's and Jacob's marriages were arranged by their fathers. This was the usual procedure in the ancient Near East, although the parents often sought the guidance or the final consent of the son or daughter. Samson came to his father and asked that he get a particular Philistine woman for his bride (Judges 14:2-3). Bethuel asked Rebekah if she was willing to go to Canaan and become Isaac's wife (Gen 24:58). Although it is possible that we are simply not told about Esau securing Isaac's consent to marry Hethite and then later Ishmaelite women as his wives [see p. ? ], the very silence of the text seems to imply that he did not. This adds to the disapproval of the marriages already expressed by the statement that these foreign wives made Isaac's and Rebekah's lives bitter (26:35, see comments at 26:34–35 [here]).
A.3. Jacob's dream at Bethel, 28:10–17
Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. 11 He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. 12 And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 And the LORD stood beside him and said, “I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; 14 and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. 15 Know that 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 promised you.” 16 Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the LORD is in this place—and I did not know it!” 17 And he was afraid, and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”
Jacob's journey to the full revelation of God's purpose for him began at birth with the oracle to Rebekah (25:19-26; see comments at 25:22-23), continued with his imperfect understanding of the birthright and blessing he selfishly sought (25:29-34; ch. 27 [see here]), and began to mature with Isaac's blessing on him (28:1-4), but comes to full light of day in God's appearance to him at Bethel.
Jacob has set out for Haran (which is another way of designating Paddan-Aram, the homeland of Rebekah's kinfolk. He travels northward as far as Bethel, in the central highlands of what will later be the tribal territory of Benjamin, north of Jerusalem. There he stops for the night and uses a stone for a head-rest. As he slept, he had a dream. In the dream he saw a stairway—some translations call it a ladder, which is less likely—leading up to heaven. On this stairway angels were seen, ascending and descending. And Yahweh stood above it (or perhaps beside him, i.e., Jacob). Yahweh then began to speak.
In the extended speech of God there is no explanation given of the significance of the stairway or the angels. After awaking from the dream, Jacob seems to give some significance to it when he says, "This is the house of God; this is the gateway to heaven" (v. 17). But God himself says nothing about the stairway or its significance. Centuries later, our Lord Jesus commented on this passage, when he says to Nathaniel, “Do you believe (I am the Son of God and the king of Israel) because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these. … I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man” (Jn 1:50-51). Just what specific event Jesus refers to here is a bit unclear: most likely he refers to his ascension into heaven following the forty day period of ministry to his disciples after the resurrection (Acts 1:6-11). The narrative of Acts 1 mentions no stairway, but it was the last vision the disciples (including Nathaniel) had of Jesus, and it records his ascending into heaven's glory as the Son of God and Israel's king. And it is commonly assumed that in this entry he was escorted by angels (see the two standing by in white robes in Acts 1:10), as he will be when he returns in glory to the earth (Matthew 25:31; 2 Thessalonians 1:7).
28:13-15
But the main focus of the passage is vv. 13-15, which record God's message to Jacob and in particular his promises. These will see dramatic—if sometime unexpected—fulfillment in the chapters that follow, describing Jacob's adventures in Paddan-Aram and his return to the land of promise.
The first element of the dream revelation is the name of God. "I am Yahweh," God said. This was a different name for God than what Isaac used in his parting blessing (28:3), which was El Shaddai 'God Almighty'. But Jacob would not be allowed to be misled by the different name, for God immediately qualifies this statement with the words "the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac." Thus he clearly identifies himself with the only God whom Jacob's father and grandfather would have worshiped. But this identification meant even more. The father-grandfather connection tells Jacob that Yahweh is the God who called his grandfather out of Mesopotamia and gave him great promises that had been the focus and chief hope of his family now for three generations. Yahweh was therefore not some local god, associated with a particular shrine or location. He was the God of all the earth, who has attached himself to this one family and will follow them wherever they go. Yahweh repeats in vv. 13-14 the main elements of the earlier promises to Jacob's father and grandfather: (1) he would multiply his offspring, and (2) he would give them a land of their own, the very land on which he was lying as he dreamed, and (3) that all families of the earth would be blessed in him and his offspring. This God at Bethel is confirming the same promises Jacob has heard about from his father. But in v. 15 God promises something more, something related directly to Jacob and his mission. He will be "with" Jacob in the sense not only of accompanying him but also of protecting and giving him success in his mission, and he will bring Jacob back to this land.
28:16
Jacob understands the significance of a vision such as this. Normally visions of deities were considered to signify that the particular god or goddess dwelt in that location, and resulted in the human recipient of the vision vowing to build there a shrine or temple for the deity. But although Jacob confesses that Yahweh is in this place, he understands from the content of the vision that Yahweh transcends any one place. Therefore he makes no vow to build a temple. He does set up a stone marker to commemorate the vision, but this is not the same thing. He will set up other markers in later situations (see 31:45-46, [31:43-55]).
A.4. Jacob's vow to God at Bethel, 28:18–22
So Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. 19 He called that place Bethel; but the name of the city was Luz at the first. 20 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, 21 so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the LORD shall be my God, 22 and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house; and of all that you give me I will surely give one tenth to you.”
Vows to gods were often solemnized by erecting a stone in the place where the vow was made. In this case, since Jacob had received the message from God while sleeping with his head resting on a stone, he chose that particular stone to be the mark of his vow to God. The use in modern translations of the English word "pillar" to translate the word maṣṣēḇah should not mislead us into visualizing some large stone like a column of a building. The word merely denotes a stone of between one and two feet in height when erect. Examples have been found in excavations in Israel of these stones. So we know what they looked like. Pouring oil on the stone was a kind of offering made to the god to whom the vow was being made, and also consecrated the stone, removing it from normal use.
The name given to the place, Bethel, means "house of God." Jacob explains his choice of that name in v. 22, "this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house." By "house" he clearly does not mean a building, but merely the place in which the God he has heard will dwell and be honored. Jacob's vow has several conditions: (1) that this God will accompany him in his travels and protect him at every stage, (2) that this God will see that he can find/earn food and clothing, and (3) that he returns safely ("in peace") to this land, as God promised. In his vow Jacob mentions nothing about the success of his mission to find a wife. These are his conditions. What he promises is also in several parts: (1) Yahweh ("English translations "the LORD"), the God who spoke to him at Bethel, will become his God, (2) the stone that he erects at Bethel will be always a place in which Yahweh is venerated and honored and worshiped, and (3) Jacob will devote to God in sacrifice a tenth of all his earnings. As is typical in such ancient votive statements, the speaker speaks of his god both in the third person ("he/she" and with verb forms that imply "he/she" as subject) and in the second ("you"). Jacob addresses God as "you" only in the final sentence of his vow.
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