The Lord Speaks While Jacob Sleeps

THE LORD SPEAKS WHILE JACOB SLEEPS

An Exposition of Genesis 28:10-17

By Pastor Brian Wilbur

Date: July 23, 2023

Series: The Book of Genesis

Note: Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION

Before I read Genesis 28:10-17, let me remind you of the context. Isaac and Rebekah have directed their son Jacob to travel to the town of Haran in the region of Paddan-aram. Rebekah’s reason for giving this direction to Jacob is to protect Jacob from Esau, who wants to kill Jacob because as far as Esau was concerned, Jacob had taken away his blessing. In light of this danger, Rebekah says to Jacob, “Arise, flee to Laban my brother in Haran” (Genesis 27:43). Isaac’s reason for giving this direction to Jacob is to ensure that Jacob finds an appropriate wife within their extended family. Therefore, Isaac says to Jacob, “Arise, go to Paddan-aram to the house of Bethuel your mother’s father, and take as your wife from there one of the daughters of Laban” (Genesis 28:2). Isaac then blesses Jacob in the name of God Almighty – El Shaddai – and sends Jacob away (Genesis 28:3-5), and Jacob “[obeys] his father and his mother and [goes] to Paddan-aram” (Genesis 28:7). Now as we come to Genesis 28:10-17, we pick things up with Jacob in the early part of his several hundred mile journey to Haran. 

THE SCRIPTURAL TEXT

Holy Scripture says:

¹⁰ Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran. ¹¹ And he came to a certain place and stayed there that 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 to sleep. ¹² And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it! ¹³ And behold, the LORD stood above it 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 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 in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. ¹⁵ 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 promised you.” ¹⁶ Then Jacob awoke 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.”” (Genesis 28:10-17)

JACOB GOES TO SLEEP (v. 10-11)

The passage unfolds in three simple parts. First, Jacob goes to sleep (v. 10-11).

The occasion for Jacob’s memorable night of sleep is his several hundred mile trek from Beersheba in southern Canaan to Haran in Syria. Abraham had lived for a time in Beersheba (Genesis 21:33-34) and eventually Isaac had also settled in Beersheba at the end of Chapter 26 (Genesis 26:26-33). Isaac’s family was apparently living in Beersheba during the events of Genesis 27-28, and so that’s the starting point of Jacob’s journey. He must travel north, through the entire land of Canaan, on route to Haran. In doing so, he is traveling in the reverse direction that Abraham had first traveled: Abraham departed from Haran (Genesis 12:4) and traveled to the land of Canaan and eventually traversed the land of Canaan from the north to the south. One of the places in Canaan where Abraham pitched his tent was in between Bethel and Ai. Now some 155 years later, Jacob is traveling in the reverse direction and, early in his trip, he finds himself in Bethel, not far from the place where Abraham had “built an altar to the LORD and called upon the name of the LORD” (Genesis 12:8).

Jacob is the one who actually gave the name ‘Bethel’ to this town; it was originally named Luz (see Genesis 28:19), which is about 60 or 70 miles north of Beersheba. So Jacob’s dream and vision occur early in his trip to Haran. It was late in the day (as “the sun had set”, v. 11), and Jacob found a place to sleep for the night. He found a stone to put under his head and laid down. Before long, he fell asleep.

THE LORD APPEARS AND SPEAKS TO JACOB IN A DREAM (v. 12-15)

Jacob’s going to sleep sets the stage for what happens next: the Lord appears and speaks to Jacob in a dream. These four verses (v. 12-15) are thick with meaning. The dream begins with a visual revelation (note that the word “behold” occurs three times in v. 12-13), and then after the vision there is a shift to verbal revelation (v. 13-15).

A Ladder

First, Jacob sees “a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven.” (v. 12) The Hebrew word translated “ladder” only occurs this one time in the Old Testament – it could mean ladder or staircase. In either case, it has ascending rungs or steps that lead from the earth to heaven, and it shows us that in this moment God has established a point of contact between heaven and earth.

The Angels of God

Second, Jacob sees that “the angels of God were ascending and descending on it!” (v. 12) The presence of multiple angels at the same time highlights the gravity of this moment. The holy angels are heavenly attendants who dwell in the presence of God, who worship God, who declare His truth (Isaiah 6:3, Luke 2:13-14, Revelation 5:11-12), and who are sent out to serve His people on earth.

The fact that “angels of God [are] ascending and descending on it [the ladder]” shows us that at least five things were true in that sacred moment: 1) heaven was open; 2) the ladder was holy; 3) there was real contact between earth and heaven; 4) Yahweh, the Holy One, was near; and 5) something weighty and marvelous was about to happen.

The Lord

Third, Jacob sees “the LORD [standing] above it [the ladder]”. Thus we see that the vision is building toward a crescendo: first, a ladder from earth to heaven; second, God’s angels ascending and descending on the ladder; third, the Lord God standing above the ladder or above the staircase. The sight of the Lord, in the presence of His holy angels, at the top of a flight of steps that links heaven and earth, is not the end goal of the vision. Instead, this visual revelation prepares Jacob to humbly and rightly hear the verbal revelation. The overwhelming sight of the glory of the Lord prepares Jacob to hear the word of the Lord – and it is this way all throughout the Scriptures. Spiritual mystics make the mistake of thinking that the experience of transcendent glory is the end goal, the highest good, the thing to crave. But it isn’t. The experience of transcendent glory is valuable only insofar as you encounter the words of the personal God who speaks intelligible words to His human creatures whom He made in His image.

The Word of the Lord

Fourth, Jacob hears the word of the Lord:

“And behold, the LORD stood above it and said, “I am the LORD [Yahweh], the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and your offspring. 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 in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. 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 promised you.”” (v. 13-15)

Let’s ponder the Lord’s words to Jacob.

The God of Abraham and Isaac

First, the Lord identifies Himself as “the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac.” (v. 13) This puts Jacob in the line of covenant succession: Yahweh established His covenant with Abraham, and subsequently He reaffirmed His covenant with Abraham’s son Isaac. Now it is Jacob’s turn to receive the covenant promises. It is striking that the Lord says “the God of Abraham your father”, since in a technical sense Abraham was Jacob’s grandfather and Isaac was Jacob’s father. But the word ‘father’ can be used more generally to describe an ancestor or forefather. Abraham is Jacob’s father in the sense that by God’s design, Abraham is the forefather or founding patriarch of the covenant family that God has promised to sustain and grow and multiply. Jacob must see himself as a son of Abraham, an heir of the covenant promises.

The Covenant Promises

Second, the Lord declares the covenant promises to Jacob. The Lord had declared the covenant promises to Abraham throughout Genesis 12-22, and the Lord had declared the covenant promises to Isaac in Genesis 26. Now the Lord declares the covenant promises to Jacob, echoing the promises previously spoken:

• “The land on which you lie I will give to you and your offspring” (Genesis 28:13) echoes Genesis 13:15, when God says to Abraham, “[For] all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever.”

• “Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth” (Genesis 28:14) echoes Genesis 13:16, when God says to Abraham, “I will make your offspring as 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” (Genesis 28:14) echoes Genesis 13:15 and 17, when God says to Abraham, “Lift up your eyes and look from the pace where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward…. Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.”

• “[And] in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 28:14) echoes both Genesis 22:18 and Genesis 26:4. In Genesis 22:18, God says to Abraham, “[And] in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed”. In Genesis 26:4, God says to Isaac, “And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed”.

In continuation of the covenant He made with Abraham, God’s plan is to make a great nation out of Jacob, to plant this great nation in the promised land of Canaan, and to make this great nation the means of blessing the whole world.

The Lord’s Faithful Presence

Third, after declaring the covenant promises to Jacob, the Lord assures Jacob of His presence and of His firm resolve to fulfill His promises. The Lord’s personal promise to Jacob (“Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go”) echoes His previous assurances to Isaac when He promised “I will be with you” (Genesis 26:3) and “I am with you” (Genesis 26:24). The Lord graciously accompanies His people wherever they go. The Lord often gives these very precious promises to those people, like Isaac and Jacob, that He has called into some form of leadership. Some centuries later He tells Joshua: “Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you…. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:5, 9) Even so, the Lord’s promise to be with such key figures as Jacob and Joshua does apply to all of God’s redeemed people. Hebrews 13:5-6 extends this promise to every believer:

“Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?”” (Hebrews 13:5-6)

The Lord is our Treasure, our Helper, our Shield and Defender. The Lord is faithful to the uttermost: He doesn’t leave us, He doesn’t forsake us, He doesn’t forget the work of His hands, but He preserves us and sees to it that every purpose of His is fulfilled in our lives. He is the faithful and personally present Promise Keeper who makes good on every promise.

Now think about how fitting God’s very personal promise is to Jacob. Jacob is on the run, fleeing to Haran because his brother wants to kill him. Jacob will soon leave the boundaries of the promised land, and he will be far to the north in Haran. Jacob will be sojourning in a distant land, away from his father and his mother. He is already in his 70s, and at this point he has no wife and no offspring. One solitary man, not young, is on the run, leaving the land of his birth, leaving the land that has been promised to him, and he is heading to an unfamiliar place to spend time with relatives, most or all of whom he has probably never met before. Although he is traveling to Haran with the blessing of his father and his mother, the blessing of his parents will only do so much. His father and his mother are not with him. His father and his mother cannot be with him wherever he goes. Although Rebekah has promised to eventually “send and bring [Jacob]” back home (Genesis 28:45), it is not certain that she can make good on her promise. But the Lord “will bring [Jacob] back to this land.” Jacob’s father and mother are not God and they cannot fulfill God’s promises concerning their son. But the Lord will accompany Jacob every step of the way, and the Lord will do everything that He has promised Jacob.

In keeping with the Lord’s promise to Jacob, notice that the Lord is not like a localized pagan deity who is only able to operate within a limited geographic area. The Lord is not only able to operate within the land of Canaan. The Lord is with Jacob and will keep Jacob wherever he goes: the Lord is with Jacob and will keep Jacob when Jacob is inside the promised land (in places such as Beersheba or Bethel), and the Lord is with Jacob and will keep Jacob when Jacob is outside the promised land (in places such as Haran, where he will be in Genesis 29-31, and Egypt, where he will be in Genesis 46-49). Yahweh is the Lord of all the earth, and He accompanies and keeps His people wherever they go.

A Brief Application to Parents and Children

Although this passage is not about parenting, a brief word of application seems appropriate. Parents, you cannot do what only God can do in the lives of your children. Yes, do what you can to instruct, encourage, and set an example for your children, but the whole point is for them to be launched into the great adventure of walking with God, and there are places where they will go where you cannot go with them, where you cannot preserve them, where you cannot prosper them. Therefore, dear parents, trust in the Lord! And here’s the other side of the coin: Children, your parents cannot do what only God can do in your life. Even if you have faithful parents, they can only accompany you so far, and they can only protect you so much. You must learn to lean on the Lord’s promises, the Lord’s sustaining presence, and the Lord’s providential care. Everyone else will fail you, but the Lord will never fail you. Children, trust in the Lord!

JACOB AWAKES AND IS AFRAID (v. 16-17)

After the dream, Jacob awakes and is afraid. Jacob’s entire response to the divine revelation is recorded in verses 16-22. Lord-willing, we will unpack verses 18-22 next week. For now, we will simply note his initial response, immediately after awaking from sleep, in verses 16-17:

“Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it.” 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.”” (v. 16-17)

Jacob is understandably frightened. The words “afraid” and “awesome” (in v. 17) are grammatically related, so the text is basically saying, “And he was [awed] and said, “How awesome is this place!”” (italics added) or “And he was afraid and said, “How [fearsome or fearful] is this place!”” (italics added) He had just laid himself down to sleep; he wasn’t expecting to have a vision of the transcendent realm with heaven open and God’s voice speaking to him. He was overwhelmed.

The fact that Jacob felt fear in view of the holy vision is entirely appropriate and in keeping with what other people experienced in the Bible when they encountered God in dream or vision. By divine grace, Jacob had an encounter with the Holy One, and he was struck with frightened awe about what he had just experienced in this place. He had encountered the presence of God in this place: “Surely the LORD is in this place” (v. 16, italics added). If the Lord is in this place, then this place must be God’s house, for where else would the Lord be but in His house: “This is none other than the house of God” (v. 17). Finally, if Jacob is on earth, and if God is in heaven, and if the God of heaven had just drawn near to Jacob on earth, then this place must be a gate where heaven meets earth: “and this is the gate of heaven” (v. 17). This hearkens back to the ladder or stairway reaching to heaven in verse 12. The Lord had graciously brought about contact between earth and heaven in this place, for Jacob’s sake. Of course, the Lord can bring about such contact between earth and heaven whenever and wherever He wants. It’s not as if the physical location of Bethel is the gateway to heaven. But for Jacob, who is attempting to regain his bearings after such a remarkable encounter, what the Lord did and where the Lord did it are virtually indistinguishable in his mind at this point. In Jacob’s view, this physical location is holy ground. And on this holy ground, Jacob the man on earth has fellowship with the God of heaven.

APPLICATION: FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD IS A GIFT OF GOD’S GRACE

What about us? Can we earth-dwellers also have fellowship with the God of heaven? That’s a good question. Here’s the point of application I want to draw from the passage: Covenant fellowship between people on earth and the Lord of heaven is a gift of the Lord’s grace, and it cannot be manufactured by human effort. The Lord of heaven is the gracious initiator and establisher of covenant fellowship with His people on earth, and His people must only be humble receivers.

There are at least three things in the passage that point to this important lesson.

Jacob was sleeping!

First, the Lord graciously reveals His covenant promises to Jacob while Jacob is sleeping. This reminds us of an earlier passage when the Lord established His covenant with Abraham while Abraham was sleeping (Genesis 15:12-21). The Lord spoke to Abraham while Abraham was sleeping, and the presence of God – represented by “a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed” through the sacrifice (Genesis 15:17). The fact that God reveals His covenant to Abraham and Jacob while they are sleeping shows us that the covenant is His doing, not our doing; that the covenant depends on God who has mercy, not on human striving. Stop your anxious striving, and start resting in the promises of God.

Jacob’s ladder contrasts with Babel’s tower

Second, the ladder that stretches from earth to heaven stands in profound contrast to the famous tower that mankind attempted to build at Babel. Do you remember? Men attempted to “build themselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens” (Genesis 11:4). Their motivation was to “make a name for [themselves]” (Genesis 11:4) – to promote themselves, protect themselves, and preserve themselves on their own terms and in their own strength. God was neither amused nor pleased with their man-centered building project, so He came down from heaven and judged the city builders by confusing their language and thereby scattering the people. As a result, “they left off building the city” (Genesis 11:8). Many men working together did not succeed and could not succeed at building “a tower with its top in the heavens”. But what men cannot do, God does: He effortlessly “[sets] up [a ladder] on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven.” Jacob didn’t set it up. The ladder reaching to heaven wasn’t Jacob’s doing. It was God’s doing. Since this ladder reaching to heaven is God’s doing, God is pleased with it. The tower of Babel (which was man’s work) proved to be a place of divine judgment, but the ladder in Jacob’s dream (which is God’s work) proves to be a place of divine grace. Stop depending on the work of your own hands, and start trusting in God’s gracious work for you.

Promises, not commands

Third, the Lord makes it clear to Jacob that Jacob is the Lord’s handiwork. Although the Lord’s covenant fellowship with us summons us to a life of obedience, nevertheless it is important to see that the foundational issue is what the Lord does for us, not what we do. In verses 13-15, the Lord doesn’t tell Jacob to do anything. The Lord makes promises: “I will give” (v. 13), “Your offspring shall” (v. 14), “you shall” (v. 14), “in you and your offspring shall” (v. 14), “I am with you and will keep you” (v. 15), “[I] will bring you back” (v. 15), “I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you” (v. 15). Jacob is not going to make something of his life. Yahweh is going to make something of Jacob’s life. Jacob’s job, if you want to call it a job, is to trust God’s promise. Stop making all those resolutions about how you’re going to fix your life, and start listening to God Almighty who says, ‘I will give’, ‘I will keep’, ‘I will bring’, ‘I will do’!

Perhaps you are here this morning and you are attempting to investigate what the Christian faith is all about, or perhaps you are attempting to put your life back together. If that describes you, I’m glad you’re here. Here’s what you need to understand: biblical faith is about human beings trusting God in response to God’s gracious revelation. It’s not about human beings doing, doing, doing; instead, it’s about human beings trusting God to do what He has promised. It’s not about human beings laboring anxiously to accomplish something: Jacob was sleeping! It’s not about human beings building a tower reaching to the heavens; instead, it’s about human beings beholding the ladder that God sets up in order to make contact between heaven and earth. All this directs our attention, not to a physical location like Bethel, but to a special person who embodies God’s promise.

John 1:51 echoes Genesis 28:12

John 1 is a remarkable chapter. The beginning of John 1 echoes Genesis 1, and the end of John 1 echoes Genesis 28. John 1 begins, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” (John 1:1-3) Then several verses later it adds: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14) The eternal Creator, the divine Word, the Lord of glory, the true light of the universe, became Man – Jesus the Messiah, who perfectly embodies the Father’s grace and truth.

At the end of John 1, Jesus is having a conversation with Nathanael. Jesus had supernatural insight into Nathanael’s life and character, and this blew Nathanael away. Nathanael responded by saying, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” (John 1:49) Jesus responded with His own version of ‘you ain’t seen nothing yet’! Jesus said, ““Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “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 1:45-51)

Do you hear the connection? In Genesis 28:12, God’s angels ascended and descended on the ladder that stretched from earth to heaven. In John 1:51, Jesus says that God’s angels will be seen ascending and descending on Him. The ladder in Jacob’s dream was only a shadow of the better thing that God had planned. The better thing, the substantive thing, is the Lord Jesus. Jesus is the one and only God-approved link that connects people on earth to God in heaven. The ladder being set up on earth in Jacob’s dream was God’s doing. Jesus coming to earth was God’s doing: “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.” (1 John 4:10) Jesus is not a ladder to climb, but a Savior to know and trust. “God the Father has set his seal [on Jesus]” (John 6:28). Jesus declared, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me…. Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:6, 9) He laid down His life as a sacrifice for sin, so that sinners on earth could be reconciled to the God of heaven. 

Go to Jesus!

Do you want to know God? Do you want the God of Jacob to speak life-giving truth over your life? Do you want to stand at the gate of heaven and have fellowship with God Almighty? Do you want to spend time in God’s house? Do you want the Lord to be with you and keep you wherever you go, and to fulfill all His precious and very great promises in your life? Then stop trying to make your own way, and look to Jesus. Jesus gives this great invitation: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Assohoto, Barnabe and Samuel Ngewa, “Genesis.” In Africa Bible Commentary: A One-Volume Commentary Written by 70 African Scholars. Tokunboh Adeyemo, General Editor. Zondervan Edition (first edition published in 2006).

Fruchtenbaum, Arnold G. The Book of Genesis (Ariel’s Bible Commentary). Fourth Edition. San Antonio: Ariel Ministries, 2020.

Morris, Henry M. The Genesis Record: A Scientific and Devotional Commentary on the Book of Beginnings. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1976.

Piper, John. “Son of God, Son of Man, King of Israel” (a sermon on John 1:43-51). Preached on December 7, 2008. Available online: https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/son-of-god-son-of-man-king-of-israel  

Steinmann, Andrew E. Genesis (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries). Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2019.

Witherington, Ben, III. John’s Wisdom: A Commentary on the Fourth Gospel. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995.