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Genesis 28 English Standard Version (ESV)

Jacob’s Dream

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.”

¹⁸ So early in the morning Jacob 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 the name of that place Bethel, t 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 give a full tenth to you.”

REFLECTION

Having duped his father, stolen the blessing, Jacob ran from the rage of his brother.  At sunset, he camped out at “a certain place” (v11).  The Bible indicated that it was an ordinary place named Luz, but it became Bethel – House of God.  House of God, where we encounter God and establish relationship with God, can be an ordinary place.  House of God, also represents God’s abundant blessing, which cannot be obtained through our diligent planning, but was given by God according to His will.  God unexpectedly appeared to Jacob under a circumstance that is beyond his control – a dream, God stood beside him and talked with him and made the ancestral promise to Jacob directly.

We’ve been taught to calculate, plan, invest, and compete.  The world tells us that it is smart to use the least resources to gain the most profit.  Therefore, we continue to calculate and plan.  Like Jacob, we want to have control of everything.  But God has a way of overthrowing our plans.  He would bless us in the most ordinary thing at a most unexpected time.

Have you ever thought that God will continue to bless you even if your company forecloses?  That God wants to meet with you and establish a deeper relationship with you through an unexpected event?

Have you had such experiences?  What is your “Bethel” where you met God?  How did you feel?  How has this experience changed you?

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Genesis 27 English Standard Version (ESV)

Isaac Blesses Jacob

¹⁸ So he went in to his father and said, “My father.” And he said, “Here I am. Who are you, my son?” ¹⁹ Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me; now sit up and eat of my game, that your soul may bless me.” ²⁰ But Isaac said to his son, “How is it that you have found it so quickly, my son?” He answered, “Because the Lord your God granted me success.” ²¹ Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Please come near, that I may feel you, my son, to know whether you are really my son Esau or not.” ²² So Jacob went near to Isaac his father, who felt him and said, “The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” ²³ And he did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau’s hands. So he blessed him.²⁴ He said, “Are you really my son Esau?” He answered, “I am.” ²⁵ Then he said, “Bring it near to me, that I may eat of my son’s game and bless you.” So he brought it near to him, and he ate; and he brought him wine, and he drank.

²⁶ Then his father Isaac said to him, “Come near and kiss me, my son.” ²⁷ So he came near and kissed him. And Isaac smelled the smell of his garments and blessed him and said,

“See, the smell of my son
is as the smell of a field that the Lord has blessed!
²⁸ May God give you of the dew of heaven
and of the fatness of the earth
and plenty of grain and wine.
²⁹ Let peoples serve you,
and nations bow down to you.
Be lord over your brothers,
and may your mother’s sons bow down to you.
Cursed be everyone who curses you,
and blessed be everyone who blesses you!”

³⁰ As soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, when Jacob had scarcely gone out from the presence of Isaac his father, Esau his brother came in from his hunting. ³¹ He also prepared delicious food and brought it to his father. And he said to his father, “Let my father arise and eat of his son’s game, that you may bless me.” ³² His father Isaac said to him, “Who are you?” He answered, “I am your son, your firstborn, Esau.” ³³ Then Isaac trembled very violently and said, “Who was it then that hunted game and brought it to me, and I ate it all before you came, and I have blessed him? Yes, and he shall be blessed.” ³⁴ As soon as Esau heard the words of his father, he cried out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry and said to his father, “Bless me, even me also, O my father!” ³⁵ But he said, “Your brother came deceitfully, and he has taken away your blessing.” ³⁶ Esau said, “Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has cheated me these two times. He took away my birthright, and behold, now he has taken away my blessing.” Then he said, “Have you not reserved a blessing for me?” ³⁷ Isaac answered and said to Esau, “Behold, I have made him lord over you, and all his brothers I have given to him for servants, and with grain and wine I have sustained him. What then can I do for you, my son?” ³⁸ Esau said to his father, “Have you but one blessing, my father? Bless me, even me also, O my father.” And Esau lifted up his voice and wept.

REFLECTION

In ancient cultures blessings given by parents or by one in authority were viewed as having great power. The deathbed blessing was equivalent to a last will, by which a person transmitted his tangible and intangible possessions to the next generation. Thus Isaac’s blessing was eagerly sought by Esau and jealously desired by Jacob.

Jacob and his mother plotted together to deceive Isaac and to steal the blessing by passing Jacob off as his older brother. They did succeed in deceiving a then sightless Isaac. But they alienated Esau so greatly that he determined to kill Jacob after Isaac died.

It’s incredible to think that God’s blessing is passed down to the next generation in such a family devastated by deceit, grief, and hatred. Through this tangled family soap opera God is making a holy people, set apart for his purposes.  In the same way, God invites us to consider how He moves to call us, nurture us, compel us and send us into the world to walk with Him.

PRAYER

Commit yourself and your family to God, listening for who God is calling you to be.  Ask God to continue His healing, encouragement in you that you may walk with him every day in a godly way.

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Genesis 26 English Standard Version (ESV)

God’s Promise to Isaac

¹ Now there was a famine in the land, besides the former famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Gerar to Abimelech king of the Philistines. ² And the Lord appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land of which I shall tell you. ³ Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you, for to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father. ⁴ I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, ⁵ because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.”

Isaac and Abimelech

⁶ So Isaac settled in Gerar. ⁷ When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” for he feared to say, “My wife,” thinking, “lest the men of the place should kill me because of Rebekah,” because she was attractive in appearance. ⁸ When he had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out of a window and saw Isaac laughing with Rebekah his wife. ⁹ So Abimelech called Isaac and said, “Behold, she is your wife. How then could you say, ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac said to him, “Because I thought, ‘Lest I die because of her.’”¹⁰ Abimelech said, “What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.” ¹¹ So Abimelech warned all the people, saying, “Whoever touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.”

¹² And Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold. The Lord blessed him, ¹³ and the man became rich, and gained more and more until he became very wealthy. ¹⁴ He had possessions of flocks and herds and many servants, so that the Philistines envied him. ¹⁵ (Now the Philistines had stopped and filled with earth all the wells that his father’s servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father.) ¹⁶ And Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for you are much mightier than we.”

²³ From there he went up to Beersheba. ²⁴ And the Lord appeared to him the same night and said, “I am the God of Abraham your father. Fear not, for I am with you and will bless you and multiply your offspring for my servant Abraham’s sake.” ²⁵ So he built an altar there and called upon the name of the Lord and pitched his tent there. And there Isaac’s servants dug a well.

²⁶ When Abimelech went to him from Gerar with Ahuzzath his adviser and Phicol the commander of his army, ²⁷ Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me, seeing that you hate me and have sent me away from you?” ²⁸ They said, “We see plainly that the Lord has been with you. So we said, let there be a sworn pact between us, between you and us, and let us make a covenant with you, ²⁹ that you will do us no harm, just as we have not touched you and have done to you nothing but good and have sent you away in peace. You are now the blessed of the Lord.” ³⁰ So he made them a feast, and they ate and drank. ³¹ In the morning they rose early and exchanged oaths. And Isaac sent them on their way, and they departed from him in peace. ³² That same day Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well that they had dug and said to him, “We have found water.” ³³ He called it Shibah; therefore the name of the city is Beersheba to this day.

REFLECTION

Esau despised his birthright and sold it to Jacob, Jacob (Israel) now possessed the covenant promises that Esau despised. What value did the covenant really have?

First, God’s guidance (vv1-6). The Lord appeared to Isaac and directed him to stay in Canaan rather than go to Egypt. He stayed in Canaan, on coastal land then occupied by the Philistines.

Second, God’s protection (vv7-11). Even though Isaac showed the same lack of active faith that led Abraham to lie about his wife in fear that he might be killed for her, God protected Isaac and his family.

Third, the covenant assured God’s blessing (vv12-22). God made Isaac rich, multiplying his wealth.

Fourth, God’s intervention (vv23-25). When land and water rights disputes drove Isaac to move again and again, God spoke to him, urging him not to fear. The Philistines finally made a treaty with Isaac because “We see plainly that the Lord has been with you” (v28).

In each of these incidents we see – and Esau and Jacob would have observed – how important possession of God’s covenant promise truly was. With the covenant came God’s commitment to guide, to protect, to bless and to intervene. Spiritual realities seem irrelevant to some. But in fact, they are far more important than anything the materialist can touch, see or feel.

Have you experienced God’s guidance, protection, blessing, and intervention? Did you realize at the time that it was your faithful and loving Father fulfilling His commitment to you – His child? How would you respond to this?

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Genesis 25 English Standard Version (ESV)

The Birth of Esau and Jacob

¹⁹ These are the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham fathered Isaac, ²⁰ and Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, the sister of Laban the Aramean, to be his wife. ²¹ And Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife, because she was barren. And the Lord granted his prayer, and Rebekah his wife conceived. ²² The children struggled together within her, and she said, “If it is thus, why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of the Lord. ²³ And the Lord said to her, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the older shall serve the younger.” ²⁴ When her days to give birth were completed, behold, there were twins in her womb. ²⁵ The first came out red, all his body like a hairy cloak, so they called his name Esau.²⁶ Afterward his brother came out with his hand holding Esau’s heel, so his name was called Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them. ²⁷ When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, dwelling in tents.²⁸ Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.

Esau Sells His Birthright

²⁹ Once when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was exhausted. ³⁰ And Esau said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted!” (Therefore his name was called Edom.) ³¹ Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright now.” ³² Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” ³³ Jacob said, “Swear to me now.” So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob.³⁴ Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.  

REFLECTION

If time allows, read through the whole chapter to get a better picture of the family of Isaac. Controversy and quarreling among siblings are prevalent in most families and is a part of growing up. It can be contained, however, if it is dealt with consistently and fairly. But when the parents show partiality and take sides, this struggle often becomes malignant and fatal to family unity. This chapter opens with the joy of long-awaited birth. After twenty years, Isaac and Rebekah have not just one son but twins. As the boys grow up, parental partiality develops with tragic consequences for family relationships. In v28 we learned that “Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob.” How does this parental favoritism work itself out in the struggle? Verse 34 states that Esau despised his birthright (his double portion of the inheritance and future role as head of the family). In what areas are you tempted to give up something spiritually valuable for the sake of something of little or no value?  In what ways have you experienced the strength of your parents or been influenced by their weaknesses? How can you show impartial love and care to family members with radically different personalities? Ask God to show you how to encourage better relationships in your own family or living situation.