Genesis 28
IrwinI blessed him. Not, as before, unwittingly, but designedly, fully; making over to him the chief promise (see ver. 4), the spiritual blessings, before almost left out of sight.
9 his wife. There was a similarity of condition, as well as of taste and habits, between Ishmael and his son-in-law. A certain kindliness seems to have prompted the step which Esau took. He wished to do as much as he could to gratify his father.
10. Haran. This was a journey of about four hundred miles; undertaken ostensibly for the same purpose as that of Abraham’s servant to the same place, many years before; but in circumstances so different (see xxiv. 10, 32), as might well make Jacob feel that he was already under the chastening hand of God, on account of his sin.
12 a ladder, etc. A symbol of God’s providence, carried on partly through “ministering spirits,” while God Himself is above all to guide and control their movements. The dream, with subsequent Divine promise, would cheer the loneliness of Jacob’s journey, and keep him from seeking a home in the land of his exile. Our Lord refers to this vision, John i. 51.
16 knew it not. “I feared, when I left my father’s house, that I had left the Lord behind; but lo! He is here!”
17 heaven. Hitherto Jacob had aspired, with a blind ambition, to the results of Divine favour. He now has a deep sense of the presence of God; “an important turning-point in his spiritual history—the first step from Jacob to ISRAEL.”
18 pillar. See also xxxi. 45, 51, 52; xxxv. 14; Exod. xxiv. 4. Jacob carried oil as an essential part of an Eastern traveller’s provision. For its use in setting apart the stone as consecrated, cp. Exod. xxx. 26-30.