Both Rebekah and Jacob remembered that Issac had announced that he was about to give Esau his blessing and inheritance. The time of reckoning had come. Rebekah took immediate action. She was determined that Esau's bargain would be kept. Jacob must have the birthright.
Rebekah was the mastermind. She cooked the goats that Jacob had bought to her husband's taste - spices could cover any lack of gamey flavor. Then Jacob impersonated Esau before his blind father.
The deception was successful. Issac pronounced on Jacob the blessing of the firstborn son, the blessing God had given to Abraham and to the line of God's promise, the right of Jacob to rule over Esau (Genesis 27:37).
Jacob had the blessing. But now it seemed that he was closing all claim to the land. He was leaving it. How could the blessing of Abraham (Gen 28:3-4) be upon one who dared not reenter the land to which Abraham had been called?
Under the stars, Jacob rested. Then he dreamed not an ordinary dream. A great stone stairway, stretching up to heaven above. Angels climbed it; others descended. In the midst of the angels was the Lord Himself. He descended the ladder and then came and stood over Jacob.
The builders of Babel planned a tower that would reach heaven (Gen 11:4). The same phrase describes the stairway of Jacob's dream (Gen 28:12). Man's tower could not reach heaven. But the stairway-tower of Jacob's dream did reach heaven for God was the builder, not man. God alone establishes communication between heaven and earth. True religion does not come from man's quest, but from God's intervention. God himself takes the initiative just as God called to Adam and Even as they hid in the garden, who instructed Noah to build the ark, who called Abraham to leave his father's house, this same God took the initiative with Jacob. Paul reminds us that God chose Jacob, and not Esau, even before they were born (Rom 9:10-13). Jacob had nothing to boast of. All glory to God forever.
The God who repeated the blessing of Abraham, who repeated the terms of the promise (Gen 28:13-14), above all pledged His own presence with Jacob (28:15). God had not come down His stairway in vain. And in response, Jacob did not right away survey the land, of think of the bride in Haran, but rather, that God Himself dwelt with him (Gen 28:16-17). He learnt what Abraham also learnt, that there is a better country, the heavenly one (Heb 11:14-16).
We should not be too ready to blame Jacob for bargaining with God. What he claimed was what God had promised; what he pledged was the thankful worship always due to the Lord who delivers. Jacob did not lose the awe and devotion his dream had inspired.
Reflect on the revelation from the greater Jacob that would far surpass Jacob's dream (John 1:51). The true Bethel, the true Temple of God, the true stairway, Immanuel.
References
Edmund Clowney, The Unfolding Mystery - Discovering Christ in the Old Testament
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