Genesis 28

Isaac called for Jacob and blessed him. He gave him this order: "Do not marry one of the women of Canaan.

1And Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, and charged him, and said unto him, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan.

NoteA blessing in these stories is a formal spoken act, not a good wish: the words hand over property, status and position in the family line, and once said they were treated as binding. "Charged him" in the King James means gave him a solemn instruction.

2Get up and go to Padanaram, to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father. Find a wife there from among the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother.

2Arise, go to Padanaram, to the house of Bethuel thy mother’s father; and take thee a wife from thence of the daughters of Laban thy mother’s brother.

NotePadanaram (also spelled Paddan-aram) was the region around Haran in what is now southeastern Turkey and northern Syria, several hundred miles northeast of where Isaac lived. It was where Abraham's relatives had settled, and Isaac's own wife Rebekah had been fetched from there. Marrying a cousin from within the extended family was the preferred arrangement in this culture, not an oddity; "the daughters of Laban" means Jacob's first cousins.

3May God Almighty bless you and give you many children, and make your family grow, until you become a whole company of peoples.

3And God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people;

Note"God Almighty" translates the Hebrew title El Shaddai. "Almighty" comes from the ancient Greek and Latin versions; the actual meaning of Shaddai is uncertain, with "God of the mountain" and "God of the open country" among the suggestions. "A company of peoples" means not just many children but a cluster of distinct tribes or nations.

4May he give you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your descendants with you, so that you may come to own the land where you now live as an outsider, the land God gave to Abraham."

4And give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee; that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave unto Abraham.

Note"The blessing of Abraham" refers to the promises made to Abraham earlier in Genesis: land, countless descendants, and blessing extending through him to others. "Stranger" in the King James, and "outsider" here, translate a Hebrew word for a resident foreigner, someone living long-term in a country that is not his, protected by local goodwill but owning no land there. The point of the sentence is that the family currently lives on the land as guests.

5So Isaac sent Jacob away, and Jacob went to Padanaram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Syrian. Laban was the brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau.

5And Isaac sent away Jacob: and he went to Padanaram unto Laban, son of Bethuel the Syrian, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob’s and Esau’s mother.

Note"The Syrian" translates "the Aramean", a member of the Aramaic-speaking peoples of the region called Aram, north and east of Canaan. It marks Laban's ethnic identity, not a modern nationality.

6Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Padanaram to find a wife there, and that when he blessed him he ordered him, "Do not marry one of the women of Canaan."

6When Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob, and sent him away to Padanaram, to take him a wife from thence; and that as he blessed him he gave him a charge, saying, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan;

7He also saw that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and had gone to Padanaram.

7And that Jacob obeyed his father and his mother, and was gone to Padanaram;

8And Esau saw that his father Isaac was not pleased with the women of Canaan.

8And Esau seeing that the daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father;

9So Esau went to Ishmael's family and married Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, and the sister of Nebajoth. He added her to the wives he already had.

9Then went Esau unto Ishmael, and took unto the wives which he had Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife.

NoteIshmael was Abraham's older son by Hagar, and so Isaac's half-brother; Esau is therefore marrying a first cousin once removed within Abraham's wider family, rather than a Canaanite. Nebajoth was Ishmael's firstborn, named here to identify Mahalath by her most prominent brother. Having more than one wife was normal and legal in this setting, which is why she is simply "added" to the wives Esau already had.

10Jacob left Beersheba and traveled toward Haran.

10And Jacob went out from Beersheba, and went toward Haran.

NoteBeersheba lay at the southern edge of settled Canaan; Haran lay far to the north, in what is now Turkey. The journey was roughly 500 miles on foot.

11He came upon a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. He took some of the stones of that place, put them under his head, and lay down there to sleep.

11And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep.

Note"A certain place" translates a Hebrew word that can also mean a sacred site or shrine, and the storyteller may be hinting at that sense. The stone under his head served as a headrest, a normal traveler's arrangement, not a hardship being emphasized.

12He dreamed, and there was a ladder standing on the ground with its top reaching to heaven. And there were the angels of God going up and coming down on it.

12And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.

NoteThe Hebrew word translated "ladder" appears nowhere else in the Bible; it comes from a root meaning to heap or cast up, and may describe a ramp or a flight of steps as easily as a rung ladder. Readers have long compared it to the great stepped temple-towers of Mesopotamia, whose stairways were thought of as the route between earth and the gods.

13And there was the LORD, standing above it, saying, "I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac. The land you are lying on I will give to you and to your descendants.

13And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed;

Note"The LORD" in capitals stands for the personal name of Israel's God, four Hebrew consonants usually written YHWH, which Jewish tradition came not to pronounce aloud; where it appears in capitals the underlying text has that name rather than the ordinary word for "god." "Standing above it" is ambiguous in Hebrew: it can mean above the ladder, at the top of it, or standing beside Jacob himself. "Abraham your father" uses "father" in the wide sense of ancestor, Abraham was Jacob's grandfather.

14Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west, the east, the north, and the south. Through you and through your descendants all the families of the earth will be blessed.

14And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

Note"Like the dust of the earth" is a stock comparison for an uncountable quantity. The last clause is genuinely ambiguous in Hebrew: the verb can mean that all the families of the earth will be blessed through Jacob, or that they will invoke his name when blessing one another, saying, in effect, "may you be blessed as Jacob was."

15And here I am with you. I will keep you safe everywhere you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."

15And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.

16Jacob woke up from his sleep and said, "The LORD is surely in this place, and I did not know it."

16And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not.

17He was afraid, and he said, "How awesome this place is! This is nothing less than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven."

17And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.

Note"Dreadful" in 1611 English meant awe-inspiring, filling one with dread in the old sense of overwhelming reverence, not horrible or unpleasant. "The house of God" and "the gate of heaven" are both terms used of temples in the ancient Near East: a house where a god was present, and a doorway between the human world and the divine one.

18Jacob got up early in the morning and took the stone he had put under his head. He set it up as a standing pillar and poured oil on the top of it.

18And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it.

NoteA standing stone of this kind, called a matzevah in Hebrew, was a common way of marking a place where something significant had happened or where a god had been encountered. Pouring oil over the top set it apart for that purpose, a recognized ritual gesture rather than an anointing of a person.

19He named that place Bethel, though the city had been called Luz before that.

19And he called the name of that place Bethel: but the name of that city was called Luz at the first.

Note"Bethel" is Hebrew for "house of God," the exact phrase Jacob used in verse 17; the name and his words are a deliberate pair, which is invisible in English. Luz was the town's ordinary Canaanite name, and the narrator notes it because the site was known by both.

20Then Jacob made a vow. He said, "If God will be with me, and will keep me safe on this journey I am taking, and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear,

20And Jacob vowed 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 raiment to put on,

NoteVows in this culture followed a fixed conditional form: if the god does X, then I will do Y. Jacob is not bargaining unusually; he is using the standard wording. "Bread to eat and clothes to wear" is a set pair meaning basic subsistence, food and covering, nothing more.

21so that I come back to my father's house in peace, then the LORD will be my God.

21So that I come again to my father’s house in peace; then shall the LORD be my God:

NoteWhere the condition stops and the promise begins is disputed. The sentence can be read as it is here, with "then the LORD will be my God" as what Jacob promises, or with that clause still part of the "if" (if the LORD proves to be my God), so that Jacob's promise begins only at verse 22.

22And this stone, which I have set up as a pillar, will be God's house. And of everything you give me I will give you a tenth for certain."

22And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.

NoteGiving a tenth of income or produce was a recognized way of making a fixed, recurring offering to a god or a sanctuary in the ancient Near East, and to a king as tribute; Jacob is committing to a known practice, later called the tithe. Saying the stone "will be God's house" means the site will function as a sanctuary, the pillar marking it.