(Genesis 27:41 - 28:22)
Esau continued to nurture a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing he had received from their father. He thought to himself, “The period of mourning for our father will soon be upon us; it is then that I will kill my brother Jacob."
Rebecca heard about Esau's threat. Summoning her younger son Jacob, she warned him, “Listen, your brother Esau is planning to avenge himself by killing you. You must follow my advice: leave here at once and go to Haran, to my brother Laban. Stay with him for a time until your brother has calmed down. When he has gotten over being angry and has forgotten what you did to him, I will send word to you that you may come back. --- Why should I be deprived of both my sons at the same time?"
Rebecca complained to Isaac, “Those Hethite daughters-in-law of mine are making my life miserable. I'd sooner be dead than have Jacob marry one of those women.”
Isaac sent for Jacob. He blessed him again and advised him, "Don't marry a woman of the Canaanite race. Instead go and make a journey to the Plain of Aram in Mesopotamia, to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father and marry one of the daughters of your mother's brother Laban. And may the Great Jehovah bless you and grant you a large family and progeny, and may he bestow the blessings of Abraham upon you and your children that they may take possession of the land in which we now live as strangers, as was promised to your grandfather."
After Isaac had bid him farewell, Jacob embarked upon the journey to Aram to see Laban, the son of Bethuel and the sister of his mother Rebecca.
Esau learned that after his father had blessed him, Jacob had been sent to Mesopotamia to take a wife there and also that he had advised him "Don't marry a woman of the Canaanite race." He learned that Jacob had obeyed his parents and had traveled to Aram. Aware of the distaste Isaac had for Canaanite women, Esau therefore went to visit the family of his uncle Ishmael, Abraham's son, and married Mahalath, Ishmael's daughter and the sister of Nebajoth. (This was in addition to the wives Esau already had.)
After leaving Beersheba, Jacob made his way to Haran. He stopped to rest at what would be a sacred place and, since the sun was setting, he decided to spend the night there. Taking one of the stones that were lying about, he used it for a pillow. He fell to sleep and dreamed, and in the dream he saw standing on the ground a staircase that reached far up into the sky. Extraterrestrials were going up and down its steps. Next, Jehovah appeared, standing beside him. Jehovah spoke to him, "I am the god and the master of your forefather Abraham, and the god of Isaac. The land where you now sleep, I will bequeath to you and your posterity. And that posterity will be like the dust of the earth and the wind will spread it in all directions, to the west, the east, the north, and the south. Through you and your progeny all the peoples of the earth will be blessed. And remember, I will always be looking out for you, regardless of where you may go. I will eventually bring you back to this land, for I will not forsake you until I have fulfilled all that I have promised.”
When Jacob woke from his sleep, he marveled "Jehovah is no doubt here in this very place, and I didn't even know it!" He trembled when he observed, “This place is awe inspiring! It can only be the abode of Jehovah, an entrance to his otherworldly realm."
Jacob got up early in the morning. He took the stone he had used as a pillow and stood it upright upon the ground, anointing the top of it with olive oil. This place, which had been called Luz, he renamed Bethel [city of God]. Then Jacob made a vow, "If Jehovah will be there to protect me on my journey, to give me food to eat and clothes to wear, and to bring me safely back to my father’s home, then Jehovah will be my god. This stone will be the cornerstone of his temple, and I will give to him as a tithe a percentage of everything I acquire."
Notes
1. Esau, understandably angry, makes secret plans to murder Jacob, but, by means not revealed in the narrative, Rebecca comes to hear of his plan and warns Jacob, again giving him orders and telling him what to do. The remark that she does not want to be deprived of the company of both of her sons at once probably means that if Esau kills Jacob, Esau will be exiled for the crime and she will have lost both sons. Isaac, who hasn't kicked the bucket yet, seems to harbor no ill feelings toward his conniving wife or toward Jacob, who, at best, has made a fool of him. He listens to Rebecca, who seems to rule the roost, and sends Jacob away to his family in Mesopotamia to get a wife. (He does not follow his father's example of sending a servant to do the job.) So far, Jacob doesn't seem to have benefited from his fraudulently obtained birthright and blessing and will now have to leave the family tent and fend for himself.
2. Esau is reminded of his parent's disapproval of Canaanite women. He had married two of them (Hethites) and his mother apparently couldn’t stand them. Apparently to please his parents, Esau, the first really serious polygamist, marries for a third time, his first cousin, the daughter of Ishmael. It is perhaps an uncomfortable analogy, but the Hebrew prohibition against marrying Canaanites reminds one of the Nazi prohibition against marrying Jews, if not all the modern taboos against miscegenation.
3. Isaac’s relatives still live in northwestern Mesopotamia near Syria, on the plain of Aram (Paddanaram). Haran is the town where Bethuel and Laban, who are often called Arameans, live.
4. Jacob's staircase or ladder appears to him in an intriguing dream or vision. (Since ladders are usually of a width to accommodate only one person and in the dream beings are being seen going up and down, presumably at the same time, I have concluded that “staircase” would be a more accurate description of what he saw.) It is well established that Jehovah is able to manipulate men's dreams and communicate with them telepathically. The staircase was either a physical staircase, as we know it, with steps, or it is something that functioned as such, perhaps even something exotic like a beam of light that beings could transit up and down. The staircase, if it was physical, may have reached up to a vehicle in the sky that Jacob could not see. (It was night) If it was non-physical, it may have been a means by which extraterrestrials could travel to earth via another dimension. Extraterrestrial beings were seen by Jacob moving up and down the staircase, in other words, coming and departing from earth, or the physical plane.
5. At the site where he had experienced this numinous dream, Jacob vows to build a temple. It is fair to say that all over the world, during ancient times and even later, men have built temples and churches and shrines on the sites where extraterrestrial encounters have occurred. It is natural to regard these places as special whether they really were or not. (The location of the encounter could be a matter of accident.) These places tend to be regarded as sacred, even by more than one religion. The sites may be selected landing places for extraterrestrial vehicles or places of disembarkation for otherworldly visitors. It is possible, as well, that these sites are, in fact, gateways to other dimensions or areas in which some not-yet-understood earth energy is concentrated or in which ley lines (if they exist) converge.
6. While it is surprising that Jacob is not already a devotee of Jehovah, he, upon witnessing the vision of the ladder and hearing oft-repeated pledge of Jehovah to endow Abraham's descendants with a magnificent destiny, does become a believer and a worshiper. He strikes the classic deal that ancient men always made with their gods. “I will worship you, perform the ceremonies you want, make sacrifices to you, build you temples, and give you a cut of the take, if you will endow me with material success and good fortune.” Quid pro quo. There is, at this point, no promise by Jehovah of otherworldly rewards, afterlife in Heaven, resurrection, eternal life, nothing of that sort, only the promise of earthly grandeur to descendants. And there is no obligation upon Jacob to adhere to any moral standards. (This is not unusual, for religion and morality were only closely connected later in man’s history.)
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