So Isaac called for Jacob, blessed him, and said, “You must not
marry any of these Canaanite women. Instead, go at once to Paddan-aram, to
the house of your grandfather Bethuel, and marry one of your uncle Laban’s
daughters. May God Almighty bless you and give you many children. And
may your descendants multiply and become many nations! May God pass on to
you and your descendants the blessings he promised to Abraham. May you own
this land where you are now living as a foreigner, for God gave this land to
Abraham.”
So Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to Paddan-aram to stay
with his uncle Laban, his mother’s brother, the son of Bethuel the Aramean.
Esau knew that his father, Isaac, had blessed Jacob and sent him
to Paddan-aram to find a wife, and that he had warned Jacob, “You must not
marry a Canaanite woman.” He also knew that Jacob had obeyed his parents
and gone to Paddan-aram. It was now very clear to Esau that his father did
not like the local Canaanite women. So Esau visited his uncle Ishmael’s
family and married one of Ishmael’s daughters, in addition to the wives he
already had. His new wife’s name was Mahalath. She was the sister of Nebaioth
and the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son.
Meanwhile,
Jacob left Beersheba and traveled toward Haran. At sundown he arrived at
a good place to set up camp and stopped there for the night. Jacob found a
stone to rest his head against and lay down to sleep. As he slept, he
dreamed of a stairway that reached from the earth up to heaven. And he saw the
angels of God going up and down the stairway.
At the top of the stairway stood the Lord, and he said, “I
am the Lord, the God of your grandfather Abraham, and the God of your father,
Isaac. The ground you are lying on belongs to you. I am giving it to you and
your descendants. Your descendants will be as numerous as the dust of the
earth! They will spread out in all directions—to the west and the east, to the
north and the south. And all the families of the earth will be blessed through
you and your descendants. What’s more, I am with you, and I will protect
you wherever you go. One day I will bring you back to this land. I will not
leave you until I have finished giving you everything I have promised you.”
Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is
in this place, and I wasn’t even aware of it!” But he was also afraid and
said, “What an awesome place this is! It is none other than the house of God,
the very gateway to heaven!”
The next morning Jacob got up very early. He took the stone he
had rested his head against, and he set it upright as a memorial pillar. Then
he poured olive oil over it. He named that place Bethel (which means
“house of God”), although it was previously called Luz.
Then Jacob made this vow: “If God will indeed be with me and
protect me on this journey, and if he will provide me with food and clothing, and
if I return safely to my father’s home, then the Lord will certainly be my
God. And this memorial pillar I have set up will become a place for worshiping
God, and I will present to God a tenth of everything he gives me.”
~
Source : Genesis 28:1-22 [Holy Bible -NLT] taken from
https://www.biblegateway.com
No comments:
Post a Comment