Genesis 28 Study Notes
Share
28:1-2 As with Abraham in the previous generation, Isaac was concerned that his youngest son not marry a Canaanite girl (lit “daughters of Canaan”; cp. 24:3).
28:3-5 Before Jacob’s departure Isaac extended to him two major covenant blessings: offspring and land. The blessing of being fruitful was previously given to Adam (1:28), Noah and his sons (9:1,7), Abraham (17:6), and Ishmael (17:20). Isaac invoked it using the name El Shaddai (God Almighty), a name first revealed to Abraham (17:1; see note there). The second blessing was possession of the land God gave to Abraham, a blessing that only God could give. Having received these blessings, Jacob left for his mother’s ancestral home of Paddan-aram.
’erets
| Hebrew pronunciation | [EHR ehtz] |
| CSB translation | land |
| Uses in Genesis | 311 |
| Uses in the OT | 2,505 |
| Focus passage | Genesis 28:4,12-14 |
’Erets is one of the most common and flexible OT nouns, whose meanings seem derived from the idea of land (Gn 2:5). Often it refers to nations such as the land of Israel. ’Erets denotes area, region, homeland, country, or earth, the latter often in conjunction with “heaven” to represent the whole world (Gn 1:1; 20:1; 21:23; 30:25; 34:1). ’Erets means district (1Ch 13:2). It is soil (Lv 27:30) or dirt (Jr 17:13) but may suggest the land’s produce (Lv 27:30). ’Erets can involve distance (Gn 35:16), the surface of the ground (Jdg 6:37), or private property (Gn 23:15). ’Erets indicates the whole earth (Ps 66:4) or every land (Gn 41:57) as the inhabitants of the earth. It describes the depths of the earth (Is 44:23) and, with modifiers, the underworld (Ezk 26:20). “People of the land” can connote common people (Lv 4:27). “Field of the land” indicates open fields (Lv 25:31).
28:6-9 When Esau noticed that his father Isaac disapproved of the two Canaanite women he had married (26:34), he did not divorce them. Instead he added to them, taking his cousin Mahalath daughter of Ishmael as a third wife. Mahalath was also known as Basemath (36:3). Mahalath’s brother Nebaioth was Ishmael’s firstborn son (1Ch 1:29).
28:10-15 Jacob started northward on the approximately five-hundred-mile journey to Haran. At the end of one of his first days he stopped in central Palestine and camped outdoors. That night God appeared to him. Perhaps the stairway (a better translation than “ladder”) he dreamed of was a supernatural version of humanity’s Tower of Babylon (11:4), with God’s angels—and not sinful humans—using it to commute from heaven to earth. In the dream the Lord transferred to Jacob all the essential elements of the promises given originally to Abraham and Isaac.
Key features from Abraham’s era include the gift of land (12:7; 13:17); the promise of offspring as numerous as the dust of the earth (cp. 13:16); and peoples being blessed through Jacob and his offspring (cp. 12:3; 18:18). As with his father Isaac, God promised he would be with him wherever he went (26:24) and bring him back to the promised land.
28:16-19 No other person in the OT is recorded as anointing a sacred stone; Jacob would do it twice (35:14). Jacob renamed the site Bethel (“House of God”), a name that would be retained throughout Israelite history (Jdg 1:23; Neh 11:31).
28:20-22 Jacob is the only patriarch to make a vow. Though his words can appear selfish, the vow may simply contain a request that God would carry out the implications of the promises made in v. 15. Years later Jacob would confess that God had indeed kept the terms of his promises (35:3).