After Esau found that he had lost
his birthright and his blessing, he was very angry
against his brother Jacob; and he said to himself,
and told others:
“My father Isaac is very old
and cannot live long. As soon as he is dead,
then I shall kill Jacob for having robbed me of my
right.”
When Rebekah heard this, she said
to Jacob, “Before it is too late, do you go
away from home and get out of Esau’s sight.
Perhaps when Esau sees you no longer, he will forget
his anger, and then you can come home again.
Go and visit my brother Laban, your uncle, in Haran,
and stay with him for a little while.”
We must remember that Rebekah came
from the family of Nahor, Abraham’s younger
brother, who lived in Haran, a long distance to the
northeast of Canaan, and that Laban was Rebekah’s
brother.
So Jacob went out of Beersheba, on
the border of the desert, and walked alone, carrying
his staff in his hand. One evening, just about
sunset, he came to a place among the mountains, more
than sixty miles distant from his home. And as
he had no bed to lie down upon, he took a stone and
rested his head upon it for a pillow, and lay down
to sleep.
And on that night Jacob had a wonderful
dream. In his dream he saw stairs leading from
the earth where he lay up to heaven; and angels were
going up and coming down upon the stairs. And
above the stairs, he saw the Lord God standing.
And God said to Jacob:
“I am the Lord, the God of Abraham,
and the God of Isaac your father; and I will be your
God, too. The land where you are lying all alone,
shall belong to you and to your children after you;
and your children shall spread abroad over the lands,
east and west, and north and south, like the dust
of the earth; and in your family all the world shall
receive a blessing. And I am with you in your
journey, and I will keep you where you are going,
and will bring you back to this land. I will
never leave you, and I will surely keep my promise
to you.”
And in the morning Jacob awakened
from his sleep, and he said:
“Surely, the Lord is in this
place, and I did not know it! I thought that
I was all alone, but God has been with me. This
place is the house of God; it is the gate of heaven!”
And Jacob took the stone on which
his head had rested, and he set it up as a pillar,
and poured oil on it as an offering to God. And
Jacob named that place Bethel, which in the language
that Jacob spoke means “The House of God.”
And Jacob made a promise to God at that time, and
said:
“If God really will go with
me and will keep me in the way that I go, and will
give me bread to eat and will bring me to my father’s
house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God:
and this stone shall be the house of God, and of all
that God gives me I will give back to God one-tenth
as an offering.”
Then Jacob went onward in his long
journey. He walked across the river Jordan in
a shallow place, feeling his way with his staff; he
climbed mountains and journeyed beside the great desert
on the east, and at last came to the city of Haran.
Beside the city was the well, where Abraham’s
servant had met Jacob’s mother, Rebekah; and
there, after Jacob had waited for a time, he saw a
young woman coming with her sheep to give them water.
Then Jacob took off the flat stone
that was over the mouth of the well, and drew water
and gave it to the sheep. And when he found that
this young woman was his own cousin Rachel, the daughter
of Laban, he was so glad that he wept for joy.
And at that moment he began to love Rachel, and longed
to have her for his wife.
Rachel’s father, Laban, who
was Jacob’s uncle, gave a welcome to Jacob,
and took him into his home.
And Jacob asked Laban if he would
give his daughter, Rachel, to him as his wife; and
Jacob said, “If you give me Rachel, I will work
for you seven years.”
And Laban said, “It is better
that you should have her, than that a stranger should
marry her.”
So Jacob lived seven years in Laban’s
house, caring for his sheep and oxen and camels; but
his love for Rachel made the time seem short.
At last the day came for the marriage;
and they brought in the bride, who, after the manner
of that land, was covered with a thick veil, so that
her face could not be seen. And she was married
to Jacob, and when Jacob lifted up her veil he found
that he had married, not Rachel, but her older sister,
Leah, who was not beautiful, and whom Jacob did not
love at all.
Jacob was very angry that he had been
deceived, though that was just the way
in which Jacob himself had deceived his father and
cheated his brother Esau. But his uncle Laban
said:
“In our land we never allow
the younger daughter to be married before the older
daughter. Keep Leah for your wife, and work for
me seven years longer, and you shall have Rachel also.”
For in those times, as we have seen,
men often had two wives, or even more than two.
So Jacob stayed seven years more, fourteen years in
all, before he received Rachel as his wife.
While Jacob was living at Haran, eleven
sons were born to him. But only one of these
was the child of Rachel, whom Jacob loved. This
son was Joseph, who was dearer to Jacob than any other
of his children, partly because he was the youngest,
and because he was the child of his beloved Rachel.