Genesis 28:10-17

Genesis 28:10

Jacob makes his brother's hunger an occasion for bargaining with him for his birthright. Esau says, "What profit shall this birthright do to me?" Neither one nor the other knew what good it would do. The vision of something to be realised now or hereafter dawned upon Jacob a vision probably mixed with many sensual and selfish expectations, still of a good not tangible, a good which must come to him as a gift from God. The absence of all want, all discontent with the present and the visible, is the feeling which exhibits itself in the acts and utterances of Esau.

I. The vision at Bethel was the first step in Jacob's Divine education the assurance which raised him to the feelings and dignity of a man. He knew that though he was to be chief of no hunting tribe, there might yet come forth from him a blessing to the whole earth.

II. Jacob's vision came to him in a dream. But that which had been revealed was a permanent reality, a fact to accompany him through all his after-existence. The great question we have to ask ourselves is, Was this a factfor Jacob the Mesopotamian shepherd, and is it a phantasm for all ages to come? or was it a truth which Jacob was to learn that it might be declared to his seed after him, and that they might be acquainted with it as he was, but in a fuller and deeper sense? If we take the Bible for our guide we must accept the latter conclusion and not the former. The Son of Man is the ladder between earth and heaven, between the Father above and His children upon earth which explains and reconciles all previous visions, and shows how angels and men can meet and hold converse with each other.

F. D. Maurice, The Patriarchs and Lawgivers of the Old Testament,p. 100.

References: Genesis 28:10. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. v., p. 25.Genesis 28:10. S. A. Brooke, Sermons,2nd series, pp. 231, 249; E. Irving, Collected Works,vol. iii., p. 500; Parker, vol. i., p. 274; Sermons for Boys and Girls(1880), p. 116; Homiletic Quarterly,vol. iii., p. 537; Preacher's Monthly,vol. i., p. 181.