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Genesis 28 — 3 wives are better than 1

Esau wants to get back at his lousy parents for being cheated out of everything and made a slave, so he decides a good way to do this is marry yet again, this time to a woman of the much hated Canaanites. That will teach them! There seems to be a mixing of names for these people: Canaanites, Hittites, Philistines, etc. I wonder if some distinction is made later or not.

In any case, Jacob has a dream with a magical ladder, or stairway to heaven (or "staircase to heaven", as I sometimes jokingly call the song). God tells him that " in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed." (KJV, 28:14) Not just his descendants, but all families on earth are blessed. I wonder if the people who are massacred at various times in later books realized how blessed they really were.

One thing to note is that Jacob, while clearly amazed at this dream, doesn’t just completely take it on face value; he wants proof (28:20-22 KJV)

"If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment [clothes] to put on, So that I come again to my father’s house in peace; then shall the LORD be my God"

So only if God does this, will Jacob take the Lord into his heart. I think that Christians nowadays should heed this: I’ll only worship God if he takes care of me. Of course, I’m sure many people can convince themselves that God is taking care of them even when he isn’t (the Devil may have destroyed my house in that hurricane, but at least the Lord protected my basement!).

Jacob continues: "And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that thou
shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee." This is tithing, a practice that some still practice today. Because God isn’t rich enough, we need to give him a tenth of everything we own. Of course, in real life, it’s the church or the priests that get this tenth, often to divide as they (and/or the church elders) please. Methinks some crafty priests may have come up with this tithing idea…

In the dream God promises to be with Jacob and all his descendants (and depending on your interpretation, it sounds like he is even willing to bless all families this time; how open-minded of him for once). In the dream, God even says " I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you." (NIV 28:15). Will God provide for Jacob and all families in the rest of the Bible? I fear alas that it was only a dream…

PS Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright© 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. All rights reserved.