Jacob Dreams

What a Vision!

Scripture
Genesis 28-30

Observation
Jacob dreams of a stairway to heaven with angels ascending and descending and God above it. Abraham receives a message directly from God: I am the Lord... I will give you... you will be blessed... you will be a blessing... I will bring you back... I am with you... I will not leave you. We read in Gen 32:10 that Jacob left home with only a staff in his hand. The following chapters record how God fulfilled his word to Jacob.

Jacob is captivated by Rebecca, Laban's younger daughter. I have always thought how unfair it was to everyone involved that Laban gave Leah to Jacob instead of Rebecca. However, there is some interesting dialogue in the story of the two women and their maids bearing children. It begins, "When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren." Through the birth of four sons, Leah progresses from, "the Lord has seen my misery," at the birth of her firstborn, Reuben, to, "This time I will praise the Lord," after she had given birth to Judah.

It must have been agonizing for Rachel to witness the birth of ten of Jacob's sons by other women before we read that "God remembered Rachel; he listened to her and opened her womb."

Application
In looking deeper into this story, it appears it was God's design for Jacob to have twelve sons, and similarly, for Jesus, later in history, to have twelve disciples. In Revelation 21 we read of the twelve gates of the Holy City Jerusalem, on which were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, and the wall of the city which had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

Three out of four of Sheldon's and my grandparents had twelve children, but there was only one mother in each case. On Sheldon's mother's side there were ten siblings.

In Jacob's family there were four women, plus servants, I'm sure, to look after the twelve children. Essentially it was the jealousy and rivalry between the women that resulted in twelve tribes being born to Jacob.

Prayer
Lord, "all things work together for good, to those who love God" (Rom. 8:28). Help me always to be confident of this.

Comment
The KJV, NET, NES, all translate Romans 8: 28 as above. However, the NIV says, "in all things God works for the good of those who love him." I think there is a difference in meaning between the two. The latter to me implies that God is working among, and around all things, to bring about good. The former says to me, that the actual components of our lives are building blocks for God's purposes.