■» Behold, (away) from the fatnc» of the earth ahall be thy dwellinj;. And (away) from the dew of heoven above .
JACOB
527
M And by thy swonl sbalt thou live, and thou sbolt Ber\'e thy brother ; And It shall come to pass, aa thou roamest about at largi. - That thou shalt break hii) yoke from oS thy ne^lc
The contrast to v." is manifest. The reference is to the relatively rocky and arid territory of the Edomites, which obliged its inhabitants to find their livelihood elsewhere, by means of war and plumler. In v.** the doom ol subjection to Jacob IS not revoked ; but it is limited in duration : the time will come when, after repe.-ited efIorts,l Kdom will regain its freedom. Edom revolted from Judah in tlie reign of Jelioram (2 K 8™--"-') : no doubt, circumstances with which we are un- aciiuainted, — perhaps a series of abortive ellorts preceding the final success, — suggested the terms of v.*"".
Jacob's treatment of his brother was followed bv its natural consequences. Esau ' hated Jacoli becau.se of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him,' and only waited for his fathers death in order to take vengeance on him. But his mother, Kebekah, ever watchful of the interests of her favourite son, urged him to llee forthwith to her brother Laban, in IJaran (across the Euphrates, on the lielikh, N.N.E. of Palestine), and to remain with him until Esau's resentment should have been dulled by time (27«-").
At this point the compiler of the Book of Genesis has inserted a passage (27-'°-28') from P, suggesting an entirely dillerent motive for Jacob's visit— it is nut here spoken of as & flight — to Laban. Esau, the same narrator had stated previously (26*"), had, to his parents' great vexation, taken two ' Uittite ' w ives ; and now Rebekah, fearful lest Jacob should do the same, mentions her appre- hensions to Isaac, who thereupon charges Jacob to journey to Paddan-aram, and find there a wife among the daughters of his uncle Laban. Jacob obeys ; and dejiarts accordingly with his father's blessing. J It is of course true that, in itself, this representation is not inconsistent with that in 27-U-41S . ,„eii notoriously act often under the influ- ence of more motives than one ; and Rebekah may not have mentioned to Isaac her principal motive for wishing .Jacob to leave his home. But presenting, as this paragraph does, all the literary marks of a hand dillerent from the author of 27]-**, there can be no doubt tliat it forms part of a different repre- sentation of the current of events.
28"'--§ forms the true sequel of 27'". Jacob starts from Beersheba, on his journey to Haran. Travelling northwards through Canjian, he lights upon a spot where he passes the night. Even now the soil at Bethel is 'covered, as with grave- stones, by large sheet-s of bare rocks, some few standing up here and there like cromlechs ' (Stanley, S. and P. 219), and the hill a little to the s.E. rises to its top in terraces of stone.U He dreams ; and in his dream the natural features of the locality shape them.selves into a ' ladder,' or flight of stone steps, rising up to heaven ; angels are ascending and descending upon it ; and by his sideH (V." KVm) stands J", addressing him in words of encouragement and hope, promising him a countless posterity, who will possess the land on
• This as Arabic shows, is the meaning of nlrf, which occurs elsewhere in the OT only Jer S"", I'b t.S"' (Eng. » : KV 'am restless'). llo8ll""(?); cf- D'ln? I* 1' S>» (KVm), Is 68'. t Such seems to be the force ol l-i? V?': : •« Belitm-h. t Notice, in the phro-iini; of Ss** the iKiintd of contact with previous prouilsis or bl.»«im,-» in 1": '(io<l AInni-htv,' as 17' a/. ; Mnakc fruitful and mulliplv,' •* IT" 4S* (cl. la* ol 7 S.M1):
r i>coplcB,' as " '
71). • l'a<l.lr
coniiMiiiv of i>coplcB,* as Sfi'i 4»*; 17» (A. wi' 37^ ■ l'a<blan.anuii,J alwi (for Anim-naharaiuiX as
' land of thy N>Joummt.'s.' as
reinilarlv in 1> (2i» SI'" 331» Si» » llU^).
4 ••Slij' 1» IS »e>m to Iw from J : 2»" H " " from E.
I In llie PKh' Mrm. 11. 30.'.. there is • view ol a IVT* ' gUgal or circle of Mioneii, near Bethel.
•i I'roperly, ' (bewting) over him.'
528
JACOB
JACOB
which he lies, and assuring him that He will be with him on his journevin^s, and will brin;,' him back in safety to tlie land he is leaving. The dream represents under a striking symbolism the thought that heaven and earth are connected, that an ever-present providence watches over the destinies of men, and also, in particular, that lliis ■was a place in wliich above others God was mani- fest upon earth, and which deserved pre-eminently to be termed His ' house.' As a mark of the sacredness of the spot, Jacob consecrates the boulder on which his head had rested, setting it up as a ' pillar,' and pourin" oil upon the top of it : he also promises solemnly, if he returns home in safety, to make it a ' house of God,' and to pay J" tithes of all his gains. Betlkel became after- wards a famous and much-frequented sanctuary (Am 7" etc.); and no doubt it was the 'pillar,' tliat would natiirally stand beside its altar (Am 3'* : cf. Hos 10'), and. the custom of paj-ing tithes there (Am 4*), the origin of both of which was thus attributed hy tradition to Jacob. The Phoe- nicians believed in \i8oi Ifi^j/irxoi (Eus. Prirp. Ev. i. 10. 18) ; and there are many traces in antiquity of stones, esteemed as sacred, being anointed with oil (\Woi \iirapol), and venerated as divine (Arnob. adv. Gent. i. 39, vi. 11 ; Is 57" : cf. vol. i. p. '278" ; also W. R. Smith, RS'^ 109, 184-188, 214 f. [= 116, 201-205, 232 f.]);* and the sacred 'pillar,' or monolith, of Bethel, it is difficult not to tliink, must in its actual origin have been regarded simi- larly as a shrine or abode of the deity ; but in the existing narrative the idea may possibly be that Jacob venerated it as the channel through which he received his dream. t