Genesis 28

Jacob’s Ladder at Beth-el

Isaac blesses Jacob with the blessing of Abraham and sends him to Padan-aram for a wife, while Esau adds another wife of his own. On the road Jacob dreams of a ladder to heaven, and the LORD stands there and gives him the covenant directly. Jacob wakes in awe, names the place Beth-el, and vows that the LORD will be his God.

Genesis chaptersChapter 28 of 50

After Jacob received his father’s blessing and Esau threatened him (Gen. 27:41–46). The text gives no year. Read with footnotes in Gospel Library

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Background

Jacob leaves home at Beer-sheba, where Isaac was then living (Gen. 26:23–25).

Jacob leaves home at Beer-sheba, where Isaac was then living (Gen. 26:23–25). Behind him is the scene of Gen. 27:1–40, in which Isaac pronounced a blessing on Jacob and Esau swore to kill him. Rebekah arranged his flight to her brother Laban at Haran (Gen. 27:41–46), and Isaac now sends him with a second blessing, this time given knowingly.

Genesis 28 is the first of three scenes in which the covenant with Abraham is renewed with Jacob: this chapter, Gen. 35:9–13, and Gen. 48:3–4. “It was through Jacob that the covenant of Abraham continued.” Later scripture comes back to the dream. Hosea looks back on the place: “he found him in Beth-el, and there he spake with us” (Hosea 12:4); Jesus tells Nathanael that he will see “the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man” (John 1:51); and President Marion G. Romney read the place as a pattern for the temple.

The chapter has five parts: Isaac’s charge and blessing (verses 1–5), Esau’s response (6–9), the dream and the LORD’s promise (10–15), Jacob’s waking and the naming of Beth-el (16–19), and his vow (20–22).

The thread through the chapter

Genesis 28 is about how the covenant made with Abraham becomes Jacob’s own.

Genesis 28 is about how the covenant made with Abraham becomes Jacob’s own. It reaches him twice, by two different hands. First Isaac gives it, knowing whom he blesses: “God Almighty bless thee… and give thee the blessing of Abraham” (verses 3–4). Then, on the road and alone, God gives it Himself: “I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac” (verse 13).

Jacob’s answer is the vow at the end of the chapter. God has introduced Himself by two other men’s names, and Jacob says, “then shall the LORD be my God” (verse 21). The conditions he sets are God’s own promises given back to Him (see the note on verse 20). Later the text shows that the vow was remembered: God calls Himself “the God of Beth-el, where thou anointedst the pillar, and where thou vowedst a vow unto me” (Gen. 31:13).

Esau stands at the edge of the chapter as the contrast. He acts after he has “seen” what pleases his father (verses 6 and 8), while of Jacob it is said that he “obeyed his father and his mother” (verse 7). And the chapter is a beginning, not an arrival. Jacob’s wrestle at the Jabbok (Gen. 32:24–30) is “the culmination of a process begun 20 years before at Bethel” (see the note on verse 17).

Tap any highlighted phrase to open a note beneath its versein the margin.

Verses 1–5

Isaac’s charge and blessing

In plain words

Isaac called Jacob, blessed him, and gave him a charge: “Do not marry a Canaanite woman. Go to Padan-aram, to the house of Bethuel, your mother’s father, and take a wife from the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother. May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and many, so that you become an assembly of peoples. May He give you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your descendants with you, so that you inherit the land where you now live as a stranger, which God gave to Abraham.” So Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to Laban, son of Bethuel the Syrian and brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau.

1 And Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, and charged him, and said unto him, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan.

Context #

Why Jacob must marry within the family

Isaac forbids a Canaanite wife because the covenant was meant to pass through a household that shared it.

Isaac forbids a Canaanite wife because the covenant was meant to pass through a household that shared it. The charge repeats an older one. Abraham made his servant swear not to take a wife for Isaac “of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell,” but to go “unto my country, and to my kindred” (Gen. 24:3–4). Esau, at forty, had married two Hittite women, who “were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah” (Gen. 26:34–35), and Rebekah told Isaac, “I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth” (Gen. 27:46). Her fear was for the covenant: if Jacob followed Esau, “all her life’s work, all her planning and teaching about the importance of the covenant God made with Abraham… would be worthless and wasted.” Esau’s “marriages to Canaanite women outside of the covenant” are among the ways he disregarded his birthright. So Jacob is sent “to adherents of the covenant” to find a wife, “to ensure the claiming of that covenant.”

Padan-aram, “the house of Bethuel,” is the country of Rebekah’s family. Haran, named in verse 10, is the city where Abraham first settled on leaving Ur and where his father Terah “tarried.” Laban is placed at both (Gen. 27:43; Gen. 28:2), and the lexicon locates Paddan, with a “perhaps,” “near Haran.” What Paddan itself meant is uncertain; the lexicon offers “garden, field” with a question mark.

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Andrew C. Skinner, “Jacob: Keeper of Covenants”, Ensign, Mar. 1998, 51. Aaron P. Schade, “Isaac and Jacob: Succession Narratives, Birthrights, and Blessings”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 335–84. Genesis 24–33, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025). “Haran”, Bible Dictionary. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.

2 Arise, go to Padan-aram, to the house of Bethuel thy mother’s father; and take thee a wife from thence of the daughters of Laban thy mother’s brother.

3 And God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people;

Language #

God Almighty and an assembly of peoples

Isaac blesses Jacob in the name by which God made His covenant with Abraham, and with a promise larger than a big family.

Isaac blesses Jacob in the name by which God made His covenant with Abraham, and with a promise larger than a big family. “God Almighty” is El Shaddai, the name God used when He told Abraham, “I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly” (Gen. 17:1–2); the note on that verse says what the name may mean. “A multitude of people” is, word for word, “an assembly of peoples” (liqhal ‘ammim). The Hebrew is plural, peoples and not a people, and qahal is an assembly called together; the lexicon glosses it “assembly, convocation, congregation,” and its examples include the gathering “to hear words of” the LORD at Horeb.

Isaac’s wish becomes God’s promise. When Jacob returns to Beth-el, God Himself says, “I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee” (Gen. 35:11), and the Hebrew has qahal again, “an assembly of nations.” Near the end of his life Jacob tells Joseph that God Almighty appeared to him at Luz and said, “I will make of thee a multitude of people” (Gen. 48:3–4), the same Hebrew words Isaac used here.

4 And give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee; that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave unto Abraham.

Related Scriptures #

The blessing of Abraham, given knowingly

“The blessing of Abraham” is the covenant itself, and Isaac gives it to Jacob knowing whom he blesses.

“The blessing of Abraham” is the covenant itself, and Isaac gives it to Jacob knowing whom he blesses. Abraham’s own account of it is in the Book of Abraham: a great nation, “this ministry and Priesthood” carried “unto all nations,” and all “the families of the earth” blessed through him and his seed (Abr. 2:9–11). Its promises include the assurances “that (1) Christ would come through his lineage, and that (2) Abraham’s posterity would receive certain lands as an eternal inheritance,” and the covenant was renewed with Isaac “and again with Jacob.” Isaac’s wording has the same two parts: “to thee, and to thy seed with thee,” and “that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave unto Abraham.”

The verse also answers a question left by chapter 27, where Isaac pronounced his blessing on Jacob thinking he was blessing Esau (see the note on Gen. 27:33). Here Isaac knows, and that is “an additional proof that Jacob received the blessing meant for him and that Isaac confirmed it upon him”: the blessings of the covenant “appear to have been intended for Jacob—not for Esau—and were not to be gained by deceit.” Genesis does not comment on the earlier scene itself; this is how Latter-day Saint sources read the two chapters together.

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Abraham, covenant of”, Bible Dictionary. Genesis 24–36: The Covenant Line Continues with Isaac and Jacob, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003). Aaron P. Schade, “Isaac and Jacob: Succession Narratives, Birthrights, and Blessings”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 335–84.

5 And Isaac sent away Jacob: and he went to Padan-aram unto Laban, son of Bethuel the Syrian, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob’s and Esau’s mother.

Verses 6–9

Esau’s answer

In plain words

Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him to Padan-aram to find a wife there, and that when he blessed him he had charged him not to marry a Canaanite woman; and that Jacob had obeyed his father and mother and gone to Padan-aram. Esau also saw that the Canaanite women did not please his father Isaac. So Esau went to Ishmael and, in addition to the wives he already had, married Mahalath, the daughter of Abraham’s son Ishmael and the sister of Nebajoth.

6 When Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob, and sent him away to Padan-aram, to take him a wife from thence; and that as he blessed him he gave him a charge, saying, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan;

7 And that Jacob obeyed his father and his mother, and was gone to Padan-aram;

8 And Esau seeing that the daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father;

9 Then went Esau unto Ishmael, and took unto the wives which he had Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife.

Context #

Esau’s third wife, a daughter of Ishmael

Esau answers his parents’ displeasure by marrying again, and still outside the line of promise.

Esau answers his parents’ displeasure by marrying again, and still outside the line of promise. The text twice says he “saw” (verses 6 and 8): Isaac had blessed Jacob, forbidden a Canaanite wife, and sent him away, and “the daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac.” So he goes “unto Ishmael,” meaning Ishmael’s family, since Ishmael had died (Gen. 25:17), and marries Mahalath “in addition to the wives he already had” (Hebrew ‘al nashav). He does not send the Canaanite wives away.

Mahalath is Abraham’s granddaughter, which looks like a step toward the family. But Ishmael’s line had been set apart from the family of promise (“in Isaac shall thy seed be called,” Gen. 21:12), and Esau’s life shows “disobedience and some displeasing choices of wives,” this marriage among them. One reading goes further: the marriage “only furnished another proof that he had no thought of the religious interests of the chosen family.” Mahalath is taken to be the “Bashemath” whom Gen. 36:3 calls Ishmael’s daughter and Nebajoth’s sister.

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. “Jacob”, Bible Dictionary. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Verses 10–15

The ladder and the promise

In plain words

Jacob left Beer-sheba and set out toward Haran. He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night because the sun had set. He took some of the stones of that place, put them under his head, and lay down to sleep. He dreamed: a ladder stood on the earth with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were going up and down on it. The LORD stood above it and said, “I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. The land on which you are lying I will give to you and to your descendants. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and the east, to the north and the south. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you and your descendants. I am with you, and I will keep you wherever you go and bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

10 And Jacob went out from Beer-sheba, and went toward Haran.

11 And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep.

12 And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.

Imagery #

A ladder, or a stairway

The Hebrew word for the ladder occurs only here, and it is not clear whether it means a ladder or “a ramp or stairway.”

The Hebrew word for the ladder occurs only here, and it is not clear whether it means a ladder or “a ramp or stairway.” Sullam is a masculine noun that the lexicon glosses “ladder,” and the lexicon lists no other verse. One proposed background is Mesopotamian: the comparable Akkadian word names what “the messenger of the gods uses when he wants to pass from one realm to another,” and that stairway is what the Babylonians “sought to represent in the architecture of the ziggurats” (their temple towers), built “to provide a way for the deity to descend to the temple and the town.” On this view “Jacob’s background would have given him familiarity with this concept.” It is a scholarly hypothesis, not something Genesis says.

Within the story the image is plainer. The ladder stands “on the earth,” where Jacob lies, and reaches to heaven. One reading takes it as “a visible symbol of the real and uninterrupted fellowship between God in heaven and His people upon earth,” with the angels carrying “up the wants of men to God” and bringing “down the assistance and protection of God to men,” and notes that it stands just where Jacob lay “in solitude, poor, helpless, and forsaken by men.”

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Aaron P. Schade, “Isaac and Jacob: Succession Narratives, Birthrights, and Blessings”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 335–84. Nicholas J. Frederick, “The Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament Gospels”, In Prophets and Prophecies of the Old Testament, ed. Aaron P. Schade, Brian M. Hauglid, and Kerry Muhlestein (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2017), 123–160. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Latter-day Prophets #

Rungs of covenant, rounds of glory

Latter-day prophets use the ladder as a picture of going up to God, and they name the rungs differently.

Latter-day prophets use the ladder as a picture of going up to God, and they name the rungs differently. President Marion G. Romney said that Jacob “realized that the covenants he made with the Lord there were the rungs on the ladder that he himself would have to climb in order to obtain the promised blessings—blessings that would entitle him to enter heaven and associate with the Lord.” Joseph Smith used the ladder when he spoke of Paul’s vision of the third heaven (2 Cor. 12:2): Paul “could understand the three principal rounds of Jacob’s Ladder, the Telestial, the Terrestrial and the Celestial glories or Kingdoms.”

The two statements were made for different purposes. Joseph Smith was explaining Paul, in a sermon the record places on 21 May 1843, and did not comment on the Genesis story itself; President Romney was explaining Jacob and the temple. What they share is the ladder as a way up into God’s presence, and Paul’s and Joseph Smith’s visions have been counted among the “Jacob-like experiences” of later prophets. Genesis names no rungs, so each is a prophet’s use of the image and not something the text states.

Sources: Marion G. Romney, “Temples—The Gates to Heaven”, Ensign, Mar. 1971, 12–16. Joseph Smith, History, 1838–1856, volume D-1 [1 August 1842–1 July 1843], The Joseph Smith Papers, page 1556 (sermon of 21 May 1843). Andrew C. Skinner, “Jacob: Keeper of Covenants”, Ensign, Mar. 1998, 51. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Witness of Christ #

Jesus takes the ladder’s place

Jesus points back to this verse when He meets Nathanael. He says, “Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man” (John 1:51).

Jesus points back to this verse when He meets Nathanael. He says, “Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man” (John 1:51). It is the dream of Genesis 28:12, with the angels now traveling on a person instead of on a ladder. The allusion can be read on two levels. Jesus is “reaffirming that the Abrahamic covenant is still in effect for Abraham’s descendants,” and He is also saying something about Himself: “He has become the ladder, the link uniting heaven and earth.” Set beside His later words, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved” (John 10:9), “Jesus, then, becomes the new Beth-el, the true ‘gate of heaven.’”

John never uses the word ladder. This is a reading of the allusion, and a well-grounded one, but it is a reading. In Genesis itself Christ is present in another way: the LORD who speaks in verse 13 is Jehovah, and “Jehovah is the premortal Jesus Christ.”

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Nicholas J. Frederick, “The Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament Gospels”, In Prophets and Prophecies of the Old Testament, ed. Aaron P. Schade, Brian M. Hauglid, and Kerry Muhlestein (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2017), 123–160. “Jehovah”, Bible Dictionary.

13 And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed;

Language #

Above it, or beside him

The Hebrew does not settle whether the LORD stood above the ladder or beside Jacob.

The Hebrew does not settle whether the LORD stood above the ladder or beside Jacob. The verb is nitsav, “take one’s stand,” and with the preposition ‘al the lexicon glosses it “by, on,” as when Abraham’s servant, looking for Rebekah, says, “I stand here by the well” (Gen. 24:13). The word here, ‘alav, can mean “over him” or “over it,” and both the ladder and Jacob are grammatically masculine. The versions divide. The KJV (with a footnote in the Latter-day Saint edition) and the NIV read “above it,” the NRSVUE reads “beside him,” and each gives the other possibility in a footnote. One reading takes it as above: “Above in heaven stood Jehovah, and explained in words the symbol which he saw.” Either way the LORD is present and speaks to Jacob in person.

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, National Council of Churches, 2021; on BibleGateway. New International Version, Biblica, 2011; on BibleGateway. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

14 And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

Related Scriptures #

“In thee and in thy seed”

The blessing for all the families of the earth is now spoken to Jacob, and it joins the two forms it had taken before.

The blessing for all the families of the earth is now spoken to Jacob, and it joins the two forms it had taken before. To Abraham it was first “in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Gen. 12:3), then “in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Gen. 22:18; to Isaac, Gen. 26:4). At Beth-el it is “in thee and in thy seed.” The Book of Abraham explains the pairing: “in thee (that is, in thy Priesthood) and in thy seed (that is, thy Priesthood)… shall all the families of the earth be blessed, even with the blessings of the Gospel, which are the blessings of salvation, even of life eternal” (Abr. 2:11). The note on Gen. 22:18 gives the New Testament and Book of Mormon reading of “seed.”

The promise to Jacob is fulfilled twice over. Paul names the seed as Christ (Gal. 3:16), and the promise “was literally fulfilled in the mortal advent of the Savior, Jesus Christ.” It is fulfilled again as Jacob’s seed, “all latter-day peoples who accept the restored gospel,” become “missionaries of the name and gospel of the Son of God.”

15 And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.

Verses 16–19

“The gate of heaven”

In plain words

Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it.” He was afraid and said, “How awesome this place is! This is nothing less than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” Early in the morning Jacob took the stone he had put under his head, set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on top of it. He called that place Beth-el, “house of God”; the city had been called Luz at first.

16 And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not.

17 And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.

Latter-day Prophets #

Bethel as a temple

Latter-day prophets read Bethel as a temple. President Marion G. Romney: “Because he had met the Lord and entered into covenants with him there, Jacob considered the site so…

Latter-day prophets read Bethel as a temple. President Marion G. Romney: “Because he had met the Lord and entered into covenants with him there, Jacob considered the site so sacred that he named the place Bethel,” and “Temples are to us all what Bethel was to Jacob.” Jacob “had a templelike experience on the occasion of this vision,” but it was a beginning. The promises given at Bethel “were conditional rather than absolute. Nowhere does the text say they were sealed or ratified with surety at this point,” and the text does not call this “the ultimate theophany,” which “would come later, after years of his righteousness.”

Jacob’s own words fit the reading. “How dreadful” translates a participle, nora’, that the lexicon also lists as an attribute of God Himself (“a mighty God and terrible,” Deut. 7:21). On one reading, Jacob did not doubt that God is everywhere, but did not imagine that Jehovah would be near him “even here, far away from his father’s house and from the places consecrated to His worship.”

Sources: Marion G. Romney, “Temples—The Gates to Heaven”, Ensign, Mar. 1971, 12–16. Andrew C. Skinner, “Jacob: Keeper of Covenants”, Ensign, Mar. 1998, 51. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

18 And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it.

Imagery #

A pillar anointed with oil

Jacob turns the stone he slept on into a marker of what he met there. A matstsevah (“pillar”) in this verse is “a stone, set up… and anointed as memorial of divine appearance,”…

Jacob turns the stone he slept on into a marker of what he met there. A matstsevah (“pillar”) in this verse is “a stone, set up… and anointed as memorial of divine appearance,” and with the oil Jacob “sanctified the site of his vision.”

The act is remembered. God later calls Himself “the God of Beth-el, where thou anointedst the pillar” (Gen. 31:13), and when Jacob comes back he sets up a pillar again and pours a drink offering and oil on it (Gen. 35:14).

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Andrew C. Skinner, “Jacob: Keeper of Covenants”, Ensign, Mar. 1998, 51. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

19 And he called the name of that place Beth-el: but the name of that city was called Luz at the first.

Context #

Beth-el, once Luz

Beth-el, “house of God,” is a new name for a place that already had a name and a history.

Beth-el, “house of God,” is a new name for a place that already had a name and a history. The lexicon lists Luz as the “former name of Bethel,” and Gen. 35:6 says “Luz… that is, Beth-el.” Beth-el became “one of the most sacred spots in Israel,” and it was already holy ground in Abraham’s day: “Here Abraham built his altar on his first arrival in Canaan.” Abraham had pitched his tent on a mountain east of Beth-el and “called upon the name of the LORD” there (Gen. 12:8; Abr. 2:20).

Genesis tells of a second naming when Jacob returns from Padan-aram: he calls the place El-beth-el and, after God appears to him again, names it Beth-el once more. Chapter 35 tells that story (Gen. 35:1–15).

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. “Bethel”, Bible Dictionary. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Verses 20–22

Jacob’s vow

In plain words

Then Jacob made a vow: “If God will be with me and will keep me on this journey, and will give me bread to eat and clothes to wear, so that I come back to my father’s house in peace, then the LORD will be my God, and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house. And of all that You give me, I will surely give You a tenth.”

20 And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, 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 to put on,

Language #

Jacob’s “if” repeats God’s own words

Jacob’s vow sounds like a bargain, but its conditions are the promises God has just made, in nearly the same Hebrew.

Jacob’s vow sounds like a bargain, but its conditions are the promises God has just made, in nearly the same Hebrew. God said, “I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land” (verse 15). Jacob answers, “If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go,” and, “So that I come again to my father’s house in peace” (verses 20–21). “With you” (‘immakh) becomes “with me” (‘immadi); “will keep thee” (ushmartikha) becomes “will keep me” (ushmarani); and God’s “I will bring thee back” (vahashivotikha) becomes Jacob’s “that I may return” (veshavti), from the same verb. Only the bread and clothing are Jacob’s own.

So the vow is less a bargain than an answer: Jacob “vowed, or covenanted, to live in complete harmony with God’s will.” God introduced Himself to Jacob as the God of Abraham and of Isaac (verse 13); Jacob’s “then shall the LORD be my God” (verse 21) names the LORD as his own. The text shows the vow kept in mind. At the end of his years in Padan-aram God says, “I am the God of Beth-el… where thou vowedst a vow unto me” (Gen. 31:13), and when Jacob returns he tells his household that God “answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went” (Gen. 35:3), which echoes the words of his vow in the past tense.

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Andrew C. Skinner, “Jacob: Keeper of Covenants”, Ensign, Mar. 1998, 51. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

21 So that I come again to my father’s house in peace; then shall the LORD be my God:

22 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.

Context #

Tithing before the law

Jacob promises a tenth of everything God will give him, long before any law required it.

Jacob promises a tenth of everything God will give him, long before any law required it. The Hebrew repeats the verb, literally “tithing I tithe to Thee” (‘asser ‘a‘asserennu), which the KJV renders “I will surely give the tenth.” Abraham’s payment to Melchizedek is the first recorded tithe (see the note on Gen. 14:20), and this vow comes next. Only later did the law direct the tithe to the Levites (Num. 18:21); then “the law enforced the payment and provided rules.” Jacob’s is a promise made to the LORD Himself, at what he has just called His house.

Genesis does not say how Jacob kept it. One reading infers from the altar he built at Beth-el on his return (Gen. 35:7) that he “probably also dedicated the tenth to God.”

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. “Tithe”, Bible Dictionary. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Seeing Christ in Genesis 28

The LORD who stands above the ladder and speaks to Jacob is Jehovah: Jacob “heard the voice of the Lord Jehovah, the premortal Christ.” What He promises points toward His own coming, for all the families of the earth would be blessed in Jacob’s seed (verse 14), and that seed is Christ (Gal. 3:16; see the note on verse 14). Jesus later takes the dream to Himself, telling Nathanael that the angels of God would be seen “ascending and descending upon the Son of man” (John 1:51); the note on verse 12 shows how that has been read.

Worth exploring next

The other two renewals. Gen. 35:1–15 (Jacob at Beth-el on his return) and Gen. 48:3–4 (Jacob recalls it to Joseph).
The wrestle at the Jabbok. Gen. 32:22–32. Andrew C. Skinner, “Jacob: Keeper of Covenants” (Ensign, Mar. 1998), follows the thread from Bethel to the Jabbok.
Temple language. Marion G. Romney, “Temples—The Gates to Heaven” (Ensign, Mar. 1971), with D&C 132:37.
Jesus and the ladder. John 1:47–51; John 10:9.
The covenant stated. Abr. 2:6–11; Gen. 22:15–18.
A prophet looks back. Hosea 12:3–5.

Sources & further reading

The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub.
Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, National Council of Churches, 2021; on BibleGateway.
New International Version, Biblica, 2011; on BibleGateway.
“Haran”, Bible Dictionary.
“Abraham, covenant of”, Bible Dictionary.
“Jacob”, Bible Dictionary.
“Jehovah”, Bible Dictionary.
“Bethel”, Bible Dictionary.
“Tithe”, Bible Dictionary.
Genesis 24–33, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025).
Genesis 24–36: The Covenant Line Continues with Isaac and Jacob, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003).
Aaron P. Schade, “Isaac and Jacob: Succession Narratives, Birthrights, and Blessings”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 335–84.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.
Andrew C. Skinner, “Jacob: Keeper of Covenants”, Ensign, Mar. 1998, 51.
Marion G. Romney, “Temples—The Gates to Heaven”, Ensign, Mar. 1971, 12–16.
Joseph Smith, History, 1838–1856, volume D-1 [1 August 1842–1 July 1843], The Joseph Smith Papers, page 1556 (sermon of 21 May 1843).
Nicholas J. Frederick, “The Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament Gospels”, In Prophets and Prophecies of the Old Testament, ed. Aaron P. Schade, Brian M. Hauglid, and Kerry Muhlestein (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2017), 123–160.

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