Genesis 35-37:24

Jacob seeks to honor God by building an altar at Bethel, because He is "the God who answered me in my hour of distress, and who has been with me wherever I have gone." Trying to understand this Old Testament God has been very difficult for me at times, to this point. But this acknowledgement by Jacob is a very comforting concept for me.  God reiterates His promise of the covenant, this time to Jacon (now called Israel) that he will makes his descendants numerous, and God repeats his exhortation to "be fruitful and multiply." After Rachel dies, Israel retains home to his father, Isaac. Isaac, too, passes away at a very old age.  The focus of the story now shifts to Israel's favorite son, Joseph. What is it with these Old Testament parents and their habit of playing favorites.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I am a parent and this notion of having a favorite is completely foreign to me. Anyway, Joseph's older brothers grow to resent him--not surprisingly. They plot to kill Joseph, but one of his brothers, Reuben, intervenes and convinces them to, instead, throw Joseph down into a dry well.

Genesis 27-29

The theme of family dysfunction continues as Jacob with the help of Rebekah outwits Esau and Isaac to secure Isaac's special blessing near the end of his life. Jacob's "deception"--his "ruse"--makes him heir to God's covenant.  Esau, for his part, will be forced "far from the fertile  earth" and will have to serve his brother.  On his way to find a wife, on Isaac's instructions, Jacob falls asleep and has the dream that provides the title for this blog. This stairway to heaven (no Led Zeppelin jokes, please) reminds me of something I read a long time ago in the writings of Teresa of Avila, and which I am sure to misquote to some degree here--but the gist was "every sin is but another step on the spiral staircase to God."  How comforting those words have been to me over the years. Here, God's messengers descend and ascend the staircase, which I take to mean they bring God's message to us (ultimately a message of salvation embodied in Christ) and then serve to guide us on the path back to Him. It is a path from this place, to which God banished Adam and Eve, up to heaven.  Jacob goes on to the dwelling of Laban, his mother's brother, where he is the victim of a deception himself.  He is tricked into marrying Laban's daughter, Leah, when it is her sister, Rachel whom he loves--loves so much that Jacob "burst into tears" the first time he kisses her. Laban's deception causes Jacob to have to stay an extra 7 years serving Laban. But as this section of the story ends, it is Leah who bears son after son in an effort to please Jacob and win his love, while Rachel remains barren.