JACOB LEAVES HOME
In this chapter we will find Jacob leaving home. He comes to Bethel where God appears to him and confirms to him the covenant made to Abraham. Genesis 28 is the story of Jacob leaving home to begin his journey to Mesopotamia.
Based on recent events, however, it would be more accurate to describe it as fleeing from his home. Jacob’s brother Esau wants to kill him for cheating him out of Isaac’s blessing (Genesis 27:41).
No mention is made of that in this chapter, but this is the context driving Jacob’s flight. Isaac calls Jacob before him. Apparently, he has made some level of peace with Jacob’s deception.
Since Rebekah has appealed to Isaac to send him away (Genesis 27:46), it’s possible that Jacob needed more convincing, not yet understanding just how angry his brother Esau really was.
Isaac commands Jacob to go to Rebekah’s brother’s household in Paddan-aram to find a wife. Under no circumstances should Jacob marry a local Canaanite woman (Genesis 28:1–2).
Isaac also blesses Jacob again, this time giving to Jacob the full blessing of Abraham including a version of God’s promises to Abraham (Genesis 28:3–5). Once Jacob leaves, Esau learns that Isaac commanded Jacob not to marry a Canaanite woman.
Esau becomes aware, perhaps for the first time, that his father is not pleased with Esau’s two Canaanite wives from the tribe of the Hittites.
Possibly in an attempt to regain some of his father’s approval, Esau takes a third wife, one of the daughters of Isaac’s half brother Ishmael (Genesis 28:6–9).
Genesis 28:1-9 KJV
[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.
[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;
[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.
[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.
[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.
Genesis 28:1 KJV
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.
He entered fully into Rebekah‘s feelings, and the burden of his parting counsel to his son was to avoid a marriage alliance with any but the Mesopotamian branch of the family.
At the same time he gave him a solemn blessing – pronounced before unwittingly, now designedly, and with a cordial spirit. It is more explicitly and fully given, and Jacob was thus acknowledged “the heir of the promise.”
This verse begins by stating that Isaac called Jacob and blessed him. This comes after Jacob’s deception, an act of treachery which caused Isaac to literally tremble in a panic (Genesis 27:33). Apparently, Isaac has made peace with those events on some level.
He repeats a blessing to Jacob here and in the coming verses, this time knowing exactly who he is talking to. At the end of the previous chapter, Rebekah became aware of Esau’s vengeful intent to murder Jacob (Genesis 27:41).
She first urged Jacob to run away and stay with her brother in Mesopotamia until Esau’s fury passed (Genesis 27:43).
Next she seemingly manipulates Isaac to send Jacob away himself by convincing him that it would be a terrible thing for Jacob to marry a local Canaanite woman (Genesis 27:46). They had both been made miserable by Esau’s Hittite wives.
Instead, Jacob should find a wife among her brother’s people. Now we find Isaac acting on Rebekah’s suggestion, probably still unaware of Esau’s plan to kill Jacob. Instead, he has agreed with his wife and also with his own father.
Abraham had insisted that Isaac not marry a local Canaanite woman (Genesis 24:3). He did not want Isaac to assimilate into the local population. Now Isaac places a similar requirement on Jacob.
It was too late for Esau to not marry locally, but Jacob could still marry from among the women of his mother’s people.
Genesis 28:2 KJV
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.
All the way through the Old Testament we find that God does not want the godly to marry the ungodly.
That, again, is my reason for believing that in the sixth chapter of Genesis, where it says the sons of God looked upon the daughters of men, it is saying that the godly line married with the godless line of Cain.
This finally resulted in the judgment of the Flood with only one godly man left. As Abraham did for him, Isaac now insists that Jacob not marry a local, Canaanite woman.
His first motivation seems to be that Jacob’s brother Esau had married very poorly, bringing grief to Isaac and Rebekah. However, he may also have in mind Abraham’s motivation that the line of God’s people not be assimilated into the local population.
This motivation is spiritual, not racial, and later on God’s people will be explicitly forbidden to marry among the wicked Canaanites (Deuteronomy 7:1–4).
Abraham, old and possibly near death himself, had once sent his servant to find a wife for Isaac in Mesopotamia (Genesis 24:2–4). Isaac, also old and near death, is sending Jacob to find a wife for himself.
However, Isaac’s command is much more specific: Jacob is to marry a daughter of Laban, Rebekah’s brother. Though Jacob will do exactly this—twice, in fact—it doesn’t seem to leave much room for him to maneuver.
Perhaps Isaac knew of Rachel and Leah already and thought one of them would be a good wife for Jacob.
Genesis 28:3 KJV
And God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people;
After telling Jacob to travel to Paddan-aram, to the house of Rebekah’s father Bethuel, to find a wife, Isaac now gives to Jacob an even more complete blessing than he had before when he thought he was blessing Esau (Genesis 27:27–29).
This is the full blessing of the covenant between God and Abraham’s descendants. Perhaps even Isaac thought the full covenant blessing was inappropriate for Esau, given his disposition and intermarriage with Canaanite women (Genesis 25:29–34; 26:34–35).
In any case, Isaac begins here by asking God Almighty to bless Jacob by multiplying him with descendants. He prays for Jacob to become a company—or “community”—of peoples.
This language is similar to the promise God made to Abraham, that he would become a great nation. Jacob’s offspring will now become the next generations in the millions of people God promised would come from Abraham.
Genesis 28:4 KJV
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.
It is obvious now that Isaac understands that God had given the blessing to Abraham, that God had transferred it to him, and that this blessing is to be passed on to his son, Jacob.
Before Jacob heads to Mesopotamia to find a wife, also fleeing the wrath of Esau (Genesis 27:41), Isaac confers on him the covenant promises of God to Abraham. The previous verse included the blessing of many offspring.
Now Isaac describes Jacob as possessing the “blessing of Abraham” for his offspring to possess the promised land of Canaan.
It’s possible that Isaac didn’t offer this as part of his initial blessing—intended for Esau—because he knew Esau’s temperament and intermarriage made him ineligible for such a promise (Genesis 25:29–34; 26:34–35).
God will be faithful to keep His promises to Abraham through Isaac and now through Jacob and his children.
Jacob will leave Isaac’s household with both Isaac’s blessing for wealth and political power and the covenant blessing of God with Abraham for multitudes of offspring and possession of the land.
Genesis 28:5 KJV
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.
If you were to give the nationality of this family, you would have to say they were Syrians because that is what they are called in the Scriptures.
Sometimes the questions are asked:
Was Abraham a Jew?
Was he an Israelite?
No, actually he was not. There were no Israelites until the time of Jacob whose name was changed to Israel. His twelve sons were Israelites.
The line came from Abraham, he is the father of the race, but you’re not going to call Abraham a Midianite, I hope, and yet he is the father of the Midianites, also.
Sent away by both his mother and his father, Jacob leaves his home and sets out for household of his mother’s brother Laban. Laban lives in the house of his own father Bethuel, in Paddan-aram in Mesopotamia.
Jacob will apparently not return or see his family again for many years. The next time he sees his father, Isaac will be very close to death. Rebekah, though she greatly favors Jacob (Genesis 25:28), seemingly never sees her son again.
This is part of the price she pays for her role in deceiving her husband, Isaac (Genesis 27:5–13). Jacob, for his part, will experience a taste of his own deception when he attempts to obtain a wife from his relatives in this new country.
Genesis 28:6 KJV
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;
The story returns briefly to Esau, who has become something of a pathetic figure. Esau has lost his birthright and the family blessing from Isaac. He has also not been given the blessing of Abraham’s covenant with God.
Those covenant promises will flow through Jacob instead. Some of this is absolutely Esau’s own fault—he was willing to foolishly swear to sell his birthright for a bowl of soup (Genesis 27:29–34).
At the same time, the blessing Isaac intended for Esau was stolen by Jacob, using a complex disguise arranged by their mother, Rebekah (Genesis 27:6–13).
In addition to losing his blessings, Esau is aware that his marriage to two Hittite women displeases his parents.
He has heard about Isaac’s direction to Jacob not to marry from the local Canaanite women and of Jacob’s journey to Mesopotamia to marry one of their uncle’s daughters. In what appears to be an attempt to regain his father’s approval, Esau will take another wife.
Genesis 28:7 KJV
And that Jacob obeyed his father and his mother, and was gone to Padan–aram;
This continues a thought begun in the previous verse. Esau learned that Isaac had directed Jacob not to marry from among the local Canaanite women. Esau had already done just that.
He had married two women of the Hittite tribe, and those women greatly displeased his parents (Genesis 26:34–35). Esau knew that Jacob, on the other hand, obeyed his parents and had gone off to Paddan-aram to find a wife from their mother’s family.
So in spite of Jacob’s great and heartbreaking deception of their father Isaac, he seemed to be on a path that was pleasing their parents. Esau was aware that his life choices have caused him to lose some of their approval. He would hatch a plan to fix that.
Genesis 28:8 KJV
And Esau seeing that the daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father;
Desirous to humor his parents and, if possible, get the last will revoked, he became wise when too late (see Matthew 25:10), and hoped by gratifying his parents in one thing to atone for all his former delinquencies.
Here begins a thought that will be completed in verse 9. Esau, apparently, had not realized that his choice to marry two Canaanite women did not please his father. This is in spite of Genesis 26:34 indicating that these women made life bitter for Rebekah and Isaac.
Later, Rebekah told Isaac that they caused her to hate her life (Genesis 27:46). Some of this might have been exaggeration on Rebekah’s part, since she seems mostly concerned that Jacob flee from his jealous brother’s murderous rage (Genesis 27:41).
We don’t know whether or not Isaac failed to communicate to Esau that he should not marry Canaanite women. Perhaps he had, and Esau simply rebelled against that direction from his parents.
Scripture does not say for sure. In any case, the light seems to dawn for Esau when he hears of Isaac’s command to Jacob not to do as Esau had done. One way or another, Esau seems not to have known just how burdensome his parents found his wives.
Or, he had not been sensitive enough to pick up on the clues. Given his rash nature (Genesis 27:29–34), this would not be surprising.
Genesis 28:9 KJV
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.
But he only made bad worse, and though he did not marry a “wife of the daughters of Canaan,” he married into a family which God had rejected.
It showed a partial reformation, but no repentance, for he gave no proofs of abating his vindictive purposes against his brother, nor cherishing that pious spirit that would have gratified his father – he was like Micah (see Judges 17:13).
Esau goes out and marries the daughter of Ishmael. He thinks it will please his father. You see what a lack of spiritual perception he has. The Ishmaelites were as much rejected as the Canaanites or the Philistines.
This concludes the thought begun the previous verse. Esau seems to have become newly aware that his marriage to two Canaanite wives displeased Isaac.
Either Isaac had never communicated this to Esau before or after he married the Hittite women, or Esau had rebelled against his parents’ wishes in marrying women from a tribe in the land of Canaan.
Now Esau takes action to try to repair the damage and perhaps earn back his father’s approval. He marries a third wife. This one, however, is not from one of the tribes of Canaan. She is also not from Rebekah’s family in Mesopotamia.
Instead, Esau marries the daughter of one of Abraham’s other sons, Ishmael. Her name is Mahalath. It’s likely Ishmael was dead by this time. So in saying Esau was “going to Ishmael,” this passage likely means he went to the people of Ishmael.
Some relationship between Ishmael’s offspring and Isaac’s family apparently still existed. It was now made official by this wedding. We’re not told if Esau’s new marriage pleased Isaac or Rebekah, but it did not change his standing in the family.
Esau still bore Isaac’s near-curse. He was still not chosen to carry on the covenant promises of Abraham. In addition, the woman he married was from the daughter of another son not chosen to carry those covenant promises.
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