Jacob might have thought it was a random location for his overnight stop, but it happened to be the place where his grandfather called on the name of the Lord.
In our story today, Jacob is heading north, fleeing from his brother’s wrath. Did he wonder, as he journeyed, if the Lord would endorse the blessing his father had given him, since it was taken from Esau by guile? Would the faithful, covenant-keeping God ratify such a birthright taken by lying lips and doctored stew? Was Jacob deserving of the blessing of the Lord? We can assume it took at least four days for Jacob to arrive at what the Scripture calls “a certain place” (Gen 28:11). The ancient traveler may not have known it, but this place had been the site of grandfather Abraham’s altar built for the worship of Jehovah, where, for the first time we read that the patriarch “called on the name of the Lord” (12:8). Jacob was obviously exhausted. Anyone who can take “one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep” (v 11) must be exhausted! But his sleep was soon interrupted. “Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood above it…” (vv 12-13). This has to be the dream of all dreams! There is a direct link from where we are to heaven? Angelic beings surround us? God Almighty is looking down upon us at this very moment? No wonder Jacob exclaimed, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it” (v 16). Do YOU know it? Perhaps you, like Jacob, have a past of which you should be ashamed. Truth be known, we are all disqualified from God’s blessings. Except for this: “…God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn His face from you if you return to Him” (2 Chron 30:9). Will you today return to Him?