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Genesis 28

1Isaac called Jacob, blessed him, and commanded him, “You must not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan. 2Get up and go to Paddan-aram, to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father, and take a wife from there, from the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother. 3May El Shaddai bless you, make you fruitful, and multiply you, so that you become an assembly of peoples. 4May he give you Abraham's blessing, to you and your seed with you, so that you possess the land where you live as a foreigner, which God gave to Abraham.” 5Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to Paddan-aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob and Esau's mother.

6Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him to Paddan-aram to take a wife from there, and that when he blessed him he commanded him, “You must not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan.” 7Jacob had listened to his father and mother and gone to Paddan-aram. 8Esau saw that the daughters of Canaan were displeasing in the eyes of his father Isaac. 9So Esau went to Ishmael and took Mahalath daughter of Ishmael son of Abraham, Nebaioth's sister, as his wife, in addition to his other wives.

10Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. 11He came upon a place and spent the night there, because the sun had set. He took one of the stones of the place, put it at his head, and lay down in that place. 12He dreamed: there was a stairway set on the earth, with its top reaching the heavens, and God's messengers were going up and down on it. 13And there was Yahweh standing above it. He said, “I am Yahweh, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and your seed. 14Your seed will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and east, north and south. All the families of the ground will be blessed through you and your seed. 15Look, I am with you. I will keep you wherever you go and bring you back to this ground, because I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

16Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely Yahweh is in this place, and I did not know it!” 17He was afraid and said, “How fearsome this place is! This is none other than God's house, and this is heaven's gate.” 18Jacob got up early in the morning, took the stone he had put at his head, set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on its top. 19He named that place Bethel, though the city's name had formerly been Luz. 20Jacob made a vow: “If God will be with me, keep me on this journey I am taking, and give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, 21and I return safely to my father's house, then Yahweh will be my God. 22This stone, which I have set up as a pillar, will be God's house. Of everything you give me, I will certainly give you a tenth.”

Translation notes 5

28:3–4 — El Shaddai; seed. El Shaddai is a divine designation traditionally rendered “God Almighty”; its precise derivation is uncertain. “Seed” is the collective image for descendants, not a statement that every occurrence refers to one individual. “Assembly of peoples” retains the plural promise.

28:11–13 — Stone; stairway; above it. The stone is placed at Jacob's head; the text does not specify a modern pillow. The rare word rendered “stairway” is traditionally “ladder”; its exact construction is not described. The final pronoun can refer to the stairway or to Jacob, allowing “standing beside him” as an alternative. The draft does not identify a particular building or replace the dream with a later biblical reuse.

28:14 — Ground; blessing. The promise connects Jacob's seed with the dust and all the families of the ground. The blessing construction can also be understood as families invoking a blessing by Jacob's example. The repeated seed and the four directions remain explicit.

28:17–19 — Bethel. The name means “house of God,” corresponding to Jacob's exclamation. “Fearsome” retains his fear and awe; the passage does not portray the place as merely pleasant. The stone pillar and the city's earlier name are separate details.

28:20–22 — Vow. The draft places “then” before Yahweh's becoming Jacob's God. Another construction includes that clause among the conditions and begins Jacob's promised response with the stone in verse 22. The Hebrew does not explicitly supply “then” at either point. The tenth is Jacob's stated vow, without an explanation here of its recipient or collection procedure.