Genesis-98 – My God, Part 1

Genesis 28:10-15

“Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the Lord, and he said: ‘I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.’” Amen.

 

Jacob's Journey and Solitude

Jacob finally leaves home. His mother, Rebekah, knowing that Esau plans to kill him once their father, Isaac, dies, tells him, “Go to Harran to get a wife.” I have a map to show you where Harran is. The map on the left shows the current locations of Iraq, Iran, and Turkey. Lebanon, Israel, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait are on the bottom right. The biblical map is a bit different. Paddan-Aram and Harran are here, and the Mesopotamian region is between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. Canaan is here, and Jacob’s journey starts from Beersheba, passes through Bethel, and heads toward Harran. It is a long journey, one that takes him outside of Canaan.

Going outside of Canaan to find a wife seems normal, but in the context of the Bible, it is a very unique and special event. Do you remember Abraham? To find a wife for Isaac, Abraham did not send Isaac himself, but rather a servant. When Isaac was about to go down to Egypt, God told him, “Do not go down there, stay in this land of Canaan.” However, in Jacob’s case, Isaac deliberately sends him away from the land of Canaan. We must not read Jacob’s story as a continuation of the previous narrative. The beginning of Jacob’s story shows us that “there is no one righteous, not even one.” None of the characters in this story were righteous, and Jacob is no exception.

 

When Isaac blessed Jacob, he used the language of creation from Genesis 1-3: “Be fruitful and multiply.” And yet, Jacob leaves that place. Like the story in Genesis 1-3, he is leaving because of sin. Jacob, too, is a sinner, and this is why he is leaving Canaan now. Today's passage uses various literary devices to show that Jacob’s problem is not merely about gaining wealth or the birthright.

 

The first of these devices is found in verse 11: “When he reached a certain place, the sun had set.” Jacob is on a long journey to Harran. He is still in the land of Canaan, but he has never been on such a journey before and does not even know how far he has come. Jacob, around 70-77 years old, is now on this long journey alone. The Bible shows us his inner state through several devices, and this is the first one. “He reached a certain place. And the sun had set.” Imagine this scene like a movie. A son, rejected by his father, leaves home with nothing. The sun is setting, and he is looking for a place to rest. The word that comes to mind is ‘loneliness.’

 

Jacob is not simply walking. The trivial story of a journey beginning, the sun setting, and a destination being reached becomes, through the expression of God’s Word, a powerful portrayal of Jacob’s state. He is wandering aimlessly, arriving at a place where his feet have carried him, just as the sun is setting. It brings to mind the phrase, “the emptiness of life.” The setting invites him to think, ‘What have I been living for all this time, and what has all my striving accomplished?’ In that place, he has nowhere comfortable to rest, and the background paints a picture of a life lived with great effort that now feels like nothing.

 

The Stone Pillow and Self-Reliance

Jacob had no expectations and no plans left. It seemed as though he had no hope. He was not even looking for a place to worship. When Abraham entered Canaan, he worshipped God under the oak tree, making his journey's purpose clear. But Jacob had no intention of building a stone altar like a hymn suggests. His every plan had collapsed, and he had come out with empty hands for no reason. As we follow the story, it is easy to see how desperate Jacob’s situation was.

 

Is Jacob’s deep solitude and loneliness simply because he has lost everything and is alone? Looking at Jacob’s character, this doesn’t seem right. He would have used his wits to overcome the crisis. Wouldn’t it be more natural for him to think, ‘I must quickly go to my uncle’s house, get a wife, and return to reclaim my place’? We know the outcome and that he will suffer for 20 years, but Jacob was not thinking that way. He was only thinking about getting married quickly and returning to his rightful place. Rebekah also thought that Esau’s heart would change in a month or so, and Jacob could return. So, Jacob’s mind was likely filled with countless plans.

 

Yet, the Bible shows us his desolate state. He seems like a person who would overcome such trials, and since he has nothing, he would likely be even more motivated to regain everything. But that is not at all the case. Therefore, the source of his suffering seems to be in a deeper place that he himself is unaware of. He had heard Isaac's blessing and knew that the land he was wandering in was his. He had used every trick to get it. But there, he felt as if he was nothing.

 

In fact, there is another clue that gives us a more accurate understanding: the “stone pillow.” When we sing about it in hymns, we tend to think, ‘How difficult must it have been for Jacob to lie on the ground with a stone for a pillow? How much he must have suffered!’ A wooden pillow is hard, so a stone must have been even harder, making him seem pitiful. With all due respect, this is a result of a cultural difference. Because of this, we often miss the significance of the stone pillow and simply see it as a symbol of hardship. The hymn also says, ‘Our suffering is like Jacob sleeping with a stone for a pillow.’

 

However, the phrase “stone pillow” does not just mean ‘sleeping with a stone instead of a pillow.’ It has a deeper meaning in ancient Near Eastern culture and biblical language. It refers to a stone placed next to a person to protect them. You have read the expression in the Bible, “He hides me in the cleft of the rock.” We, who believe in Jesus and know the Bible, think, ‘He hides me from difficulty.’ But a person from a different culture might wonder, ‘Why would you go inside a rock?’ A cave would make sense. But in the land of Israel, a rock provides shade and a refuge, so people hide under a rock from the hot sun. We, on the other hand, go under a pavilion. In this way, we unconsciously read the Bible through our own cultural lens, and the stone pillow is the same. Here, the concept is not so much a pillow but a stone that protects and guards him. Jacob lay down, leaning against the stone, to protect himself from the wind or other threats.

 

The reason Jacob’s story gives us a clue is that he is still trying to protect himself with the stone pillow. He is a person who is still looking within himself for a solution to every problem he faces in life. This is a natural attitude in the world. Immigrants and people in difficult situations are often frustrated not by the problem itself, but by their own collapse. They say they succeeded not because of a good environment, but because they relied on themselves, their abilities, and their strength to overcome until the very end. Our proverb, “Even if a tiger takes you, you can survive if you stay alert,” reflects this. This is the maximum limit of what the world can say. The world can only say, “Believe in yourself, you can do it,” because that is our limit.

 

The Bible calls this a worldly approach. The Bible always asks, “How are you following, believing, and relying on God?” But Jacob uses the stone pillow as a shield to overcome this crisis with his own strength. Often, the problem is not the situation itself but ourselves. We are ultimately at a crossroads of whether to choose ourselves or God. The Bible says that even if we can overcome problems with our own strength, if we only believe in ourselves to the end, we will ultimately end with ourselves.

 

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil that Adam and Eve ate from was pleasant to the sight and good for food, so it must have tasted good. They looked for a solution in the face of the problem and the temptation of Satan, but what they relied on was not God’s Word but their own desires and greed. Relying on yourself ultimately means relying on your own desires and abilities. In this world, sometimes that works and can solve problems. Those of you who have endured and overcome the hardships of immigrant life are resilient and very capable people. But no one would think that a life lived by one’s own strength will guarantee the end. And yet, like Jacob, we continue to look for our stone pillow.

 

Jacob’s problem was not that his plans had fallen apart or that he had lost everything. We can all experience failure at any time. Jacob tried to solve his problem by asking, ‘How can I live well?’ But the core of the problem was that he had lost and forgotten God. He did not realize this even as he lay on the stone pillow.

 

The True Source of Pain and the Dream of the Ladder

What is the true nature of our pain? We often worry, ‘Why is it so hard to overcome this loneliness? Why can’t I experience true joy and happiness? Why am I surrounded by pain and anxiety even though the Bible promises so many things?’ But the Bible wants to tell us that, like Jacob, the problem is not that we have lost things, but that we have lost and forgotten God. This is the real problem.

 

For Jacob, the stone pillow was not just for resting his head; it was a tool for self-protection and reliance. Although humble, it was like a refuge, so he put it next to him to rely on and find comfort. It was at that very moment that he had a dream.

 

The word “ladder” in the Bible that we call “Jacob’s ladder” is actually closer to the meaning of “stairway.” The ziggurat, an altar built to worship gods in the ancient Near East, was mostly built in a stepped pyramid shape. When we think of the Tower of Babel, we imagine a similar shape. The Tower of Babel symbolizes the human desire to reach the “Gate of Heaven” through those stairs. At that time, every ziggurat embodied the human heart’s desire to ascend to heaven.

 

But what Jacob saw was different. Verse 12 clearly shows the order of events in the Bible: “He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth.” Jacob first saw the earth. What he saw was a stairway placed on the earth. It does not say, ‘A ladder came down from heaven,’ but rather, he first saw a stairway that had descended from heaven and reached the earth. And his gaze, like a camera lens, moves upward. He sees angels of God ascending and descending on it, and finally, his eyes reach to the “heaven above heaven,” where God is.

 

This symbolically shows the “Gate of Heaven,” the way to God, where God rules. This dream explains our lives and Jacob’s life almost in reverse. We think it is natural to build things up one by one from the ground. But what Jacob sees is a stairway from heaven. And that stairway started from heaven, and the angels were ascending and descending on it.

 

Encounter with God and His Promise

In that astonishing sight, Jacob seems to have had an experience similar to Paul’s encounter with Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus. He saw a God who was not just there to fill his needs and exist for him, as he had previously thought, but a God whose glory and holiness inspired in him an inexpressible awe, wonder, and reverence. It was an experience that completely changed his perception of who God is.

 

Today's passage, verse 13, says, “There above it stood the Lord, and he said.” The Bible says that when Jacob looked up even higher after seeing the angels, God was standing there. But God is a spirit, so He has no form, and we cannot see Him standing or sitting. When the Bible says this, it is trying to explain to us who God is.

 

We usually say that God is seated on a throne. This is a symbolic picture showing that God rules this world, the universe, and all of our lives. But here, the expression is that He is standing and speaking. What does ‘standing’ mean? This expression stimulates our imagination but makes it difficult to grasp the exact meaning. In the past, people interpreted this to mean that God was ‘so excited,’ just as Jesus was standing at the heavenly throne when Stephen was martyred in Acts 6. But this is not a careful reading of the context.

 

Today's passage allows us to understand much more accurately why God was standing. We can see it by looking at what God said while standing. The first thing He said was the same covenant He made with Abraham. “I will give you this land, and your descendants will possess it. And your descendants will be like the dust of the earth.” It is the same story He told Abraham, a renewal of the covenant with Abraham. It seems like there is nothing new, so why did the Bible specifically mention that He was standing?

 

It is because of what He said next. Let’s read verse 15 together. “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

 

This is a new story that has not been mentioned before. It is not just the Abrahamic covenant; God is now saying something He did not say in the past. It is the content of this verse 15.

 

Think about Jacob’s situation and try to feel his heart. His father had told him, “This land is yours,” but as he was fleeing to Harran, he fell asleep. In a dream, God said, “This land is yours.” How would he have felt? Of course, he might have felt happy and said, “Oh, God, thank you for confirming this again.” But I don’t think so. I think he would have felt, “God, are you mocking me?” No, it would have been right if Esau had come running to Jacob and said, “You shouldn't do this between brothers. You can stay here and we can live together.” Or if Isaac had sent someone and said, “Your father was wrong. I will find a wife for you, so come back quickly.” That would have made the dream feel good. But the content of this dream is much more heartbreaking for Jacob than we think. He is not being told that his problems will be solved right now. He is being told, “I will be with you until you return.”

 

We are so ready to receive blessings that we think, “Oh, the Lord is going to go with me all the way there.” But think about it. Wouldn’t it be better if he didn’t have to go? If God had prevented him from going? So why would it be a wonderful thing to be told, ‘I will be with you until you return’? Jacob is in a very frustrating situation. But the most important part of the promise he heard from God in that situation is exactly that: “I will be with you and will watch over you wherever you go.”

 

This is the true root of his problem that Jacob had never seen in his life up to this point. He would have thought that he caused this to happen because of his own mistakes and sins, and that he was running away from his brother. But when God speaks to him, saying, “No, I am with you,” Jacob is startled. It is like a parent telling a child who is about to be punished, “I’m not just punishing you. I’m doing this so you will get a perfect score on your test.” Or a mother who, after seeing a wrong test paper, tells her child to stand outside as punishment, and then comes out again and asks, “Are you a little more clear now? What did you do wrong?” The child says, “I did poorly on the test,” and the mother replies, “No, I wanted you to realize that you were careless and didn’t properly read the questions before writing the answers.” The content is different. I want you to follow this event as the Bible presents it, because what God is doing here is as important to your life and mine as Paul’s encounter with Jesus and Jacob’s encounter with God.

 

Jacob’s Realization and the Temple that is God

What Jacob is seeing now is the promise that God’s presence is with him and will be with him in the future. You may not be surprised, but this story is happening in the land of Canaan. It is a natural thing for God to be with Jacob in Canaan. That was what Jacob expected, the blessing given to Abraham and Isaac. He knew that this land would be the Eden given to his descendants by God.

 

But what is God saying now? He is saying, “I will make the place you are going an Eden as well.” How shocking must that have been for Jacob? God is saying, “I will be with you wherever you go, and I will be your God.”

 

Even in the moment when you pray, saying, ‘I am a sinner. My spiritual life is terrible,’ God says, ‘Even if you fall into sin and cling to a stone pillow while you sleep, I will be with you wherever you go, even outside of Canaan, until you return. I will be your temple.’ When Jacob, a sinner, leaves—a sinner about whom the Bible says, ‘there is no one righteous, not even one’—God says to that sinner, ‘I will be your holy house.’

 

Only then did Jacob realize what he had been missing. He had forgotten God, the house of God, the true core of the Abrahamic covenant: “I will be your temple.” Could he have ever thought that this was the answer?

 

What about you and me? We tend to look only at our problems or ourselves, and we think the solution is for them to be fixed. The feeling of a heavy heart, the need for a change in our spiritual life, and even the desire to ‘believe with passion like others’ all ultimately arise from ‘us.’ So we forget God, even though God is with us. As a result, we cling to the stone pillow in despair, as if we have nothing.

 

But Jacob clearly realizes that God is with him. “I will go with you wherever you go. I will be your temple,” God says. That was an answer Jacob had never even considered.

 

I am sure there are people here who are struggling with many problems. There may be difficulties in your family, business, or even in the church. Your spiritual life itself may be hard. When we are filled with anxiety and worry, what do we think the answer is? That our family becomes happier, that the church becomes full of love and is set right, or that our personal faith becomes stronger. These are not bad things. But like Jacob, we are surprisingly missing something important. We are so often in that very place.

 

From Stone Pillow to Bethel, and to Christ

The Lord asks us, “Where is your stone pillow now?” And He gives us an answer we could not have imagined: “I am your temple.” To Jacob, who was clinging to the stone pillow and sleeping, thinking that everything had gone wrong and that he had no one to rely on but himself, God says, “You won’t be able to do it on your own.”

 

This is like the story of the rich young man. When he heard Jesus’ words and went away sorrowful, the disciples were shocked. It was because of the saying, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” At that time, for the people of Israel, “rich” meant “blessed by God.” Having many children, a great inheritance, or wealth was proof that God had blessed you. It is the same today. We say that “prosperity gospel is wrong,” but we are easily swayed when we hear that someone’s child got into a good university. This is who we are.

 

The Bible asks us what our real problem is and what our stone pillow is. Jacob realized at that moment: ‘Ah, what have I been relying on! What have I thought was the answer!’

 

As we will see in more detail next week, Jacob sets up the stone pillow he had been relying on and pours oil on it. He knows that heaven is the answer. He now realizes that this place is the house of God, the temple of God, Eden, and he names it “Bethel.” His life itself becomes a life with Bethel. He no longer needs a pillow to lie down with and hug. He has rediscovered God and knows that God being with him is the true answer. “Ah, this place is the temple!”

 

The story of “angels ascending and descending” is similar to what Jesus said when he met Nathanael: “Do you believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than that. You will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” This refers to the temple. “You will see God’s holiness and presence with me, and I am that temple,” He says. Christ is the temple. As God promised, Christ became the stairway and came down to this earth from heaven. He became not only the stairway but also the temple for you, bringing you into God’s holy kingdom. The end of Jacob’s story is completed in this story of Nathanael. The glimpse of God’s presence and the form of the temple that Jacob saw in his dream is now completed and given to us through Jesus Christ, whom we can see, touch, and who truly lives with us.

 

The Hem of God’s Garment that Covers Us

What is even more amazing is not only that Christ was given to us but that we have now become the temple in Him. As we sing in our hymns, as it is written in Isaiah, when the Lord was seated on His throne, the hem of His garment filled the entire universe. The hem of God’s garment filled Jacob’s life, who was in sin. His life itself became the temple, with God dwelling with him and God’s hem covering him. For Jacob, that hem was probably the hem of forgiveness and righteousness. It is the same for us. The hem of holiness that filled the temple now fills our lives. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. I will be your righteousness, and I will be your garment,” He says.

 

Jacob must have had an even more amazing hem of a garment. He wore not only the hem that made him righteous but also God’s hem that would be with him. He was in failure, powerless, and wandering aimlessly, not even knowing why he was living without hope. All his plans had been shattered, and he didn't know what to rely on. What covered him, who must have had deep wounds and pain? It was the hem of God’s garment that filled the temple, the hem of Christ. What was the hem that was with his pain and covered it? What was the hem that wrapped him in love, mercy, and compassion?

 

What about you? Will the pain and tears you experienced in your family, the wounds you suffered in your immigrant life, just disappear with time? There is a God who knows all of that, who was with you when you shed tears, who covered you with His hem and gave you comfort and life. You are not meant to stay in that place but to live with God and walk toward the kingdom of God. God, who clearly showed us that our lives are not meant to fall here but to rise and walk with Christ, has declared you as His temple and promised, “I will dwell with you forever, I will be with you wherever you are, and My hem will cover you.”

 

Can you not hear this great promise and declaration of God? What can overcome this? What can break down this hem of God? Just as the verse says, “They shall be as white as snow,” He will establish you as a pure bride and lead you as a bride of Jesus Christ. He will cover your wounds with His hem as you cry, bandage your painful places, and wipe away your tears. Even when you are having a difficult day and the future seems uncertain, He will carry you in His hem and lead you to the kingdom of God. So, let us come to Him, remembering that we are now wearing and enjoying the amazing hem of God’s righteousness, wisdom, and joy, and praising and singing in the temple of God.

 

Prayer

Loving Lord, help us to walk even one more step as Your temple, wearing Your hem, Your garment. Let us not give up on this path, no matter what anyone says, and let us walk on it boldly.

 

Lord, cover us with Your hem. Cover our filth. Cover our weaknesses. Cover our bitter roots. Cover our injustices. Cover our foolishness.

 

We pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.