When Jacob awoke from His dream he realized God was present which changed his attitude and behavior!
1. He was afraid.
2. God's presence meant the place was awesome.
3. He called the place God's house.
4. He made a vow to make God Lord of his life.
5. He said he'd give God a tenth of what God gave him.
In reality God is present with me always. My body is His dwelling place. Wherever I am, He is present! So wherever I am I should be in awe. I should see the place as awesome. It should drive me to:
1. Want to surrender my life to God daily.
2. Want to be Holy before God.
3. Give a tenth or more back to Him.
Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place, no matter where this place happens to be. The older I get, the more I can feel God’s presence, and the more I place my trust in Him.
I found it interesting that once Jacob followed the directions to not take a wife from the Canaanite women and he goes to his Uncle Laban, then Esau decides to go away to take Mahalath as his wife. It seems to me like Esau did this to try to please his father and make up for his previous marriage mistakes.
Jacob has an incredible life-changing experience when he has a dream with God. Scheming is something that Jacob was very familiar with, but he is about to end up on the receiving end of some tricking from his uncle as we will read in the next chapter. The song for today actually also goes along with chapter 29.
Here’s the link to That Daughter.
https://youtu.be/9XROriZPk6A
my two key words are rebellion and comfort
rebellion; Genesis 8: Esau then realized how displeasing the Canaanite women were to his father Isaac;
Here we see an angry man rebelling against his mother and fathers wishes, he hears them tell his brother do not marry a canninite women. so whats he do marry’s a Canaanite woman.
basically essu is like, i’m mad so i’m going to make everyone around me mad.
( I found this on bible ref )
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.
hurt people hurt people
second part comfort: 16 When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.”
when Jacob had his dream he felt Gods presence. I have a neat way that God communictes with me, God uses pennies to communicate with me. I am always finding pennies on the ground, its his way of reminding me he is close.
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.
Jacob got saved! It doesn’t matter that his father and grandfather are men of God, Jacob has to develop his own personal relationship with God, just like you and me. True conversion was shown by his worship and by giving first fruits (tithe) to God.
Notice the order of the angels movement in v12 – they ascend and descend. That means they are already here on earth. Heb 1:14 tells us they are ministering spirits for us as heirs of salvation. In John 1:51 Jesus tells us He is that ladder that the angels use to ascend and descend between God and man.
I love that with each new generation God shows up and reaffirms His original oath to Abraham that He will give him the land and multiply his descendants. Even despite all of the mistakes and bad decisions that are made, God is still faithful to His promise. One of the verses that really stuck out to me is v.16. “Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.” How many times do we feel like God isn’t there and yet He is.
God keeps His promises to the faithful! How sweet it is for Jacob to know God and begin his own relationship with Him, just like his father and grandfather had.
Esau is finally coming around to understand what Isaac and Rebekah thought of Canaan women. Sometimes we want to rebel against our parents when they see and understand more than we can.