Genesis 28

Christ having married our flesh, has exalted it above the angelic nature. 2. Look upon Christ's divine nature: Christ may fitly be compared to Jacob's ladder (Genesis 28:12), which reached from earth to heaven; Christ's human nature was the foot of the ladder which stood upon ea…

Lactantius said, All the learning of the philosophers was without a head, because it wanted the knowledge of God. 2. Wherein our choosing of God consists: It is an act of mature deliberation; a Christian having viewed the superlative excellencies in God, and being stricken into…

And children must hearken to the counsel of their parents, as in spiritual matters, so in other affairs which relate to this life, as in the choice of a calling, and in case of entering into marriage. Jacob would not dispose of himself in marriage (though he were forty years old…

Where there was none in office so to receive them, they were immediately to be offered to God in sacrifice according to their capacity. So Jacob vowed the tenth to God (Genesis 28:22), which he was himself to offer, there being no other priest to receive it at his hand, and no d…

For it is God's will, that we should not cast the care of heavenly things only, but all our care upon him (1 Peter 5:7). And he has elsewhere commanded that earthly things should be asked at his hand (1 Kings 8:35), and the same has been asked in prayer of Jacob (Genesis 28:10),…

But now because comforts are never prized but in their season, and men that have not been exercised in spiritual conflicts nauseate these sweet truths, they know not what it is to be left to uncertainty when troubles come like waves one in the neck of another; therefore let us s…

God disposes of all things in the world; is it not wisdom then to have him your friend? Genesis 28:9. Jacob being to take his journey, Isaac said to him, God all-sufficient be with you. God is all-sufficient; if you have him, you have all: in the creature there is no such thing,…

(1 Timothy 6:8) Therefore, when we have food and raiment, let us be therewith content. This contentment was in Jacob (Genesis 28:20). A second cause is, to teach us that there is a particular providence.

XIII. The first, as far as I know, to conjecture most acutely that these stones were called baetyls from the stone which Jacob erected at Bethel, or from Bethel, as the place where he erected it has been called from that time forward, was the admirable Joseph Scaliger; others ju…

7. This should keep his children in a holy awe (Hebrews 12:28-29): Let us have grace by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire. When we come in the holy assemblies (Genesis 28:17): How dreadful is this place. In our gener…

Presuppose two things; one, that the commandment is without compulsion; the second, that the father knows what is for the good of the child: then I answer, that he may command his child to marry, and to marry a person thus or thus qualified. Thus Isaac commanded Jacob to marry i…

Now although this reason has some color, yet I had rather refer it to the certainty of the vocation of the Prophet, to wit, that the Lord called him not forth at random, but with choice. This is then a grave deliberation which the Lord takes as touching him whom he should send:…

Thus Mordecai and Hester took all care to perpetuate the memory of that signal deliverance from the plot of Haman, by ordaining the feast of Purim, as an Anniversary throughout every generation, every family, every Province, and every Ciy, that those days of Purim should not fai…

So. Jacob, Genesis 28:20 and Agur, Proverbs 30. 8, 9. Wise Providence considers our condition as Pilgrims and Strangers, and so allots the Viaticum provision, that is needful for our passage home. It knows the mischievous influence of fulness and redundancy upon most men, though…

Genesis 28:12ff. And he dreamed, and behold, a ladder set upon the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold, the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham your father, and the God of Is…

1. In general, God does it to communitate by them the effects of his care and love to the Church by Jesus Christ. This God represented to Jacob in the vision that he gave him of the ladder which stood upon the earth, and whose top reached to heaven (Genesis 28:12, 13). For altho…

And he shows whereby he thus prevailed, it was by weeping and making supplications to him, which he neither did, nor lawfully might do to a created Angel; and therefore some of the Jews apply those words, he wept and made supplications to the Angel's desire to Jacob to let him g…

I am Elshaddai, God Almighty, God Alsufficient. And when Isaac would pray for the blessing of the covenant on Jacob, he makes use of that name, Genesis 28:3. God Almighty bless you.

If God command us to aske him bread, and to depende upon him for it, wee must not judge basely of it: nowe in this chapter God commands us to depend upon him for foode to eate: yea, 1. Pet. 5. 7. we must cast all our care on him: and Iacobs practise in praying for bread to eate,…

Certainly the very place where God manifests himself, at least while he does so, are venerable and awful: and therefore when God revealed himself to Jacob in a dream, and gave him the representation of a ladder reaching from earth to heaven, angels upon every round of it, and Go…

He accounted the true excellency of his life to consist in its reference and tendency to the glory of his God; and he could not see how a redundancy or too great a penury of earthly comforts, could fit him for that, but a middle estate equally removed from both extremes, best fi…

But here observe, they feel not so the burning of heart in the mean time as afterward, when Christ was vanished out of their sight and gone (v. 31), now they take special notice, in a feeling way, of the warmness of heart they felt while he opened the Scriptures to them. The Lor…

So that the consideration of his greatness should cause us to fear before him. When he appeared to Jacob, when he fled from his father's house to his uncle Laban, (Genesis 28:17). Jacob says of the place wherein God appeared to him, Surely this place is exceeding fearful: the re…

Matthew 19:26, Luke 1:39: To God nothing is impossible. He does whatever he will: and in Genesis, it is said, The God almighty be with you, etc. (Genesis 28:3). In handling this attribute, I will show you what it is, and the reasons of it, and the objections against it, as I hav…

§. 16. Of husbands' ready yielding to their wives' humble suits. Again, it being a token of reverence in a wife humbly to make known her desire to her husband, he ought to show so much courtesy as readily to grant her desire: this courtesy the forenamed Ahasuerus afforded to Est…

Isaac married the wife which his father provided (Genesis 24:67). Jacob both obeyed his father in going to Laban's house for a wife (Genesis 28:2), and also when he came to Laban asked his daughter of him (Genesis 29:18, etc.). Though Samson saw a daughter of the Philistines whi…

This direction was given in times of persecution, when by reason of the present necessity it was better not to marry: if then a parent ought to be careful (need requiring) to provide a marriage for his daughter, much more ought he in times of peace. Holy parents commended by the…

Let Christians think of the dreadful majesty of God who is present. Genesis 28:17: How dreadful is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.

As a good soldier of Christ endure hardship. Jacob made the stone his pillow (Genesis 28:18). It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth (Lamentations 3:27).

But if our hearts can melt sincerely in tears of love, this is a real sign that God has been with us. As Jacob said (Genesis 28:16): Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. So Christian, when your heart breaks for sin and dissolves into holy tears, God is in this du…

There are sometimes sudden Impressions made on Spiritual Affections, which are always of great Advantage to the Soul, renewing its Engagements to God and Duty. So was it with Jacob, Gen. 28:16, 17, 18, 19, 20. So is it often with Believers in hearing the Word, and other Occasion…

Jehosaphat entred into a sinfull league with Ahaziah as he had done before with his father, but when the Prophet rebuked him; read the story, 1 King. 22. He had sinned a once with his father, but he would not sin a second time with his Son, so that, here you see a good man would…

Thirdly, I inferre hence, that before you presume to apply the benefits and the comforts of Christs ascension into heaven: labor to feele in your own hearts the efficacy of Christs Death and ascension, every man applies the benefit of Christs Death and Resurrection, and Christs…

So they opened the matter to her, and she held up her hands and wondered. (Genesis 3:6; Romans 7:24) Then they had her to a place, and showed her Jacob's ladder. (Genesis 28:12) Now at that time there were some angels ascending upon it.

2. Christs person is lovely as he is God-man. He may not unfitly be compared to Jacobs ladder, Genesis 28.12. which reached from earth to heaven; Christs human nature which was the foot of the ladder, stood upon the earth; his divine nature, which was the top of the ladder, reac…

The other helps to extraordinary prayer is making of vows, which is both expressly commanded (Psalm 76:11) and also has been by God's children much practiced. Jacob vowed a vow to God as he was going to his uncle Laban (Genesis 28:20-21). So did Hannah (1 Samuel 1:11), David (Ps…

The second, when they are coming toward us, to go and meet them. Thus, when Abraham saw the three Angels coming toward him, he ran to meet them from the tent door (Genesis 28:2). And king Solomon, when his mother Bathsheba came towards him, to speak to him for Adonijah, the text…

The Scriptures they insisted on were all of them gathered together in the Epistle of Pope Hadrian, which was solemnly assented to by the whole Council. And they were these: God made man of the dust of the Earth after his own image (Genesis 1); Abel by his own choice offered a sa…