7.1.3 Gen. 28: Blessing and Ladder to Heaven

Now Jacob still receives a blessing from Isaac, this time not undeserved,  quasi as a fugitive. Even more significant, however, is the blessing he  receives in the vision of the ladder to heaven. In Bethel, Jacob is given a  very special experience of God. Thereupon he builds an altar there. This  vision has a prominent place in the history of art, but also in Christian  mysticism. The decision to build an altar at the place of the vision  presupposes, by the way, an idea that has been widely lost in  Protestantism: that there are places where God’s nearness can be felt in  a special way and which are therefore considered “holy” – that is, set  apart from the profane: “Here is the gate of heaven” (28:17). Therefore  Jacob vows to build a house of God at this place. It is likely here, as with  many other name-establishing place legends (“etiologies”), that the  “site” was already a pagan sanctuary. Also at other pagan cult cities the  Israelites settled their Yahweh worship, because they assumed that a  special access to the deity could happen here. This is even true for the  originally pagan central sanctuary in Shiloh, where Israel’s holy of holies,  the Ark, was later stationed. Of course, all this was not without problems.  The invasion of Canaanite Baal cults into Israel, which was so fiercely  fought by the prophets, was certainly not least favored by this. 

Quite courageous of Jacob to remove a stone from the place of worship!  But he does not earn the trouble with the priests of Baal, but God’s self revelation: “I am יהוה (Yahweh), the אלוהים (God) of your father  Abraham”, and the renewal of the blessing for Abraham as well as the  personal blessing: “Behold, I am with you…” (28, 15) 

The three הנה (hinne: see, v.12f., the Luther Bible omits the third). “are finger points of childlike wonder at the threefold thrice holy  appearance” (Delitzsch z.St.)