Abraham’s Family · c. 1930–1910 BC
Chapter 9
The Ladder
Jacob awakened out of his sleep, and he said, “Surely Yahweh is in this place, and I didn’t know it.”He was afraid, and said, “How awesome this place is! This is none other than God’s house, and this is the gate of heaven.”
For parents
In this chapter Laban tricks Jacob on his wedding night, so that Jacob sleeps with Leah instead of Rachel (Genesis 29:21–25). Later Rachel and Leah each give Jacob a servant to have children by, and the sisters bargain over who will sleep with him (30:1–16). All of it is told softly and without detail.
left and headed toward . When he came to a certain place, the sun had gone down, so he stayed there for the night. He took one of the stones from that place, put it under his head, and lay down there to sleep.
He had a dream. He saw a stairway standing on the earth, with its top reaching up to heaven, and the of God were going up and coming down on it.
And there above it stood the . “I am the Lord,” he said, “the God of your grandfather and the God of . I will give the land you are lying on to you and your . Your offspring will be as many as the specks of dust on the earth, and you will spread out in every direction, west and east, north and south. All the families of the earth will be blessed in you and in your offspring. Look, I am with you. I will keep you safe wherever you go, and I will bring you home to this land. I won’t leave you until I have done what I told you I would do.”
Then Jacob woke up. “Surely the Lord is in this place,” he said, “and I didn’t know it!” He was afraid. “What a holy, frightening place this is!” he said. “This is God’s own house. This is the gate of heaven.”
Early in the morning Jacob took the stone he had put under his head, set it up as a pillar, a standing stone, and poured oil on top of it. He named the place , though the town there used to be called Luz.
Then Jacob made a . He said, “If God will be with me and keep me safe on the road I am taking, if he gives me bread to eat and clothes to put on, so that I come back to my father’s house in peace, and the Lord will be my God, then this stone I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house. And from everything you give me, I will give you one out of every ten.”
Jacob went on his way and reached the country of the people of the east. He looked and saw a well out in a field, with three flocks of sheep lying beside it, because that was the well where the flocks were watered. A big stone covered the top of the well. When all the flocks had come together there, the shepherds would roll the stone off the well, water the sheep, and then put the stone back over the well where it belonged.
Jacob asked the shepherds, “Where are you from, friends?”
“We are from Haran,” they said.
“Do you know , ’s grandson?” he asked.
“We know him,” they said.
“Is he well?” Jacob asked.
“He is,” they said, “and look, here comes his daughter with the sheep.”
“Look,” said Jacob, “it’s still the middle of the day. It isn’t time yet to bring the animals in. Water the sheep, and take them back out to graze.”
“We can’t,” they said, “not until all the flocks are gathered together. Then the stone is rolled off the top of the well, and we water the sheep.”
He was still talking with them when Rachel came up with her father’s sheep, because she was the one who looked after them. When Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of his mother’s brother Laban, with Laban’s sheep, he went over to the well. He rolled the stone off the top of it and watered his uncle Laban’s flock.
Then Jacob kissed Rachel and wept out loud. He told Rachel that he was her father’s relative, ’s son, and she ran and told her father.
When Laban heard about Jacob, his sister’s son, he came running to meet him. He hugged him, kissed him, and took him home, and Jacob told Laban everything that had happened. “You really are my own flesh and blood,” Laban said to him. And Jacob stayed with him for a month.
Laban said to Jacob, “Should you work for me for nothing, just because you’re family? What pay do you want?”
Now Laban had two daughters. The older one was named , and the younger one was Rachel. Leah’s eyes were weak, but Rachel had a beautiful figure and was lovely to look at. Jacob loved Rachel, and he said to Laban, “I will work for you seven years for Rachel, your younger daughter.”
“It’s better for me to give her to you than to some other man,” Laban said. “Stay here with me.”
So Jacob worked seven years for Rachel. They seemed to him like only a few days, because he loved her so much.
Jacob said to Laban, “My seven years are up. Give me my wife, so that I can sleep with her.”
So Laban brought together all the men who lived there and gave a feast. When evening came, he brought his daughter Leah to Jacob, and Jacob slept with her. Laban also gave his servant to Leah to be her servant.
When morning came, there was Leah! Jacob said to Laban, “What have you done to me? Didn’t I work for you for Rachel? Why did you trick me?”
Laban said, “Here we don’t let the younger daughter marry before the older one. Finish this one’s wedding week, and then we will give you the other one too, if you work for me another seven years.”
Jacob did as Laban said. When Leah’s week was over, Laban gave him his daughter Rachel as well, to be his wife. He also gave his servant to Rachel to be her servant. Jacob slept with Rachel too. He loved her more than he loved Leah, and he worked for Laban seven more years.
The Lord saw that Leah was not loved, so he let her have children. But Rachel could not have any.
Leah became pregnant and had a son, and she named him . “The Lord has seen my misery,” she said. “Surely my husband will love me now.”
She became pregnant again and had another son. “The Lord heard that I am not loved,” she said, “so he has given me this son too.” She named him .
Again she became pregnant and had a son. “Now at last my husband will stay close to me,” she said, “because I have given him three sons.” So he was named .
She became pregnant once more and had a son. “This time I will praise the Lord,” she said, and she named him . After that, she stopped having children.
When Rachel saw that she was not having any children by Jacob, she became jealous of her sister. She said to Jacob, “Give me children, or I’ll die!”
Jacob became angry with Rachel. “Am I God?” he said. “He is the one who has kept you from having children.”
“Here is my servant Bilhah,” Rachel said. “Sleep with her, so that she can have children for me. That way I can have a family too, through her.” So Rachel gave Jacob her servant Bilhah as a wife, and Jacob slept with her.
Bilhah became pregnant and had a son by Jacob. Rachel said, “God has judged my case. He has heard my voice and given me a son.” That is why she named him .
Bilhah, Rachel’s servant, became pregnant once more and gave Jacob a second son. Rachel said, “I have wrestled hard with my sister, and I have won.” She named him .
Leah saw that she was no longer having children, so she gave her servant Zilpah to Jacob as a wife. Zilpah, Leah’s servant, gave Jacob a son. “How fortunate!” Leah said. She named him .
Then Zilpah, Leah’s servant, gave Jacob a second son. “I am so happy!” said Leah. “The women will call me happy.” She named him .
During the wheat harvest, Reuben went out and found some in the field. He brought them to his mother, Leah, and Rachel asked her for some. “Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes,” she said.
But Leah said to her, “Wasn’t it enough that you took my husband away? Now you want to take my son’s mandrakes too?”
“Then Jacob will sleep with you tonight,” Rachel said, “in return for your son’s mandrakes.”
That evening, as Jacob was coming in from the field, Leah went out to meet him. “You are sleeping with me tonight,” she said. “I traded my son’s mandrakes for you.” So that night he slept with her.
God listened to Leah. She became pregnant and gave Jacob a fifth son. “God has given me my wages,” Leah said, “because I gave my servant to my husband.” She named him .
Leah became pregnant again and had a sixth son by Jacob. “God has given me a wonderful gift,” Leah said. “Now my husband will stay with me, because I have given him six sons.” So she named him .
Some time later she had a daughter and named her .
Then God remembered Rachel. He listened to her and let her become pregnant, and she had a son. “God has taken away my shame,” she said. She named him , and said, “May the Lord give me another son.”
After Rachel had Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Let me leave, so I can go back to my own home and my own country. Give me my wives and my children, since I worked for you to have them, and let me go. You know all the work I have done for you.”
But Laban said to him, “Please stay, if you think well of me. I have learned by , by reading signs, that you are the reason the Lord has blessed me.” Then he said, “Tell me what wages you want, and I will pay them.”
Jacob said to him, “You know how I have served you, and how well your animals have done in my care. You had very little before I came, and now it has grown to a great deal. The Lord has blessed you wherever I went. But when will I be able to provide for my own family too?”
“What should I give you?” Laban asked.
“Don’t give me anything,” Jacob said. “Just do this one thing for me, and I will keep on looking after your flocks. Today let me go through all your flocks and take out every speckled or spotted animal, every black sheep, and every spotted or speckled goat. Those animals can be my pay. That way you will always be able to see that I have been honest. When you come to check on my pay, if you find a goat with me that isn’t speckled or spotted, or a sheep that isn’t black, you can count it as stolen.”
“All right,” Laban said. “Let it be just as you say.”
That same day Laban took out all the male goats that were streaked or spotted. He took out all the female goats that were speckled or spotted, every one that had any white on it, and all the black sheep, and he put his sons in charge of them. Then he put three days of travel between himself and Jacob, and Jacob went on looking after the rest of Laban’s flocks.
Jacob took fresh branches of poplar, almond and plane trees, a kind of sycamore, and peeled white stripes on them, showing the white wood inside. He set the peeled branches in front of the flocks in the watering troughs, where they came to drink. When the animals came to drink, they mated. They mated in front of the branches, and their young were born streaked, speckled and spotted.
Jacob set apart the young animals, and he made the rest of the flock face the streaked and black animals in Laban’s flock. He kept his own flocks apart and did not put them with Laban’s animals.
Whenever the stronger animals were mating, Jacob put the branches in the troughs in front of them, so that they would mate near the branches. But when the animals were weak, he didn’t put the branches there. That is how the weak ones came to be Laban’s, and the strong ones Jacob’s.
Jacob became very rich. He had large flocks, male and female servants, and camels and donkeys.