When Rebekah heard of Esau’s intention to kill his brother Jacob as soon as their father, Isaac, should die, she sent for Jacob at once. “You must prepare to go far away,” she told him, “because Esau is angry and plans to kill you when your father dies. Let me send you to my brother, Laban, who lives at Haran. Remain there with him for a while, and possibly Esau will forget his anger and wicked plans. Then you can come back again to me; for why should I lose both you and your father?”
Rebekah did not tell Isaac about Esau’s anger and about her fears for Jacob’s safety. But now that she wanted to send Jacob back to her girlhood home in order to escape from Esau’s anger she planned another reason for wishing to send him away. She came to her blind husband and said, “I am very unhappy because our son Esau has taken heathen women to become his wives. If Jacob should marry a daughter of our heathen neighbors, I should wish to die. Send him back to my brother’s house that he may take a wife from among my own people.”
Isaac also had been grieved when Esau married women who were idol-worshipers. Now he thought, “God’s promise which was first given to my father Abraham, then to me, will be given next to my son Jacob and to his children. If he should marry a heathen woman, then his children would not be taught to worship the true God. He must not marry a heathen woman!” So he called Jacob, and said, “Do not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan, but go back to Padan-aram and take there a wife from your mother’s relatives. And God’s blessing shall be upon you, and he shall give you the blessings of your grand-father Abraham.”
Jacob then bade his mother and his blind old father good-by, and started out on his long journey. He took no camel to ride upon and no servant for a companion, but journeyed all alone. He feared his brother’s wrath, and did not know whether he ever could return again to his home and feel safe. His birthright now could do him no good because the double portion of his father’s wealth would not become his own until after his father’s death, and if he should remain until that time he believed that his brother would surely kill him. Poor, discouraged Jacob! He must have felt unhappy indeed as he climbed the rocky hillslopes of Canaan and hurried away from the only home he had ever known. We do not know what his thoughts were as he traveled alone all the day, but perhaps he thought that Esau might try to overtake him and kill him before he should get far away. Perhaps he felt sorry because he had deceived his dear, old father, whom he might never see again. Perhaps he repented because he had bought Esau’s birthright. Whatever may have been his thoughts as he walked along the dusty road, some One was listening to each and all of them. That One was God.
By and by the sun went down, and Jacob may have felt lonelier than ever with only the dark, blue sky above him. But as he was now very tired, he chose a stone for his pillow, and, wrapping his cloak about him, lay down on the ground to sleep. While he slept he saw in a dream a wonderful ladder the top of which reached to heaven. He saw beautiful angels climbing up and down upon the ladder. And standing at the top he saw God. He dreamed that God spoke to him and said, “I am the God of your grandfather Abraham, and the God of your father Isaac. The land upon which you are lying I will give to you and to your descendants. And your descendants shall be many, as many as the particles of dust upon the earth. Through your family I will bless all the people of the earth. Now, I am with you, and will be with you wherever you go, and will protect you and bring you again to this land. I will never leave you until I have fulfilled this promise.” Jacob awoke from his dream and looked about. Although he saw no one, he felt sure that he was not alone, because the God of his father had promised to be with him. He arose early in the morning and made an altar by piling up stones. He had no offering to give to God upon this altar, so he poured some oil upon the heap of stones and called the name of the place Bethel, which means, “The house of God.” Then he made a vow and promised to give back God should give to him if indeed God would go with him and bless him as he had promised.
After this wonderful dream Jacob’s heart must have felt lighter as he hurried on his way. And every day he drew nearer the end of his long, tiresome journey. Then one evening, after he had left the lonely desert far behind, he saw some men, in a field, near a well. Round about them three flocks of sheep were lying down and waiting to be watered. This sight may have reminded him of his father’s flocks at home, which he had often cared for. He came nearer and spoke to the men. “Where are you from?” he asked; and when they replied that they were men of Haran he knew that at last he was near his uncle Laban’s home. “Do you know a man of Haran named Laban?” he asked eagerly, and they answered, “Yes, we know him; and, see, here comes his daughter Rachel with his sheep.” Jacob saw a beautiful young shepherdess approaching and he hurried to meet her. He rolled the stone away from the well and watered her sheep, then told her that he was her cousin, the son of her father’s sister, Rebekah. His joy upon seeing one of his relatives after such a long, lonely journey brought tears to Jacob’s eyes and he wept as he kissed the beautiful girl.
No doubt Laban had told Rachel about the strange men who had come from his granduncle Abraham a long time ago and who had taken his sister to become the wife of Abraham’s son, Isaac. And so Rachel hurried home to tell her father that his sister’s son had arrived from Canaan and was now taking charge of his flock of sheep at the well.