TheBibleNet: Genesis 28:10-28:22

Surf The Site

Genesis: 1a 1b 1c 1d 2a 2b 2c 2d 3 4a 4b 4c/5 6a 6b 7 8 9 10 11a 11b 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25a 25b 26a 26b 27 28a 28b 29 30a 30b 31a 31b/32a 32b 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44a 44b 45 46 47a 47b 48 49 50

SEDRA VA YETSE

THE DEPARTURE OF YA'AKOV

28:10: VA YETSE YA'AKOV MI BE'ER SHAVA VA YELECH CHARANAH

וַיֵּצֵא יַעֲקֹב מִבְּאֵר שָׁבַע וַיֵּלֶךְ חָרָנָה

KJ (King James translation): And Jacob went out from Beersheba, and went toward Haran.

BN (BibleNet translation): So Ya'akov left Be'er Sheva, and headed for Charan.

Once again we need to note that Padan Aram is the region and Charan the specific town. And that he leaves from Be'er Sheva, not Be'er Lechi Ro'i, bringing that particular ambiguity to its end.

So begins the great epic of the ancient world, the departure of Frodo Baggins for the land of Sauron, the departure of Herakles on the first of his twelve labours, the departure of David in flight from the angry king Sha'ul, the departure of ET from the Green Planet, the departure of Odysseus for Troy... the expert on this is Joseph Campbell, either in "The Hero With A Thousand Faces" or his 4-part "Masks of God". He would include Lukac's "Star Wars" and Melville's "Moby-Dick" as well, but there are scores of variants, including, at one level, the 40-year Mosaic voyage through the wilderness, Siegfried in the "Nibelungenlied"...

28:11: VA YIPHGA BA MAKOM VA YALEN SHAM KI VA HA SHEMESH VA YIKACH ME AVNEY HA MAKOM VA YASEM ME RA'ASHOTAV VA YISHKAV BA MAKOM HA HU

וַיִּפְגַּע בַּמָּקוֹם וַיָּלֶן שָׁם כִּי בָא הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ וַיִּקַּח מֵאַבְנֵי הַמָּקוֹם וַיָּשֶׂם מְרַאֲשֹׁתָיו וַיִּשְׁכַּב בַּמָּקוֹם הַהוּא

KJ: And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them forhis pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep.

BN: And he chanced upon a particular place, and spent the night there, because the sun had set; and he took one of the stones of the place, and put it under his head, and lay down in that place to sleep.

VA YIPHGAH (ויפגע): The Talmudists were capable of quite extraordinary levels of nonsense to make or prove a point. None more so than in this verse. They deduce that, although VA YIPHGA (ויפגע) in this context clearly means "to light upon", in the sense either of "coming upon by chance" or of "reaching one's destination", (the root is PAGA, and it is used so often, and with these two shades of meaning, throughout the Tanach, that it would take me half a page to list them all - take a look at Numbers 35:19 for example, or Amos 5:19, or 1 Samuel 10:5), but the Talmudists (Rabbi Yossi bar Rabbi Hanina to make this personal) insist that here it means "to entreat". Now the act of entreating is also a facet of the act of prayer, and consequently, since this is happening in the evening, it can be seen that Ya'akov is not simply fleeing from his home and setting out on a journey, but has been given the additional mission by his god to institute the custom known as Ma'ariv (מערב), the recitation of the evening prayers; a ritual which in fact belongs to the Rabbinic period a thousand and more years later, and was never a prayer service at all, but the rites in the Temple for the cleaning of the altar after morning and afternoon sacrifices. But see Genesis 24:63, where other Talmudic Rabbis have already found the (equally debateable) source for Ma'ariv.

BA MAKOM (אבני המקום): The pointing insists on BA MAKOM, but unpointed it could just as well be BE MEKOM; superficially the mere distinction of the definite or indefinite article, but in the realms of mythology these distinctions matter. He came to "a place" could be absolutely anywhere, and of no significance; but he came to "the place" denotes somewhere known, somewhere which, even unnamed, will be obvious to the listener or reader, its significance pre-attached. (This note relates to the first appearance of the word in the verse; the other two are clearly BA MAKOM.)

KI VA HA SHEMESH: Not the first time we have encountered, and been bewildered, by this phrase. LAVO = "to come", so should this not infer the sunrise, which is the time when the sun "comes"? Sunset, on the other hand, is the time when the sun "goes" - but the context of the rest of this makes clear that it is sunset, not sunrise.

AVNEY HA MAKOM: Unlike GIL-GAL, which was a type of megalithic alignment, Beit-El appears to have been just a single stone (the Phoenician word is baetyl), either standing where it happened to land when it fell out of a meteor and struck the Earth, or man-made, carved from existing stone, in such cases with the curved head engraved to look like a face. That it was already there before Ya'akov chanced upon it goes without saying; if it was a fragment of meteorite it had probably been there for millions and not just thousands of years. We can also assume that it wasn't by chance but by intention anyway, because where better, where safer for a man travelling alone, to put your head on a pillow for the night and find food for your supper, than at an established shrine? It lies ten miles north of what was not yet Yeru-Shala'im, and a mile east of Luz, with which town it is here both confused and associated (see verse 19 below). The present Arab village of Betin preserves some of the name. Av-Raham had already sacrificed here on his way to and back from Mitsrayim (Egypt), in Genesis 12, which is why I make the assumption that the shrine already existed. - though, as we are recognising more with each chapter we study, these kinds of assumption require the Genesis tales to be historical and chronological, where in fact they are probably mythological and therefore concurrent - all the way to the end of the Book of Judges, and quite possibly to the end of the Book of Samuel too!

Judges 20:18 notes that the Ark was kept there, so unquestionably a shrine came into existence at some time. 1 Samuel 13:4 notes that worship at Beit-El was still in practice in Sha'ul's time. 1 Kings 12:29/33 notes that it became the central sanctuary after the division of Yisra-El into two kingdoms under Rechav-Am (Rehoboam) and Yerav-Am (Jeroboam).

"The place" is an odd literary form; as if a verse is missing or an expectation existed of knowledge; or perhaps just a delaying tactic, the opposite of prefiguring and foreshadowing: an unwillingness to name the place yet, because of the conflict of names that will be revealed and dealt with later.

Putting a stone under one's head does not make for a comfortable pillow. But in the legends of the gods, when they came to Earth, this was precisely what they did. We have to presume that, at its origins, this was a god-tale, later reduced to human proportions; and that in our Ya'akov story, given the mummy's boy that we have seen him to be, there was no doubt a convenient cushion in his backpack, packed by Rivkah because she knew, quite rightly, that, like clean underwear and a spare pair of shoes, he would never think of such a thing. On the other hand, it is highly unlikely that he put his head on the baetyl itself, which was a sacred object.

28:12: VA YACHALOM VE HINEH SULAM MUTSAV ARTSAH VE ROSHO MAGIY'A HA SHAMAYEMAH VE HINEY MAL'ACHEY ELOHIM OLIM VE YORDIM BO

וַיַּחֲלֹם וְהִנֵּה סֻלָּם מֻצָּב אַרְצָה וְרֹאשׁוֹ מַגִּיעַ הַשָּׁמָיְמָה וְהִנֵּה מַלְאֲכֵי אֱלֹהִים עֹלִים וְיֹרְדִים בּוֹ

KJ: And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.

BN: And he had a dream, and behold a ladder set up on the Earth, whose top reached into the heavens; and there were the angels of Elohim going up and down on it.

Note that the angels are masculine, as always. We can presume that the addition of the angels came later, and that the original idea of the ladder was the steps to the summit of the temple itself (a ramp that would be replicated in the ascent to the altar of the temple in Yeru-Shala'im). We know there were such, from the step-temples (ziggurats) of Ur and Bavel (Babylon). What remains is a story of the god who founded Beit-El, long before Ya'akov. However...

Given that the angels represented the stars in the heavens before they were ever personified as semi-human creatures with Disneyesque wings, and that the baetyl which gave the place its name probably came down in a meteorite shower, it is reasonable to see the ladder as a poetic image of the Milky Way, something that we modern city-dwellers are unable to see for sodium lights, but which, like the aurora borealis, was the normal evening sky, on clear nights, in the Biblical world.

One of the most famous stories in all Beney Yisra-Eli mythology; and with it the story of Yisra-El properly begins, even though he is still called Ya'akov almost to the end (and as we shall see, will continue to be called Ya'akov even after his name is changed to Yisra-El). The dream marks a crossing-over in his life, and thereby in his significance - the equivalent to Buddha exiting the palace and finding the World Tree. It is also at this precise moment that the cult of the Beney Yisra-El starts, though it will not become fully Yisra-Eli until the second "angelic" event completes the epic cycle, at Penu-El, in Genesis 32.

And so we can ask, following Frazer and Joseph Campbell and others: is what happens here - the dream and the ladder - the official next stage of the coronation ritual that began with Yitschak's first blessing, and which will end, at the culmination of the epic journey through the realm of the underworld-god and the final wrestling-match with the man he is to supplant (c.f "The Golden Bough"), at his actual coronation at Penu-El. Compare Sha'ul's pursuit of his asses (1 Samuel 9), which seems to have been an official royal tour of the shrines, though the Redactor has done his utmost to expurgate that, to receive the blessing at each one; a process apparently echoed in the early desert wanderings of Mosheh, which are also shrine to shrine. Compare even more the epic of David, pursued by the underworld-god Sha'ul into the nether-kingdom of the Aravah and exile.

The god in this verse is Elohim, but becomes YHVH in the next.

28:13: VE HINEH YHVH NITSAV ALAV VA YOMAR ANI YHVH ELOHEY AV-RAHAM AVIYCHA VE ELOHEY YITSCHAK HA ARETS ASHER ATAH SHOCHEV ALEYHA LECHA ETNENAH U LE ZAR'ECHA

וְהִנֵּה יְהוָה נִצָּב עָלָיו וַיֹּאמַר אֲנִי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי אַבְרָהָם אָבִיךָ וֵאלֹהֵי יִצְחָק הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר אַתָּה שֹׁכֵב עָלֶיהָ לְךָ אֶתְּנֶנָּה וּלְזַרְעֶךָ

KJ: And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed;

BN: And there was YHVH, standing beside him, and he said: "I am YHVH, the god of Av-Raham your father, and the god of Yitschak. This land on which you are lying, I will give it to you, and to your descendants...

As noted repeatedly, whenever a patriarch sets out on the uncertainty of a journey, YHVH or Elohim appears, each in different ways, to provide reassurance in the form of a covenant - scarcely more really than a Tephilat ha Derech. I have discussed this previously and shall not repeat myself; but here is further confirmation of the true nature of covenant.

YHVH (יהוה): quick switch from Elohim, but still incorrect; as we have noted several times, YHVH himself tells Mosheh that none of the patriarchs knew him as YHVH (Exodus 6:3). This should read El Shadai.

AVIYCHA (אביך): The phrasing is odd; it appears to denote Av-Raham as his father, rather than Yitschak. Clearly it is being used here to mean "grandfather" or "ancestor", and not just "father".

This certainly reads like the language of a coronation, in which case we can go back and re-read the covenants with Av-Ram, Av-Raham and Yitschak. Yet again a journey has a covenant tale attached, giving confidence. The terms of the covenant are as ever the same, except that they are then extended as follows.

The language is almost identical to Av-Raham and Yitschak's similar visitations, and indeed to Hagar's.

Compare this to the opening blessing of the Amidah.

28:14: VA HAYAH ZAR'ACHA KA APHAR HA ARETS U PHARATSTA YAMAH VA KEDMAH VE TSAPHONAH VA NEGBAH VE NIVRACHU VECHA KOL MISHPECHOT HA ADAMAH U VE ZAR'ECHA

וְהָיָה זַרְעֲךָ כַּעֲפַר הָאָרֶץ וּפָרַצְתָּ יָמָּה וָקֵדְמָה וְצָפֹנָה וָנֶגְבָּה וְנִבְרֲכוּ בְךָ כָּל מִשְׁפְּחֹת הָאֲדָמָה וּבְזַרְעֶךָ

KJ: And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

BN: "And your descendants shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall be dispersed abroad, to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south, and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the Earth be blessed...

The first hint of the Beney Yisra-El as a "chosen people" - chosen for a specific purpose through which all the world's nations would be blessed - chosen; or simply given once more the responsibility for the world already indicated in the first Creation myth. But also the first indication of the "rootless cosmopolitanism" which would become the hallmark of the Jews after the second exile in 70CE: the Galut or exile, and the Tephutsot or Diaspora.

MISHPECHOT (משפחת): meaning tribes, or families in the sense of clans.

28:15: VE HINEH ANOCHI IMACH U SHEMARTIYCHA BE CHOL ASHER TELECH VA HASHIVOTIYCHA EL HA ADAMAH HA ZOT KI LO E'EZAVCHA AD ASHER IM ASIYTI ET ASHER DIBARTI LACH

וְהִנֵּה אָנֹכִי עִמָּךְ וּשְׁמַרְתִּיךָ בְּכֹל אֲשֶׁר תֵּלֵךְ וַהֲשִׁבֹתִיךָ אֶל הָאֲדָמָה הַזֹּאת כִּי לֹא אֶעֱזָבְךָ עַד אֲשֶׁר אִם עָשִׂיתִי אֵת אֲשֶׁר דִּבַּרְתִּי לָךְ

KJ: And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.

BN: "And here am I, here with you, and I will be your guardian you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you, until I have fulfilled everything that I have said to you."

It seems as if this was not so much a vision as a custom for nomadic tribes moving on, to go to the gods for a blessing that the journey will go well and they will return safely. In Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude" we read that the village of Macondo was established because the first of their party died there; the burial tied them to the land and so they gave up wandering and became sedentary there. For nomads without such sedentary ties, the future remains uncertain. So Ya'akov goes to the shrine to get this reassurance, and effectively a covenant is agreed: his god will look after him, if he will give his tsedakah (see verse 20).

The order of the verses, the order of the story, is somewhat odd, because here is YHVH answering his prayer, but he doesn't in fact offer up the prayer until verse 20. (And does this promise count anyway, given that it happened in a dream?)

28:16: VA YIYKATS YA'AKOV MI SHENATO VA YOMER ACHEN YESH YHVH BA MAKOM HA ZEH VE ANOCHI LO YADATI

וַיִּיקַץ יַעֲקֹב מִשְּׁנָתוֹ וַיֹּאמֶר אָכֵן יֵשׁ יְהוָה בַּמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה וְאָנֹכִי לֹא יָדָעְתִּי

KJ: And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not.

BN: And Ya'akov woke from his sleep, and he said, "Surely YHVH is in this place, and I had no idea."

LO YADATI (לא ידעתי): Why did he not know this, given that his grandfather had prayed there? (We could ask, but this would be modern theology and not early Biblical theology: why did he not know that god is everywhere, and therefore in every place?). And he came to a baetyl, which is always holy. The point is that in the Ya'akov cult, which must originally have been completely separate from the Av-Ram and Av-Raham and Yitschak cults, the founding father of the people has to be the establisher of the main shrines. For Yisra-El, precisely because Beit-El will host the Ark for many years (see Judges 20:18 and 26 and 21:2), this has to be the first shrine that he names.

28:17: VA YIYRA VA YOMAR MAH NORA HA MAKOM HA ZEH EYN ZEH KI IM BEIT ELOHIM VE ZEH SHA'AR HA SHAMAYIM

וַיִּירָא וַיֹּאמַר מַה נּוֹרָא הַמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה אֵין זֶה כִּי אִם בֵּית אֱלֹהִים וְזֶה שַׁעַר הַשָּׁמָיִם

KJ: And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.

BN: And he was afraid, and said, "How awesome is this place! This must be the very home of Elohim, and this is the gateway to the heavens."

Another of the features of exegesis that becomes ever more fascinating with the writing of these notes, reading the thoughts of other scholars as I do so, is the way that commentators and interpreters occasionally lapse into what must be called negative propaganda. Rather than simply explaining what is there, they seek to dis-explain what is not there. The golden rule for understanding this is: assume they are trying to distract you from what really is there, in the hope that you will not notice it. But in fact it only draws greater attention. So, here, we find Hertz tying himself in knots about the pillar and the oil, offering absurdities disguised as explanations. For the pillar he writes that it was "not intended as an altar or as an act of worship", despite the fact that the Talmud states that he was instituting one of the major acts of worship, "but to mark the spot where he had had the fateful dream-vision... He hopes, however, at a later time to erect a Sanctuary on the spot... And as to the oil" - see the following verse - he tells us Ya'akov did it "to distinguish that stone from the rest, so he might recognise it on his return". All this, just to evade the paganism of his act of worship. Everything that we know about the Greek and other peoples who used the Baetylos as a place of worship tells us that what Ya'akov did in verse 18, pouring his oil (though not standing it up as a pillar; he didn't need to, it already was), as a libation as a prelude to offering up a prayer to the deity, was precisely normal, and will indeed be reflected/sustained in the Temple libation practices later on.

YHVH and El and Elohim seem to get used here almost as synonyms, which is a new phenomenon if true.

BEIT ELOHIM (בית אלהים): from which the name Beit-El (see verse 19 below), though of course BEIT ELOHIM and BEIT EL do not denote the same deity!

SHA'AR HA SHAMAYIM: If we were translating this into Biblical Yehudit, rather than the other way around, how might we render "the gateway of the heavens"? Sha'ar ha Shamayim would certainly be correct, but so might Bav-El, with that hyphenated variation on the spelling; and the image of the ladder, on the side of the invisible dream-tower, conjures up nothing so much as the Tower of Bav-El: "And they said: 'Come, let us build us a city, and a tower, with its top in the heavens...'" (Genesis 11:4). See my note on the ziggurat at verse 12.

28:18: VA YASHKEM YA'AKOV BA BOKER VA YIKACH ET HA EVEN ASHER SAM ME RA'ASHOTAV VA YASEM OTAH MATSEVAH VA YITSOK SHEMEN AL ROSHA

וַיַּשְׁכֵּם יַעֲקֹב בַּבֹּקֶר וַיִּקַּח אֶת הָאֶבֶן אֲשֶׁר שָׂם מְרַאֲשֹׁתָיו וַיָּשֶׂם אֹתָהּ מַצֵּבָה וַיִּצֹק שֶׁמֶן עַל רֹאשָׁהּ

KJ: And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it.

BN: And Ya'akov got up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put under his head, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil on the top of it.

EVEN (אבן): used here in the feminine. It was already a holy rock, therefore he doesn't actually need to sanctify it; yet he also does, for the reason given above. Is this, like the Yitschak/Be'er Sheva story, the aetiological explanation of a very ancient site, but one which allows Ya'akov to be the protagonist?

28:19: VA YIKRA ET SHEM HA MAKOM HA HU BEIT-EL VE ULAM LUZ SHEM HA IR LA RISHONAH

וַיִּקְרָא אֶת שֵׁם הַמָּקוֹם הַהוּא בֵּית אֵל וְאוּלָם לוּז שֵׁם הָעִיר לָרִאשֹׁנָה

KJ: And he called the name of that place Bethel: but the name of that city was called Luz at the first.

BN: And he named the place Beit-El, though originally the name of the town was Luz.

BEIT-EL (ביתאל): "the house of El"; not YHVH nor Elohim nor even El Shadai; clearly we are in a very old Kena'ani cultic shrine which the Beney Yisra-El at some point took over; the dream-ladder was probably retained as a nice story and attributed to the father of the Beney Yisra-El Ya'akov as part of the normal processes of assimilation or amalgamation, but originally...

The view on Omphalos or Baetylus,
the center of the universe for the ancient Greeks at Delphi

The Greek (originally Phoenician) word Baetylos (or Baetylus, or even Baetulus) signifies a cone-shaped pillar that would be anointed with oil, wine or blood, and in which a god resided. The cones were said to have fallen from heaven, as in the story of the thunder-stone sacred to Terminus at Rome, or the one at the Palladium at Troy. Baetylus was a son of the sky god Ouranos by the Earth-mother Gaea. All of this probably derives, via the Phoenicians, from the Kena'ani Beit-El, where El's nativity is a mirror-image. The black rock known as the Ka'aba, which is the centre of the shrine in Mecca, is also a type of Baetylos.

LUZ (לוז): from the root meaning "to bend, turn away, depart"; the passive form NALUZ (נלוז) means "wicked" or "perverted"; however LUZ (לוז) is also "an almond tree", whose cultic significance cannot be overlooked at this key shrine - Luz here is a town in Bin-Yamin named for its shrine; however Judges 1:26 also refers to a town named Luz, in Beney Chet country, named as such by quite another person (alas unnamed), and it is likely that many towns bore the name, as they did Tamar for their date trees,or Elon for their oaks, or Ramot because they were on high ground.

What is certain is that, if it had been called Luz from the first, it had already ceased to be called Luz when Av-Ram visited it. Or is Luz the town and Beit-El the shrine?

An explanation of the cultic significance of the almond tree will help answer this: from other references in the Bible, we can safely conclude that the town and shrine of Luz was about a mile way, and hosted an almond grove with sacred properties; and that either the Redactor has confused the two, or the town has become identified with the shrine as a direction-finder for pilgrims. In Exodus 25:31, Mosheh makes the first Menorah (the seven-branched candlestick that lights the Mishkan and later the Temple) with almond-shaped bowls for the lamp oil. In Numbers 17, Aharon's Rod, which was made from almond wood, blossomed in his hands.

As literature this is clever: calling it ha Makom, as though it had no name until Ya'akov gave it one. Compare the Qur'anic references to Maqom Ibrahim, the stone on which Ibrahim stood when he first established the Ka'aba at Mecca.

28:20: VA YIDAR YA'AKOV NEDER LEMOR IM YIHEYEH ELOHIM IMADI U SHEMARANI BA DERECH HA ZEH ASHER ANOCHI HOLECH VE NATAN LI LECHEM LE'ECHOL U VEGED LILBOSH

וַיִּדַּר יַעֲקֹב נֶדֶר לֵאמֹר אִם יִהְיֶה אֱלֹהִים עִמָּדִי וּשְׁמָרַנִי בַּדֶּרֶךְ הַזֶּה אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי הוֹלֵךְ וְנָתַן לִי לֶחֶם לֶאֱכֹל וּבֶגֶד לִלְבֹּשׁ

KJ: And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on,

BN: Then Ya'akov vowed a vow saying, "If Elohim will really be with me, and be my guardian on this journey, and will give me bread to eat, and clothes to wear on...

IM YIHEYEH ELOHIM IMADI: This cannot be fully conveyed in an English translation. The god referred to here is Elohim; but YIHEYEH = "will be" is also a variation of YHVH, and will be stated as his preferred name, "EHEYEH ASHER EHEYEH - I am that I am", or perhaps "whatever will be will be", in Exodus 3:14.

Of course the whole thing makes sense as being the prayer for the start of a lengthy and very dangerous journey; in this sense his fear at the beginning is paralleled by his fear at the end, at Penu-El. We can imagine him, on his way to the journey, stopping first at the temple to get a priestly blessing for safety en route. And yet the verse is out of place, because the prayer has already been answered, in the terms of the covenant given several verses earlier. Is this perhaps a textual error, and the prayer should come before the dream, and before the covenant, while the oil-pouring, which is a ceremony of libation used as an act of thanksgiving, should come now, in recognition of the dream and the covenant proffered?

This time it appears to be the man who lays down the terms of the covenant, which is a new departure. If my god will give me what I ask for, I will respond by giving him one tenth of what I have. A very different order of contract. But again, his god has already agreed the terms. The concept of 10% remains alive in contemporary Judaism.

This is the first mention in the Tanach of a NEDER = "a vow", the same word that will give KOL NIDREI (כָּל נִדְרֵי), the "annulling of the vows" which opens the ceremonies of Yom Kippur. (Dare one ask if, given his track-record, Ya'akov isn't deceiving his other father, by offering a vow that will be annulled within months, rather than the OLAH or SHEVU'A that Av-Ram, Av-Raham and Yitschak all offered when they made their covenants?)

IMADI is much stronger than than ITI, which would in theory mean exactly the same, and would be the form used in daily conversation. Ya'akov is picking up the words from his dream - see verse 15.

BA DERECH HA ZEH: And how I would love to translate it as "this odyssey on which I am embarking", but alas that would be pushing comparative mythology beyond reasonable limits. The comparison is nonetheless valid (the next verse even more so).

28:21: VE SHAVTI VE SHALOM EL BEIT AVI VE HAYAH YHVH LI LE ELOHIM

וְשַׁבְתִּי בְשָׁלוֹם אֶל בֵּית אָבִי וְהָיָה יְהוָה לִי לֵאלֹהִים

KJ: So that I come again to my father's house in peace; then shall the LORD be my God:

BN: "So that I may come back to my father's house in peace, then YHVH shall be my god...

As the text cleverly mixed YHVH and ELOHIM in the previous verse, so again here, but in reverse. Here Elohim appears as the general word for god, with YHVH as the specific god. No doubt, yet again, this was simply a compromise in the Redactor's office, as both groups of worshippers wanted their god's name included in this critically important episode.

BEIT AVI: A cute piece of wording that sees him move from his father's house (BEIT AVI) to the house of his god where he is now (BEIT EL).

If he is literally sleeping with his head on the baetyl, does that give him asylum should Esav come searching for him to kill him? The Mosaic law of the Go'el does not yet apply, and perhaps the stone was too pagan, but nonetheless...

28:22: VE HA EVEN HA ZOT ASHER SAMTI MATSEVAH YIHEYEH BEIT ELOHIM VE CHOL ASHER TITEN LI ASER A'ASRENU LACH

וְהָאֶבֶן הַזֹּאת אֲשֶׁר שַׂמְתִּי מַצֵּבָה יִהְיֶה בֵּית אֱלֹהִים וְכֹל אֲשֶׁר תִּתֶּן לִי עַשֵּׂר אֲעַשְּׂרֶנּוּ לָךְ

KJ: And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.

BN: "And this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be the house of Elohim; and from everything that you give me, I will give a tenth back to you."

EVEN: Ya'akov does not build an altar, as we are told Av-Ram did in Genesis 12:8; rather he used the stone in the conventional manner described above.

MATSEVAH (מצבה): from the root NATSAV (נצב) = "something set upright", and therefore "a pillar", though it also gives MATSEVET for "a statue", and the frequently found MATSVAT HA BA'AL, the idol of Ba'al which Eli-Yahu (Elijah) railed against (2 Kings 3:2 et al), as did Michah (Micah 5:12/13) and Hoshe'a (Hosea 10:1). The difference between a dolmen and a menhir in the megalithic world.

BEIT ELOHIM (בית אלהים): as opposed to Beit El; but we saw this a few verses ago. However, the use of the future tense is problematic, unless this is a Chanukat ha-Bayit, a dedication ceremony for the establishment of the baetyl as a sacred stone.

ASER A-ASRENU (עשר אעשרנו): who gets the better of that contract? He would have to pay more in income tax! But this is the earliest source of the Jewish custom of Tsedakah – the ten per cent tithe that remains the standard Jewish charity tax to this day. If only every Jew would make the same commitment, and fulfill the pledge as well, our institutions could spend less time than they do eternally pan-handling for donors.

Yet the covenant from the god's point of view was unconditional: what Ya'akov vows to give back was not requested but of his own volition.

End of first fragment (not indicated by pey or samech); end of chapter 28.

Compare all of the above with the beginning of Genesis 35, when Ya'akov returns to Beit-El at the end of his epic journey.