PART A Evening.
“THE PLACE” OF REVELATION—THE SPOT WHERE JACOB ENCOUNTERED GOD ON THE WAY TO HARAN (MOUNT MORIAH, per Stone Tanakh).
THE COVENANT WITH ABRAHAM AND ISAAC IS RATIFIED ALSO WITH JACOB.
Genesis 28:10-15, the Covenant Ratified with Jacob.
Jacob left the Well of the Oath^ (Beer Sheva), the abode of his father Isaac, and made his way toward Haran, away from Esau. When on his journey he arrived at Mount Moriah, it was dark and he lay down to sleep on a heap of stones that he gathered to make a rude bed. This was THE PLACE where Abraham had offered Isaac and had received him back from the dead (midrashically—see Hebrews 11:17-19). The offering of Isaac is the cornerstone event in the prophetic foreshadowing of the crucifixion of our Lord for the Salvation of Humanity and the Redemption of all things to God the Father through Messiah the Son. (Isaiah 53; Psalm 22; et al)
Verse 13 says,
VE’HINEI YHVH NITZ’TZAV AL’LAI’O VA’YO’MAR
And BEHOLD! ADONAI stood over him, and said,
ANI YHVH ELOHEI AV’RA’HAM AVI’CHA VEI’LO’HEI YITZ’CHAK
I AM YHVH God of Abraham your father and God of Isaac
[Midrashically, Abraham represents THE FATHER and Isaac THE SON. Therefore, from a mystical standpoint in which the Patriarchs reflect the Holy One in his manifestation to the world, Jacob stands symbolically in the position of the Fulness of the Father through the Son, the function of the Blessed Holy Spirit in the operations of Redemption for Mankind and for the whole Creation through the Covenant that God cut with the Three Patriarchs. They three became the NATION OF GOD, COVENANT ISRAEL, into which all redeemed souls are engrafted as “fellow heirs with the sanctified ones”—Ephesians 3:6.]
HA’ARETZ ASHER ATAH SHO’CHEIV A’LEI’AH LE’CHA ET’NE’NAH UL’ZAR’EH’CHA
The ground on which you are lying I will give to you and your descendants.
From this word we see that the Holy Land of Israel is bound up in the covenant of redemption; for it is to THIS PLACE that God has assigned the Glory, and the Name, and the Sacrifice, and the Consummation of the Eternal Ages. (Revelation 21-22 is the final statement of the Bible on all these points by way of The New Jerusalem, the Eternal Dwelling of the Divine Presence that merges Transcendence with the ground of the Earth to come.)^^
What a revelation! What a story! What a fact! Here is where our Lord was crucified. Here is where he was buried. Here is where he rose again. Here is where he will return. From here is where he will reign forever under the headship of the Father. From here we will reign with him throughout all ages in the power of the Holy Spirit. We will have our eternal home here. We will serve God here into all creations as He wills. Here will be our family dwelling. Here is the portal to all worlds—the Place of the Ladder of Ascent and Descent. (Genesis 28:12 with John 1:51)
Live your life each day with the understanding that you are God’s Salt and Light in the world that now stands. You will be glorified in the World that is coming; and in that world, and in all future worlds, you will be a minister of the Eternal Flame of His Presence wherever he sends you to bless his creation throughout all times and throughout all places. You will ascend the ladder and descend the ladder as you dwell in the Jerusalem Above and minister from it, step by step, to the Worlds Below.
So then: do not think that your life is small, or of minor importance. How can it be, when everything that God is working through you now is a portent of things to come?
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[^ “Well of the Oath,” Beer Sheva: BDB points out that “to Seven Oneself” comes from the Hebrew root “SHAVA,” which indicates the making of an oath by binding oneself seven times, like the weaving of checkered work, the plaiting of seven things by which one is securely bound. Samson used this with Delilah to feign that she could bind him by a series of seven things, ending with the “seven locks of my hair,” but finally revealing the true source of his strength in his Nazarite Consecration. (Judges 16) In like manner, the Seven Wells (Beer Shavuah) where Isaac dwelt was the memorial place of the covenant that God confirmed with Isaac, of which Jacob now became the Heir. In Daniel 9, God demonstrated absolute covenant making in the Sacrifice of Messiah through the Historic unfolding of seventy “sevens” of Prophetic Time that led exactly to the crucifixion of our Lord, the final act of Redemptive Covenant, performed in this place. (“He has done it!” “It is finished!”—Psalm 22:31; John 19:30)]
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^^New Jerusalem as God’s Chosen Point of intersection between Transcendence and Temporality: similar to this in the world of Analytic Geometry is what David Berlinski describes in his book A Tour of the Calculus, p. 17-18 as “a point”: he says, “…a point, it must be remembered, is not a number;* holding place without size and arising whimsically whenever two straight lines are crossed, it is a geometrical object, a kind of fathomless atom out of which the line is ultimately created. Analytic geometry is a program to make the desert bloom; but if arithmetic is to be found here is can only be as the result of a deliberate assignment of numbers to points, a pairing of items that are incorrigibly distinct. The mathematician thus does not discover a number at the origin: He invokes one.”
Here is a simile: God has chosen Jerusalem. He has also chosen Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David and Messiah Yeshua (and all those whom he has elected in His Son—including YOU!)
Who are we mortals to question his choice?
*”…not a number”: in a similar way, “Now” (fn) is not a click in the flow of Time, nor is it the ephemeral edge of the expanding Cosmos; it is the intersection between Transcendence and Temporality, where God upholds the Space-Time frame of the world by His emanating Presence sourced in Eternity. (Hebrews 1:3)
[fn re: “Now”: see my commentary on Muller in NOW: The Physics of Time]
PART B Morning.
Our father Jacob awoke from his sleep, from experiencing the ladder which he now called “the gate of the heavens.” He erected as a memorial stone the rock pillow on which he had slept and dreamt. He sanctified and materialized the dream.
Jacob changed the name of the place from Luz to Beth-el, from Nut Tree to House of God, from ordinary to extraordinary. THE PLACE became marked by the Presence of God, the Revelation of God, the Covenant of God. Thus, the IDENTITY OF THE PLACE had to change. Similarly, the places of our lives as we journey with God become marked places; the places where God meets with us and transforms our future.
Where has God met you? Identify and mark it so that you may return to it again and again. Do not let the chaos of living deflect you from the trajectory of your divine destiny.
From this place Jacob took his journey toward the purpose that would frame his existence—his wives Rachel and Leah, but in the reverse order—Leah and Rachel: from his natural love Rachel to his acquired love Leah. What begins in the natural realm (Jacob’s desire for Rachel) is fulfilled in the spiritual realm (Jacob’s unforeseen provision of Leah). (1 Corinthians 15:46, first the natural, then the spiritual)
Jacob was buried in the patriarchal cave with Leah.
One husband, two wives, and their two handmaids. This was to be the template for the building of the Nation of Israel.
Little do we know how God will fulfill his vision for us. For you it will be according to his purpose for you. You should not seek to be someone else. Jacob’s father Isaac had one wife from the house of Bethuel. Jacob had two—plus two concubines. It also included an adversary—the father of his wives who was the brother of his mother. Do not think that your progress in God will be smooth, without the energy of conflict driving forward the story of your life.
Even Jesus had Judas.
When God makes a covenant, it comes from a single Seed. When he expands the covenant, the seed multiplies. What do I mean? God has made only One Ultimate Covenant, the Covenant in his Son. But in the world of making, it came forth from One Natural Man Abraham through his progeny until it reached to the Only Begotten Son of God, Yeshua ha’Notzri (Jesus of Nazareth). How do I know? Because of the facts of the history that fulfilled the prophetic profile of the Suffering Servant Messiah who brought to pass the destruction of the curse of Sin and Death. (1 Corinthians 15)
There will never be another messiah that fulfills the Messianic profile from the Tanakh. It has been finished never to be re-enacted. (Book of Hebrews)
What now?
Now we must participate in the prophetic profile of our own time that is unfolding right before our eyes. God has returned the Jewish People to the Holy Land according to prophecy by means of the horrific Holocaust. But Modern Israel is not an idyllic state. There is spiritual work to be done alongside nation building.
To accomplish the work each of us must lead a life of prayer and consecration to the will of God. There are two great purposes that Messiah has left us: the evangelization of the Nations and the restoration of the Jewish people to their God-ordained purpose. (Matthew 28; Romans 9-11) Let God give you his dream for your part of the enterprise.
