Genesis 28

What’s Happening?

Jacob has received his father Isaac’s blessing, but his life is in turmoil. His older brother Esau wants to kill him for stealing the blessing, and so Jacob flees to his family’s homeland both to preserve his life and to find a wife among his own people (Genesis 28:6–9).

As he journeys, Jacob stops for the night and lays his head on a stone. While he sleeps, God gives him a dream that will change everything. He sees a great structure—like a ladder, tower, or staircase—stretching from earth to heaven. On it, angels are ascending and descending (Genesis 28:12). And then Jacob hears the voice of God himself.

Even though Jacob already had Isaac’s blessing, there was a greater one he needed to receive—God’s. So the Lord speaks the covenant promise first given to Abraham and then to Isaac, now confirmed to Jacob: his descendants will become a great nation, they will inherit the land, and through them all the families of the earth will be blessed (Genesis 28:13–14).

But what about the ladder? The vision recalls the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:4). At Babel, humans tried to build their way into heaven, attempting to create a gate to God through their own effort. God frustrated their plans by confusing their language and scattering them (Genesis 11:8–9).

Here, in contrast, it is not man building upward but God descending downward. God provides the connection between heaven and earth. Jacob recognizes this, waking in awe and saying, “This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven” (Genesis 28:17). He names the place Bethel, which means “house of God” (Genesis 28:19).

Unlike Babel, where people were divided, God promises to gather and bless all peoples through Jacob’s line. Jacob’s ladder reveals how God—not humanity—will heal the divide between heaven and earth and make a way for his dwelling to be with his people.

Where is the Gospel?

This vision is fulfilled not in Jacob’s life but in Jesus. At the beginning of John’s Gospel, Jesus alludes directly to this dream, telling Nathanael, “You will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” (John 1:51). Jesus is saying that he himself is the true ladder, the connection between heaven and earth.

Later, Jesus calls himself “the gate” for the sheep (John 10:9) and identifies his body as the new temple, the dwelling place of God with humanity (John 2:19–21). What Jacob saw in shadow, Jesus fulfills in reality. He is Bethel—the true house of God—where heaven and earth meet.

The good news is that we do not need to build our way to God through towers of human achievement or religion. God has come down to us in Jesus. As Paul says, Jesus “did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness” (Philippians 2:6–7).

In his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus opens heaven’s gate and invites us into union with God. Through him, the scattering of Babel is reversed, and a new people from every nation are gathered into one family of blessing (Acts 2:6–11; Revelation 7:9).

See for Yourself

I pray that the Holy Spirit would open your eyes to see the God who comes down to meet us. And may you see Jesus as the true ladder, the temple, and the gate of heaven who unites heaven and earth and brings you into the presence of God forever.