God’s promises to Jacob - All The Good Seed Daily Devotionals for 2025

Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go.
Genesis 28:15

God’s promises to Jacob
This is what God says to Jacob, one of the patriarchs of Israel. What has preceded it? Jacob cheated his brother Esau and therefore had to flee from his angry brother. He had to leave his mother behind, unaware that he would never see her again on earth. And his father had spoken words of blessing to him because he expected to die soon. So Jacob left with the thought of never seeing his father again. What a difficult farewell! With only a staff in his hand and perhaps a few coins in his bag, Jacob covered a distance of hundreds of miles to Haran, all alone and on foot – a dangerous journey!

Jacob spends the night out in the open. And it isn’t long before God meets him in a dream: Jacob sees a ladder reaching from earth to heaven. The connection to his parental home might be broken, but the connection to heaven still exists. Angels ascend and descend the ladder – they are the heavenly messengers of God, the heavenly protectors of believers. They symbolise God’s care of Jacob for the time he will be out of the country. And most importantly, above the angels is God – the God of his grandfather Abraham and his father Isaac.

Without rebuking him, God promises Jacob, as he did his ancestors, that He will give him the land on which he is lying. He is to become the progenitor of a great nation. God assures him of His support and protection. And Jacob receives the pledge that God will bring him back to the promised land. What grace God grants this guilty fugitive right at the beginning of his wanderings! At this point, Jacob could do nothing with this grace. It was only much later that he would encounter God personally and be broken before Him.

Today’s reading: Genesis 47:1-12 · Psalms 33:12-22