Bible Fiber is on a one-year sprint through the foundational narratives of the first five books of the Bible, the Torah. As we follow the weekly Jewish reading calendar, we arrive at this week’s Torah portion, called Vayetzei which means “and he went out.” This portion covers Genesis 28:10−32:3. It is a pivotal 20-year period in the life of Jacob. He goes from being a deceptive momma’s boy fleeing the understandable wrath of his brother Esau to the father of the twelve tribes of Israel.
Vayetzei opens with a departure that signals a seismic shift in the biblical narrative. The text begins: “Now Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran” (Gen. 28:10). Until this moment, the patriarchs Abraham and Isaac lived their lives largely within the orbit of the Promised Land. Jacob, however, is the first to undergo a true exile. He is leaving the protections of Beersheba for Haran, a place known in the ancient world for its idolatry and corruption. When he leaves, he is alone and destitute; when he returns twenty years later, he is the wealthy head of a massive clan.
The Ladder
The narrative begins with one of the most iconic images in the Bible: Jacob’s Ladder. Stopping for the night, Jacob places stones around his head and has a dream. The text says, “A ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it” (Gen. 28:12)
Jewish commentaries note a peculiarity in the verse: angels usually descend from heaven to earth. Yet here, the text says they were “ascending and descending.” Were the angels of the Holy Land going up, leaving Jacob, or coming down to accompany him? Either way, God promises Jacob in the dream: “I am with you and will keep you wherever you go” (Gen. 28:15). Upon waking, Jacob exclaims: “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it” (Gen. 28:16).
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The Trickster Tricked
If the dream of the ladder provided Jacob with spiritual armor, his time in Haran was the battleground for his character. Jacob arrives in Haran and enters the house of his uncle Laban. While we often view the patriarchs as heroes of faith, we cannot gloss over the uncomfortable irony of his arrival: Jacob is a fugitive because he was a trickster. We must acknowledge that Esau, despite his carnal nature, was right to be angry. Jacob had previously exploited Esau’s hunger to buy the birthright for a bowl of soup. More damningly, Jacob participated in his mother’s elaborate deception, wearing goat skins to fool his blind father, Isaac, and explicitly lying to his face to steal the blessing meant for the firstborn.
In Haran, God holds up a mirror to Jacob in the form of Laban. The narrative of the wedding night is a little lesson of poetic justice. Jacob works for seven years for Rachel, whom he loves. Under the cover of darkness, Laban switches Rachel for her older sister, Leah. Jacob, who exploited his father’s blindness to trick him, is now blinded by the darkness of the tent. He wakes up to find he has been the victim of the exact same crime he committed: identity theft.
When he confronts Laban the next morning, the irony is devastating: “What is this you have done to me? Was it not for Rachel that I served with you? Why then have you deceived me?” (Gen. 29:25). The text echoes Isaac and Esau’s cry from the previous chapters. Laban responds, “It is not done so in our country, to give the younger before the firstborn” (Gen. 29:26). Did Laban know about Jacob’s deception, tricking his father to give him the firstborn blessing instead of Esau? Or was it clever divine justice that God had Jacob get a taste of his own medicine?
Rachel and Leah
The dynamic between Rachel and Leah is the emotional core of the narrative. Rachel is described as “beautiful of form and appearance” (Gen. 29:17). Leah, however, has “weak eyes.” She is unloved by Jacob initially. Scripture tells us: “When the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, He opened her womb” (Gen. 29:31). It is Leah’s six sons who make up most of the tribes, including Levi (the Priesthood) and Judah (the Kingly line).
The names Leah gives her sons track her emotional journey from desperation to gratitude. With her first three sons, her focus is entirely on her husband, Jacob, as she treats each birth as a transaction for his affection. She names her firstborn Reuben (“See”), hoping Jacob will finally see her. The second son is named Simeon (“Hear”), because God heard she was unloved. The third son was Levi (“Joined”), bargaining that surely three sons would force Jacob to be joined to her. These names are heartbreaking cries for validation.
However, with the birth of her fourth son, a transformation occurs. She names him Judah, meaning “Praise,” declaring simply, “Now I will praise the Lord.” For the first time, she does not mention her husband or her pain. In naming Judah, Leah finds her worth not in being Jacob’s wife, but in being God’s daughter.
The Symbolism of the Well
While there are many lessons in Jacob’s journey, and whole sermons could be written about any one of the scenes in today’s Torah portion, I want to return to the section where Jacob first meets Rachel at the well. I believe this scene especially symbolizes the extension of the covenant and the expansion of God’s promise. It represents a Messianic thread that weaves its way from Abraham to Jesus.
In Genesis 29, after his long journey, Jacob arrives at the outskirts of Haran. It is his very first stop in this new land; he has not yet entered the city or found a place to stay. He encounters a well in the open fields where local shepherds are idling, waiting for more men to gather so they can collectively roll the heavy stone covering the well’s mouth.
As Jacob inquires about his uncle Laban, Laban’s daughter Rachel approaches with her sheep. Rachel becomes the very first relative Jacob lays eyes on. Energized by the sight of her, Jacob performs a feat of great strength: he single-handedly rolls the massive stone away to water her flock. Overcome with the emotion of finally finding his kin, he kisses Rachel, weeps aloud, and identifies himself as her cousin.
We first see this pattern of divine encounters at wells in Genesis 24, when Abraham’s servant goes to a well and asks for a sign from God about the wife he will pick for Isaac. He meets Rebekah, who shows kindness by offering him water and watering his camels. Rebekah was not born into the covenant like Isaac; however, the Bible makes clear that she chose of her own free will to return to Beersheba with Abraham’s servant to marry Isaac. Through Rebekah, the covenant was extended. When Jacob meets Rachel at the well, the covenant is extended again.
Later in scripture, Moses also meets his wife at a well. Zipporah was at a well with her sisters when Moses, a fugitive on the run, scared off male shepherds who were harassing them. Zipporah is a Midianite. All three of these marriages extend the covenant and the promise further outside of the strict Abrahamic household. These are women who come into the covenant and the story of God’s people through faith and commitment.
The ultimate fulfillment of the connection between wells and covenant extension arrives in John 4. The gospel records: “He came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well” (John 4:5−6). The text highlights that they were at Jacob’s Well. It was called this because when Jacob finally returned to Canaan, he bought a plot of ground for 100 pieces of silver (Gen. 33:18). Eventually, Joseph’s bones were brought from Egypt and buried on his father’s tract of land (Josh. 24:32).
As Jesus sat by the well, he asked the Samaritan woman for a drink of water. She was shocked because Jews and Samaritans had been enemies for centuries, ever since the days of Ezra and Nehemiah. The woman responded, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (John 4:9).
Although the Samaritans were the most despised of Israel’s neighbors, Jesus said to her: “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14).
Jesus was declaring his Messiahship, revealing his full identity as someone much greater than Jacob, to this woman. Abraham’s servant extended the covenant at the well by meeting Rebekah, and Jacob met his true love Rachel at the well, and Moses encountered his Midianite wife at the well. It makes sense in the pattern of the Bible for the gospel to first be taken outside of the Jewish camp at a well. When the Samaritan woman came to the full knowledge of Jesus, the door was opened for all of us.
As Jesus showed the Samaritan woman, not only are we loved by God, but we are fully known by Him—known in our kindness, our sin, and our doubts. When Jacob had his dream of angels ascending and descending the ladder, God appeared to him and gave him the same promise he had given Abraham and Isaac: all peoples on earth would be blessed through his offspring (Gen. 28:14). That happened in the coming of Jesus: his incarnation, death, and resurrection. All we must do to be grafted into God’s great promise is drink of the living water.
That’s it for this week. In the newsletter version of the episode, I am including three questions that you can study for either your personal use or a group study. They are just thought-provoking questions that I think the text asks of us as readers. Be sure to sign up for our emails at www.thejerusalemconnection.us
Join me next week as we read Vayishlach which means “And he sent.”It covers Genesis 32:4 through 36:43.
Shabbat Shalom and Am Israel Chai.
1. Finding God in the “Real World” (Genesis 28:10–22): In this portion, Jacob leaves the spiritual safety of his home and encounters God in a desolate, rocky place, exclaiming, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” Can you identify a “rocky ground” season in your life—where you were surprised to discover God’s presence was there all along?
2. From Validation to Praise (Genesis 29:31–35): Leah’s naming of her children tracks her shift from desperate codependency (“Maybe now my husband will love me”) to spiritual independence (“Now I will praise the Lord”). In what areas of your life are you tempted to seek “horizontal” validation from people (spouses, bosses, social media), and what would it look like to shift that focus “vertically” to finding your worth solely in being a child of God?
3. Extending the Covenant at the Well (Genesis 29:1–14 & John 4:1–26): We traced the biblical pattern of wells being places where the covenant is extended—from Rebekah, to Zipporah, to the Samaritan woman. Jesus broke centuries of prejudice by offering “living water” to a Samaritan, someone considered an enemy of his people. Who are the “Samaritans” in our modern context—the people we might consider “outsiders” or “unworthy”—and how can we spread the news of the Living Water to them?