Genesis 28:16

Let us listen also unto the words which Jacob spake in that country in which God was revealed unto him, for from them we may especially see his simplicity: "Verily there is the Lord in this place, and I knew it not."

And Jacob awaked out of his sleep,....

God can give undeniable demonstrations of his presence, such as give abundant satisfaction to the souls of the faithful that God is with them of a truth, satisfaction not communicable to others, but convincing to themselves. We sometimes meet with God where we little thought of meeting with him. He is where we did not think he had been, is found where we asked not for him.

THROUGH his own foolish wisdom Jacob had been compelled to leave his father’s house. Perhaps we are scarcely able to judge of the sorrowful feelings which this banishment would beget in his soul. Here we go from one Christian home to another. If we leave the parental roof we may hope still to sojourn where there is an altar to the Most High God, and where we can still unite with worshippers who fear his name. Not so in Jacob’s case.

THROUGH his own foolish wisdom Jacob had been compelled to leave his father’s house. Perhaps we are scarcely able to judge of the sorrowful feelings which this banishment would beget in his soul. Here we go from one Christian home to another. If we leave the parental roof we may hope still to sojourn where there is an altar to the Most High God, and where we can still unite with worshippers who fear his name. Not so in Jacob’s case. The family of which he was a member, was the only household in the land that worshipped God; or if there were some few others, probably they were unknown to one another, and as far as Jacob’s knowledge would go, he was fully assured that all the way from the place where he left his father until he arrived at Padan-Aram, he would not meet with a single person who feared the God of heaven. He was passing from one oasis to another across a burning sand. We may compare him to a swallow, which for the first time leaves our shore to find no rest until it has passed with weary wing the long leagues of purple sea. You must know too that the prevalent notion of the heathens among whom Jacob dwelt was that their gods had only local authority; that for instance, the god of Gaza was not the god of Askelon; the god of Beersheba would not be the God of Bethel. Their deities were gods of the hills and not of the valleys, and it may be but just possible that from great connection with the heathen, Jacob may have failed clearly to recognize the fact that his father’s God was not like their gods; so in leaving his father’s house there may have been this troublous thought rising in his mind, that he was also leaving his father’s God; that now his prayers would scarcely be heard; that he should be an alien from Jehovah’s land, and cut off from the congregation of the blessed.