Broad meadows

In the last installment, we found the sun symbol connected to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and postulated that the two angels were types for the two witnesses, meaning that the witnesses aren’t just men, but also angels. The next place sun or goat appears is in Genesis 28:10-22. In this case, it is the sun.

“Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran. When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the LORD, and he said: “I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you. ”
When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”
Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. He called that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz.
Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father’s household, then the LORD will be my God and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth.’”

Most commentators on this account rightly point to the angels ascending and descending with Jesus saying to Nathanael, ““Very truly I tell you, you will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on’ the Son of Man.” In John 10:7 Jesus says, “‘Very truly I tell you, I am the gate (the first place gate is mentioned) for the sheep.’” In other words, telling them he was the way to heaven.

This comports with one of the guidelines that I go by when analyzing a text symbolically is that any place a symbol is defined in the Bible, you can insert that meaning into an account to get spiritual/prophetic meaning, which Jesus supplies in the above verses. That being said, I want to look at the pillow for a moment.

Another useful tool for analyzing symbols for meaning is to use simple, but precise definitions or to use the defining characteristics of an object to extract information. In the case of pillow, I would ask myself, “what does a pillow do, or what makes a pillow a pillow. A pillow is meant to support the head. The head of the church is Jesus Christ according to 1 Corinthians 11:3, Ephesians 4:15 and Colossians 1:18. So this character that we are seeking by following the sun (and the goat) symbols through the Bible is to support the work of Christ.

This theme continues when Jacob sets that same stone that he used as a pillow as a pillar. He pours oil on the stone (the first time oil appears in scripture, always very important) and sets it up as a pillar for the house of God. So what does a pillar do? A pillar rests on a foundation (see Matthew 7:24-27) and supports the top of the structure (the capstone?). In both cases we see the same function for this character, supporting the gospel of Jesus Christ as part of his body, the church.

The last thing that I would point to is that Jacobs response to God’s promise to bless all nations through him was to give to God a tenth or a “tithe” of every thing he gives him. This is not the first time a tithe has been paid, the first time occurring when Abram gave a tenth of the plunder from rescuing Lot to Melchizedek. What this may do however, is connect him with tithing in some manner and that is something we will look out for as we continue.