Jacob the Aspiring
The figure which next meets us in the Bible Gallery is one which in my opinion has been generally misinterpreted; it is the form of Jacob. The common view is that this Picture is a delineation of human inconsistency. We are accustomed to think of Jacob as a character of lights and shadows mingling without reason. We see in him an unstable temperament — a life that has no settled purpose, no forecast plan, but which is swayed alternately by impulses of good and impulses of evil. We figure him as essentially a weak nature — vacillating ever between the day and the night, and unable to concentrate his mind upon a definite resolve.
And indeed, as commonly understood, the
Portrait of this man does present an inconsistency. Let us consider the recognised interpretation. There are two young men, we are told, of absolutely opposite characters — the brothers Jacob and Esau. Esau is the man of the present; Jacob is the man of the future. Esau is never able to look beyond the hour; Jacob has his thoughts always on the morrow. Esau is absorbed in the pleasures of sense; Jacob is intent on the pursuit of gain. Esau cares for nothing but a merry life; Jacob is willing to endure laborious days in the acquisition of material wealth. Esau has the disposition of a spendthrift; Jacob has the nature of a miser.
By and by there happens the inevitable. Esau finds himself in temporary embarrassment. He asks his brother for a loan. Jacob consents on one condition — that he will sell for the loan his birthright, his right to inherit his father’s property. Esau agrees; the impulse of the moment is too strong for him. But when the moment has passed he regrets; he would fain undo. He feels that he has been overreached — that his brother has traded upon the weak point in his character. Dark thoughts rise within him; he prepares for vengeance. Jacob has a premonition of danger; he takes refuge in flight. All day he travels in wild haste; and at night, footsore and weary, he comes to a desert spot, a weird and waste solitude. Uninviting as; it is “for “rest; shewicanesas no farther; he throws himself down exhausted upon a heap of stones, and falls asleep.
And then begins the seeming inconsistency. This apparently bad man has a beautiful dream — a dream so beautiful that it has become immortal. What the dest men of the past had not seen, this fraudulent youth beholds. Heaven is opened to his sight, and the home of the Eternal is brought nigh. From earth to sky there stretches a great ladder, and on its steps ascend and descend the angels of God. Now, the question we ask is this, Why did the artist give such a vision to such a man? Are not our dreams the product of our past! Do we ever in any sphere see a breach
of evolution! Does a prosaic man leap all at
JACOB THE ASPIRING Isc
once into poetry; does a worldly life bound without warning into religiousness! On the contrary, when you see sudden changes, you know assuredly that somewhere in the past there was a match struck. We see Nicodemus embalming the dead Christ, and we marvel; by and by we find that he had previously met Jesus by night. We behold Saul of Tarsus transformed into Paul the Apostle, and we wonder; presently we learn that for a long time he had found it hard to struggle against the majesty of Jesus. The same such wonder meets us here. The youth who of all others is apparently most immersed in the waters of earth has a clearer view of the sunlight than all who had gone before him. Can we explain the paradox?
I think we can explain it, but not on the old interpretation of the narrative. On the supposition that Jacob was a common miser living only for the acquisition of material gain, his vision of the heavenly communion remains either a psychological puzzle or an aitistio Diemish.es Bute is: this the correct supposition? I say it is not. I feel sure that the previous life of Jacob has not been that prosaic thing which the popular view would have us believe. I am convinced that, according to the narrative, according to the conception of the artist, this dream of the night was in the first instance a dream of the morning, and that the vision which Jacob sawin the desert was the vision which had followed him amid the haunts of men. I will try to indicate the reason which has led me to this conclusion.
To the ordinary English reader there is a sharp contrast between Jacob’s coveting of the birthright and Jacob’s dream of Divine communion. Really, however, so far from being contrasted, the latter is a development from the former. Jacob’s coveting of the birthright was nothing more or less than the beginning of his dream. What was this birthright? The inheritance of the father’s property, you say. Yes; but what was the father’s property which the eldest son inherited? In England we
associate that institution with something very material — with stone and lime, fields and acres, houses and lands. But in Patriarchal days this was of its association. Toason of the Patriarchal House the birthright of the firstborn was the High Priesthood. In the public estimation Abraham and Isaac were not simply rulers; they were the priests of the clan, the sacred ministers of the community. To them it belonged to offer sacrifice, to them it pertained to pour out intercession. They were the ladders of communion between earth and heaven, on whose steps went up the prayers of the people; they bore the weight of the national supplication. It was to this ministry in holy things that the firstborn was heir. This was his right of primogeniture; this was his prospective privilege. And it was this which Jacob coveted. This was from the beginning his dream — the dream of being the ladder of family communion. By order of birth he was debarred from that privilege. Esau was the firstborn, and Esau had the claim. But to the eye of Jacob, Esau was
unfit for the office. He was a secular man, a man of weights and measures; he had no taste for matters ecclesiastical. To Jacob it was a hard thing that the lot had fallen upon the wrong man; and the sense of the inconsruity made him dream all the more.
Jacob, then, appears from the very outset as a mentally aspiring man. His dream at Bethel was no accident; it was a result of his whole past. What he there saw under the stars, he had seen in his heart from the very dawn. It had been the dream of his life to be this ladder, this medium of communion. To express it in modern language, his ambition was to be a son of the Church. He wanted to be the cleric of the family, the ecclesiastic of the clan; this was his aspiration, this was his dream. And in itself it was a noble dream. I do not wish to obscure the defects of Jacob; but I cannot see either from the standpoint of the artist, or from the standpoint of the historian, that one of these defects was the desire for the birthright or the regret that it had not fallen to him. Paul says there isa noble covetousness; he bids us ‘covet the best gifts.’ Jacob’s position was not unlike that of many a poor student — poor, I mean, in worldly goods, who is prevented by that poverty from gratifying the dearest desire of his life — the desire to be a minister of religion. He sees hundreds entering into the temple from which he is excluded — hundreds without his gifts, securing the upper seats in the synagogue. Is it strange, is it ignoble, that he should fret against the bars! Jacob had a similar excuse for his covetousness. His barrier was not want of money, but want of primogeniture; yet it was equally an external barrier. It was a merely technical disqualification for a post which otherwise was in every way adapted to his abilities. No wonder he dreamed of his missed destiny night and day! No wonder that, amid the cold and weariness of his Bethel vigil, the fancies of his sleep took neither the form of cold nor of weariness, but assumed the shape of a ladder between earth and heaven!
But let us not forget that in Jacob’s Bethel
dream there is a penal as well as a pleasurable element. He pronounced the spot of the vision to be a ‘dreadful place.’ This indicates that in some sense the scene Jarred upon him — that it was not in every respect harmonious with his nature. The dream, in other words, had a retributive as well as a rewarding function. Before we can understand the nature of the retribution, we must put our hand upon the fault. Jacob Aad a fault. His moral danger lay precisely at the point in which he was most strong — his lofty aspiration. His desire for the birthright was noble; it was the wish to enter the Church, to become a minister of religion. But why? Not yet for the Jove of the profession, but for the frzde of the profession. He felt that to be a ladder of communion between earth and heaven was to assume a commanding position, the most commanding position in the world. The estate he desired was not one of stone and lime; but none the less was it one of exaltation. His eye was rather on the ascent than on the descent of the ladder. To be a churchman in those days
was to be a power; it was to wield an influence far beyond the strength of the secular arm. Jacob felt what many a young man now feels — the social uplifting involved in the clerical office; and he had more veasonz to feel it than any man has in our day. This was the fly in his ointment; this was the bane of his dream.
And this was the feeling which the vision reproved.. What was the cause of that dread which Jacob experienced after his Bethel dream? It was the sight of ascending and descending angels. To a selfish man, was there anything dreadful in such a spectacle as that? Not according to the common interpretation. The common interpretation is that some angels went up the ladder and others came down. I do not think this was the artist’s meaning. Taking into account the ministrant character which the Hebrew attributed to the angels, I hold the meaning to be, not that some went up and others went down, but that those who went up came down again. This is evidently Paul’s view. When speaking of Christ’s union of exaltation and humiliation, he says: ‘He that descended is the same as
He that ascended.’ I understand him to mean that this is the true interpretation of Jacob’s ladder. Supposing it to be so, we get a flood of light upon the whole narrative — light which illuminates both the past and the future in the life of Jacob, light which helps us to comprehend the weak point of his youthful dream, light which enables us to see the meaning of the shrunk sinew on the heights of Peniel.
For, what does the vision say to the life-dream of Jacob? Is it not something like this: ‘ Jacob, you have been in a great delusion about this matter. You have been seeking the Divine Priesthood as a source of worldly power; it is in the first instance a source of worldly weakness. He who becomes the ladder between earth and heaven must bear henceforth the weight of the multitude. On him the crowd presses, on him the care descends. He goes up only that he may come down. If he ascends into the light of God, it is that he may descend into the night of Man. If he rises into the heavenly rest, it is that he may learn the earthly tossing on the pillow of stone. The birthright you seek is not to be found on the mountain, but in the valley. You think the securing of the prize would make you the superior of Esau; no, it would make you in a more direct sense than ever before the servant of Esau. The higher you would climb, the deeper must be your bending. The Divine right of kings is their right to be servants — servants to the lowliest, servants to those who lie on couches not of down. If you desire your brother’s birthright, it should be on the ground, not that you will gain more riches, but that you are capable of more sacrifice than he.’
And is not the principle of this mystical ladder eternally true. Is it not a matter of experience that in the mental sphere the sacrifice belongs to the ezght. It is not a sense of want that stimulates sympathy; it is a sense of possession. Infirmaries came not from the sick, but from the strong. What has instituted asylums for the blind? It is the vision of “ght; had darkness been perpetual and universal, there could have been no such institutions, What has instituted asylums for the imbecile? It is the sense of mental power; insanity knows not its own unsoundness. What has instituted reformatories? It is the ideal of purzty; the unobstructed presence of sin would have made such homes impossible. The burdens of humanity belong to a soul in proportion to its perfection — not its imperfection. I would apply this even to the education of children. Do not choose your nursery governess on the principle that, as she is only for the nursery, she had better not be too learned. The man or woman who has the highest knowledge of a subject will be the clearest teacher of that subject, will make it most plain to beginners. Those who are half-way up the ladder of knowledge never speak in parables; they are incapable of breaking the bread to their childlike disciples. But he who is on the topmost round can speak to the lowliest. He is the only teacher who is clear to the unlettered crowd. To him belongs the power of making simple; he alone can discourse in parables.
And does not the climax of this principle appear in the great central fact of Christianity itself. What zs that central fact? It is the sin-bearing of the sinless. The Fourth Evangelist calls Christ in express terms the ladder of Jacob. Why so? Clearly because in Him the principle of that ladder finds its culmination — the principle that the highest are the servants of the lowest. Of all the sons of the human race, there is only one who stands at the foot of the ladder — the Man who has been at the top of it. The hospital of the moral pestilence gets no support from any moral invalid. Each man of dyed garments avoids brushing against the dyed garments of his brother. Simon will not speak to Magdalene; they have both dyed garments, and neither will tolerate the others dye. Neither Simon nor Magdalene has yet been up the ladder; neither has received the birthright of priesthood. But oze man has; amongst many brethren Jesus is the firstborn. And, because He alone has the birthright, He alone has the pain. The man who goes up to the heights of holiness is the man who must come down to the depths of sin — down to Simon, down to Magdalene, down to the lepers of corruption and the demoniacs of passion. Imagine a constitution of things in which every physical blow gave its pain, not to the man struck, but to some other man. We do not see this in the material world; but Christianity says that it is the law of the moral world. According to Christianity, it is the angel at the ‘of of the ladder who is bruised by the pillow of stone. The deepest moral corruption is unfelt by the man who possesses it. It is felt by the man who does zo¢ possess it, who walks in white by the side of the crystal river. The penalty of sin falls heaviest on the holy; the Cross of Calvary first crucifies the pure. Spiritual elevation can never bring worldly elatzon. When Jacob reaches that summit of the ladder from which Esau is debarred, the sight of his debarred brother will be, not a triumph, but a trial. What was the effect of Jacob’s dream? In one word, it was ‘Peniel.’ We are in a great
mistake if we imagine that there is no
JACOB THE ASPIRING in
connection between the angels he beheld on the ladder and the angel with whom he wrestled until the breaking of the day. He never would have wrestled at Peniel if he had not dreamed at Bethel. The dream at Bethel gave him a conscience; there lay its terror, there lay its glory. It told him that the birthright he had received was a burden, a burden he was bound to bear. It told him that to be an angel of God was a very serious thing; it asked him if he had realised ow serious. When Jacob awoke, he awoke as a new man, or rather, with an additional man zz him. He had lain down a single individual; he rose a double consciousness. Two lives were within him, strove within him. There was the old life which he knew so well, and which he used to call ‘himself’ That was still there, but it was no longer there alone. Another stood Opposite to it and disputed its rule. That other was a life of strange appearance. It was like a flattering portrait of himself; but it seemed also to contradict himself. It resembled
one of the angels of his dream. It was the presence in his soul of a new ideal — a new object for living. Hitherto, he had lived to overtop Hsau; but the new presence said, ‘Let Esau overtop you!’ The new presence became very troublesome. It disputed with him constantly. It interrupted him in the market-place. It checked him at the receipt of custom. It barred him at the buying of land. It cried out when he gave false measure. It said at the most inconvenient times, ‘Remember your brother!’ — ‘ Remember your neighbour!’ — ‘ Remember your fellow-man!’ It made him less sharp in bargaining, less acute in things pertaining to his interest. A certain kind of energy departed from him — the force called ‘grasping.’ Men saw the change, and described it to his disparagement. They expressed it epigrammatically by saying that there had been a shrinking in the sinew of his thigh. Yet it came not from a diminished, but from an added, energy; it was all the effect of the new conscience — the ministrant angel of the Bethel dream.
There is a curious suggestion in the picture of this conflicting period of Jacob’s life. The angel with whom he is struggling is represented as saying, ‘Let me go! for the day breaketh.’ I understand this to mean that Jacob found it easier to be good by night than by day. I understand it to mean that he formed fine resolutions under the stars which he tended to break in the sunshine. He is not singular in this; it is to some extent the experience of us all. There is a special solemnity about the night. Ido not think it lies where it is supposed to lie — in the vastness of the spaces. Rather do [ attribute it to an opposite impression — the sense of individual nearness to the centre of things. Jacob grows solemn when he sees that heaven and earth have a ladder between them. This is ever the source of night’s solemnity. The individual feels himself less the member of a crowd, more an object of solitary contemplation. The narrative says of Jacob, ‘When he was alone there wrestled with him aman.’ It is by night that we most feel this solitude — so favourable to the wrestling angel. Our importance as units is magnified in the night. We seem to ourselves more worthy; therefore the ideal man within us awakes from his sleep and upbraids us. But when the day comes, we lose our individuality once more. Our sense of importance dies. We feel ourselves to be fragments again — atoms in the crowd, drops in the ocean of life. Conscience is never so low as when the pressure of the multitude makes me undervalue my own soul; and it is the daybreak that brings the pressure. Night says, ‘You are alone with God’; morning says, ‘How can God be affected by a puny life like you!’
And this, I think, explains the fact that conscience is often most powerful in the hour of death. Then, as in the night, I feel myself alone. The crowd has melted from my view, and the fashion of this world is dissolving like a mimic scene, and there is none but God and I. Very finely has this principle been grasped by the great artist in Genesis. With strong persistency he has been making the solitary hours of Jacob his grand hours; the night of
Bethel has been his golden dream, the night of Peniel his golden struggle. But his greatest glory is reserved for his hour of greatest solitude — the hour of death. There the angel of the ladder and of the struggle appears once more, and he appears as the climax of his former self. He is still the angel of ministration; but he is no longer a mere helper to Jacob — he is inciting Jacob to bless others. The dying man becomes for the first time the universal benefactor. In his hour of death the ministrant conscience becomes dominant, supreme, overmastering. Even the poetry of his language, grand as it is, is left in the shade by the glow of his altruism. He has no thought for anything private, anything local, anything personal. He has emancipated himself from individual ambition. His aspiring has become unselfish. His own griefs and joys are forgotten. The ¢rzbes of Israel glitter in his sight — their duties and their dangers. The burdens of the people crowd upon his heart — their weightedness and their soreness. His hour of death is his hour of priesthood; he has only reached the birthright in the valley of the shadow.
ORD, give me the blessing of Jacob —
his best blessing — his power to bless! Doubtless it must come with a shrunk sinew; I cannot keep the song of the lark when I get the seal of sonship; I must enter into the pain of my Lord. Yet that pain is better than the world’s joy. I have heard men speak of pain as a blot on Thy universe. They were wrong; it is the birthright of the wzblotted. Give me this birthright,O my God! Put the scar of sympathy in my heart! Let me feel my brother’s thorn! Make it impossible for me to stay at the top of the ladder, even though that be heaven! Send me down the golden stair — down to the pillows of stone, down to the nights of sorrow, down to the limbs that are languid, down to the souls that are sad! Send me with a breath of Eden, send me with a flower of Paradise, send me with a cluster of
the grapes of Canaan! Send me to the hours that precede the daybreak — those darkest hours which come before the dawn! Send me to the hearts without a home, to the lives without a love, to the crowds without a compass, to the ranks without a refuge! Send me to the children that none have blessed, to the famished that none have fed, to the sick that none have visited, to the demoniac that none have calmed, to the fallen that none have lifted, to the leper that none have touched, to the bereaved that none have comforted! Then shall I have the birthright of the firstborn; then shall I have the blessing of the mighty God of Jacob.