Genesis 28

How Awesome is this place

This is how the NRSV and the NIV translate that sentence (verse 17). Outside the context of this chapter the sound of the word ‘awesome’ can mean almost anything. The KJV translates it as ‘dreadful’. The message paraphrases it with ‘he whispered in awe.’ It just shows how slippery sound is. It’s meanings meander away from the original just as a sound itself floats away from the sounder.

Jacob has the astonishing experience of the ladder. There are angels ascending and descending. A visual reading of this possibly sees winged creatures filled with light going up and down. However angels are messengers. So can we conceptualise the angels as sounds going up and down? This makes the ladder a different proposition. It becomes a connection in a different way. Then through all the this sound God speaks to him.

Jacobs wakes from his sleep and speaks to himself. Within the text so far we mostly have descriptions of what people do or feel. Now we have a point where a character voices his own thoughts.

Sounding the self and listening to the self. I have read that it was the novel was the place where we truly got to the inner soundings of the protaganist. However there are strong pre-echoes to that in the ancient texts and here we see the inner workings of Jacob still grasping. But the process of letting go has started. Even though it’s just a tenth!