Genesis 28:16 “When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he said surely the Lord is in this place and I was not aware of it.”
In Jewish literature there is the story of a man who started to say some negative things about the king. After going through his list of nasty things to say about the king he turns around and finds the king is standing right behind him. His first thought was, “I didn’t realize the king would be in this place.” Had he known the king would be in that place he would not have said such negative things about the king. This is what Jacob meant when he said the Lord was in this place and he didn’t know it. It wasn’t until he slept and God gave him his dreams that he realized God was working in every area of his life even when he deceived his father. God was involved in every aspect of his life and he didn’t even realize it. .
The word for place in its root form is qom which in this passage has a Beth and Mem in front of it. The root word means to awaken, or arise. With Beth and Mem it has the idea of a place of awakening or arising. In a way Jacob was covering a lot of ground in making this statement. The Lord was not only in the physical place he was at, the Lord was in the dream he just had and in his very life and future. He awoke to an awareness of God that he did not have prior to his nap.
The word for sleep is yashen which has the idea of sleeping but if you trace it to its Semitic root you find it has the idea of maturing or renewing. Sleep is a time to not only renew us physically but spiritually as well. The word for sleep is spelled Yod – enlightenment, Shin – completeness, and Nun – understanding. In other words sleep is meant to enlighten us and bring us to a complete understanding of our purpose and service to God.
When Jesus learned that Lazarus had died, he said that Lazarus was only sleeping and the people mocked him. Yet, Jesus was speaking as a rabbi and most likely speaking in Aramaic. He would have used the word yashen (sleep) rather than moth (death). Moth carries the idea of an end where yashen carries the idea of renewal and complete understanding. Jesus had a greater understanding of death than the people did, because Jesus knew exactly what laid on the otherside. The word moth only applies to those who are separated from God. But for one like Lazarus who loved God and sought to come into a complete understanding of God he, like us, will never die in the Hebraic sense of death. Our experience is not an end to the physical world, but a renewal into the full understanding of God.
Like Jacob, before he slept, he did not have an understanding of God or his purpose in life. Upon awakening, he had come into a full knowledge of the activity of God in his life.
One day we will sleep and when we awake we will have enter into the complete understanding of God and will realize the workings of God in our lives. For Jacob, God revealed this to him while he was still in the natural world. That may not be the case for us, but one day we will awake and say like Jacob: “Surely the Lord has been active in every phase of my life and I didn’t even realize it.” One day we are going to realize that we wasted an awful lot of time worrying and fretting over things that God had under his complete control. We will look back on our experiences of distress and fear and wonder: “Now why did I lose sleep over that issue when God was in complete control.”
We know little to nothing about Lazarus after he rose from the dead. However, Jesus told it all when he said that Lazarus was sleeping or yashen. Lazarus was simply coming into a complete understanding of all things. I have little doubt that for the remainder of Lazarus’s life he had little to no fear of death, disease, or losing his job. He got a glimpse of what Jacob saw, God was involved in every aspect of his life and no matter what happened, he knew God was in complete control.
Yeah, I’m like you. I can’t figure out why God has allowed my life to take on the direction it did, why things turned out like they did. Some people say I am a smart guy, I can figure things out, but to be honest, there are many things I just can’t figure out, many things I will never figure out. But one day, Jesus and I we are going to sit on a street corner in heaven and there He will explain it all to me. So for now I will just say, “Surely, the Lord is in this place. I don’t understand, but at least I know He’s in every event in my life.”
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