Often in the biblical story we hear of a character refusing what God has to offer and then attempting to redefine it on their own terms, usually in the imagination of their hearts and by the works of their own hands. In the repetitiveness of the biblical story, indeed there is nothing new under the sun. This mistake of Jacob in the story of his dream in Genesis 28 both looks back to the story of the building of the tower in chapter 11 and ahead to David’s desire to build for God a house of cedar in 2 Samuel. In the understanding of the Orthodox Church, Genesis 28 is a type that finds its fulfillment in Luke chapter 1. The story of the announcement of Jesus’ birth to Mary functions as the fulfillment of and ad the corrective to what we heard in Genesis 28: the only proper response to a seemingly impossible promise from God is not to ask what can I do to make sure that this happens, but to say “let it be” and then trust that it will indeed, according to His word. 

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