God cares a lot about place—more than we do.
God marks places as sites of divine meeting, where divine touch surprises us, enfolding us in God’s own journey with us. Jacob journeys, and there between Beersheba and Haran he comes to the place of God.
Of course, he does not initially realize this. He is only looking for a place to rest. Yet there in Jacob’s dream state, the place reveals itself to him. It is a site where heaven touches earth and angels travel back and forth, coming here and returning there. There, at this intersecting place, God speaks to Jacob of his history and his destiny. When Jacob awakes from his dream state, he understands the place, marking it with a stone and anointing it with oil.
