John Calvin Commentary Genesis 28:13

"And, behold, Jehovah stood above it, and said, I am Jehovah, the God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac. The land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed." — Genesis 28:13 (ASV)

I am the Lord God of Abraham. This is the third point which, as I mentioned, should be noted, for silent visions are cold; therefore, the word of the Lord is like the soul that animates them. The image, therefore, of the ladder was a supporting element of this promise, just as God illustrates and adorns His word with external symbols, so that greater clarity and authority may be added to it.

From this we also prove that sacraments in the Papacy are frivolous, because no voice is heard in them that may edify the soul. Therefore, we may observe that whenever God revealed Himself to the patriarchs, He also spoke, lest a silent vision should have kept them in suspense. Under the name יהוה Jehovah, God teaches that He is the only Creator of the world, so that Jacob would not seek other gods.

But since His majesty is inherently incomprehensible, He adapts Himself to the capacity of His servant by immediately adding that He is the God of Abraham and Isaac. For although it is necessary to maintain that the God whom we worship is the only God, yet because our senses fail at the first attempt when they try to comprehend His greatness, we must diligently cultivate that sobriety which teaches us not to desire to know more about Him than He reveals to us. Then He, adapting Himself to our weakness, according to His infinite goodness, will omit nothing that promotes our salvation.

And since He made a special covenant with Abraham and Isaac, proclaiming Himself their God, He recalls His servant Jacob to the true source of faith and also keeps him in His perpetual covenant. This is the sacred bond of religion by which all the sons of God are united among themselves, as from the first to the last they hear the same promise of salvation and unite in one common hope. This is also the effect of the blessing Jacob had recently received from his father, because God with His own mouth declares him to be the heir of the covenant, lest the mere testimony of man should be considered illusory.

The land whereon thou liest. We read that the land was given to his descendants; yet he himself was not only a stranger in it until the end, but was not even permitted to die there. From this we infer that under the pledge or earnest of the land, something better and more excellent was given, since Abraham was a spiritual possessor of the land and, content with merely seeing it, fixed his primary attention on heaven.

We may observe, however, that the seed of Jacob is here contrasted with the other sons of Abraham who, according to the flesh, traced their origin to him but were cut off from the holy people. Yet, from the time the sons of Jacob entered the land of Canaan, they had the perpetual inheritance until the coming of Christ, by whose advent the world was renewed.