I think something that gets lost in our readings of Genesis is the problem of who God is at this point in the story. We think we already know this. We know it because we have the stories about Jesus, the Word of God, who in his life, teachings, death and resurrection gives us the full expression of who God is.
However the patriarchs do not know God in that way. Monotheism has not taken hold. The old gods are still there, and are still powerful. God does not have a name as yet. God is referred to as El Shaddai (God Almighty (literally probably God of the Mountain). Jacob even thinks of him as El-Bethel (God of Bethel). The God who appeared to him at Bethel. Jacob also knows which one God is because God says, I am the God of Abraham and Isaac: i.e. I am the God of your father and grandfather.
Keep this in mind. Why does Abraham take Isaac up to sacrifice him? Why would he expect anything else from this new God and his promises? It is unclear at this point how God differs from the other Mesopotamian deities everyone was familiar with.
It is not really until we come to Moses, when God gives his name, and he becomes the God, not of a tribal patriarch, but of a people, that the picture we often have of God starts to get filled out.
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