Jacob

The ever - memorable name of the ever - memorable person, concerning whom it hath pleased God the Holy Ghost to say so much throughout the whole Scripture. His name signifies a supplanter; but after the memorable scene at Jabbock, when Jacob wrestled with the angel and pevailed, the Lord himself changed his name to Israel, a prince. (See Gen. xxx2: 27, 28.) For his history I refer to the book of Genesis, from Gen. xxv. to the end.

the son of Isaac and Rebekah. He was the younger brother of Esau, and a twin. It was observed, that at his birth he held his brother Esau’s heel, and for this reason was called Jacob, Gen 25:26, which signifies “he supplanted.” Jacob was of a meek and peaceable temper, and loved a quiet pastoral life; whereas Esau was of a fierce and turbulent nature, and was fond of hunting. Isaac had a particular fondness for Esau; but Rebekah was more attached to Jacob. The manner in which Jacob purchased his brother’s birthright for a mess of pottage, and supplanted him by obtaining Isaac’s blessing, is already referred to in the article ESAU.

The events of the interesting and chequered life of Jacob are so plainly and consecutively narrated by Moses, that they are familiar to all; but upon some of them a few remarks may be useful. As to the purchase of the birthright, Jacob appears to have been innocent so far as any guile on his part, or real necessity from hunger on the part of Esau, is involved in the question; but his obtaining the ratification of this by the blessing of Isaac though agreeable, indeed, to the purpose of God, that the elder should serve the younger, was blamable as to the means employed. The remarks of Dr. Hales on this transaction implicate Isaac also:—Thirty-seven years after, when Jacob was seventy-seven years old, according to Abulfaragi, and Isaac a hundred and thirty-seven, when he was old, and his sight had failed, and he expected soon to die, his partiality for Esau led him to attempt to set aside the oracle, and the cession of Esau’s birthright to Jacob, by conferring on him the blessing of Abraham, in reward for bringing him savoury venison to eat, before his death. In this design, however, he was disappointed by the artifice of Rebekah, who dressed her favourite Jacob in his brother’s clothes, and made him personate Esau, and thereby surreptitiously obtained for him the blessing: “Let people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee: be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother’s sons bow down to thee: cursed be every one that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee,” Gen 27:1-29. It is remarkable that, notwithstanding the agitation of Isaac, when “he trembled very exceedingly,” at the detection of the fraud, he did not attempt to rescind the blessing, nor transfer it to Esau; but, on the contrary, confirmed it on Jacob: “Yea, and he shall be blessed.” His wishes were overruled and controlled by that higher power which he vainly endeavoured to counteract; and that he spoke as the Spirit gave him utterance, appears from his prediction respecting Esau’s family: “And it shall come to pass, when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break thy brother’s yoke from off thy neck,” Gen 27:40; which was fulfilled in the days of Jehoram, king of Judah, when “the Edomites revolted from under the dominion of Judah, and made themselves a king unto this day,” 2Ch 21:8-10.

According to this view, all the parties were more or less culpable; Isaac, for endeavouring to set aside the oracle which had been pronounced in favour of his younger son; but of which he might have an obscure conception; Esau, for wishing to deprive his brother of the blessing which he had himself relinquished; and Rebekah and Jacob, for securing it by fraudulent means, not trusting wholly in the Lord. That their principal object, however, was the spiritual part of the blessing, and not the temporal, was shown by the event. For Jacob afterward reverenced Esau as his elder brother, and insisted on Esau’s accepting a present from his hand in token of submission Gen 33:3-15. Esau also appears to have possessed himself of his father’s property during Jacob’s long exile. But though the intention of Rebekah and Jacob might have been free from worldly or mercenary motives, they ought not to have done evil that good might come. And they were both severely punished in this life for their fraud, which destroyed the peace of the family, and planted a mortal enmity in the breast of Esau against his brother: “Is he not rightly named Jacob?” a supplanter; “for he hath supplanted me these two times: he took away my birthright, and lo, now he hath taken away my blessing. The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then will I slay my brother Jacob,”

Gen 27:36-41. And there can be little doubt of his intention of executing his threat, when he came to meet him on his return, with such an armed force as strongly alarmed Jacob’s fears, had not God changed the spirit of Esau into mildness, so that “he ran to meet Jacob, and fell on his neck, and they wept,” Gen 33:4. Rebekah, also, was deprived of the society of her darling son, whom “she sent away for one year,” as she fondly imagined, “until his brother’s fury should turn away,” Gen 27:42-44; but whom she saw no more; for she died during his long exile of twenty years, though Isaac survived, Gen 35:27. Thus was “she pierced through with many sorrows.” Jacob, also, had abundant reason to say, “Few and evil have been the days of the years of my pilgrimage,”

Gen 47:9. Though he had the consolation of having the blessing of Abraham voluntarily renewed to him by his father, before he was forced to fly from his brother’s fury, Gen 28:1-4, and had the satisfaction of obeying his parents in going to Padanaram, or Charran, in quest of a wife of his own kindred, Gen 28:7; yet he set out on a long and perilous journey of six hundred miles and upward, through barren and inhospitable regions, unattended and unprovided, like a pilgrim, indeed, with only his staff in his hand Gen 32:10. And though he was supported with the assurance of the divine protection, and the renewal of the blessing of Abraham by God himself, in his remarkable vision at Bethel, and solemnly devoted himself to his service, wishing only for food and raiment, and vowing to profess the worship of God, and pay tithe unto him should he return back in peace, Gen 28:10-22; yet he was forced to engage in a tedious and thankless servitude of seven years, at first for Rachel, with Laban, who retaliated upon him the imposition he had practised on his own father; and substituted Leah, whom he hated, for Rachel, whom he loved; and thereby compelled him to serve seven years more; and changed his wages several times during the remainder of his whole servitude of twenty years; in the course of which, as he pathetically complained, “the drought consumed him by day, and the frost by night, and the sleep departed from his eyes,” in watching Laban’s flocks, Gen 31:40; and at last he was forced to steal away, and was only protected from Laban’s vengeance, as afterward from Esau’s, by divine interposition. Add to these his domestic troubles and misfortunes; the impatience of his favourite wife, “Give me children, or I die;” her death in bearing her second son, Benjamin; the rape of his daughter Dinah; the perfidy and cruelty of her brothers, Simeon and Levi, to the Shechemites; the misbehaviour of Reuben; the supposed death of Joseph, his favourite and most deserving son:—these were, all together, sufficient to have brought down his gray hairs with sorrow to the grave, had he not been divinely supported and encouraged throughout the whole of his pilgrimage. For the circumstances which led Jacob into Egypt, see JOSEPH.

When Jacob, at the invitation of Joseph, went down to Egypt, Joseph introduced his father to his royal master; and the patriarch, in his priestly character, blessed Pharaoh, and supplicated the divine favour for the king. The venerable appearance and the pious demeanour of Jacob led the monarch to inquire his years; to which he replied, “The days of the years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been; and I have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.” This answer of the patriarch was not the language of discontent, but the solemn reflection of a man who had experienced a large share of trouble, and who knew that the whole of human life is indeed but “a vain show,” Gen 47:1-10.

Jacob spent the remainder of his days in tranquillity and prosperity, enjoying the society of his beloved child seventeen years. The close of his life was a happy calm, after a stormy voyage. The patriarch, perceiving that his dissolution was near, sent for Joseph, and bound him by a solemn promise to bury him with his fathers in Canaan. Shortly after this, Jacob was taken ill, and it being reported to Joseph, he hastened to the bedside of his father, taking with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. On hearing that his son was come, Jacob exerted all his strength, and sat up in his bed to receive him, and to impart that blessing which, in the spirit of prophecy, he was commissioned to bequeath. He next blessed the infant children of Joseph; but, as he placed his hands upon their heads, he crossed them, putting his right upon Ephraim the younger, and his left upon Manasseh the elder. Joseph wished to correct the mistake of his father, but Jacob persisted, being guided by a divine impulse; and he gave to each of the lads a portion in Israel, at the same time declaring that the younger should be greater than the elder, Gen 48:22. When this interview was ended, Jacob caused all his sons to assemble round his dying bed, that he might inform them what would befall them in the last days, Gen 49:1-2. Of all the predictions which he pronounced with his expiring breath, the most remarkable and the most interesting is that relating to Judah: “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be,” Gen 49:10. One grand personage was in the mind of the patriarch, as it had been in the contemplation of his predecessors, even the illustrious Deliverer who should arise in after ages to redeem his people, and bring salvation to the human race. The promised Seed was the constant object of faithful expectation; and all the patriarchal ordinances, institutions, and predictions, had an allusion, positive or incidental, to the Messiah. Hitherto the promise was confined generally to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that from them the glorious blessing should arise; but now, under the divine direction, the dying patriarch fortels in what tribe, and at what period, the great Restorer shall come. The sovereign authority was to continue in the possession of Judah, till from that tribe Shiloh should appear, and then the royalty must cease. This was fulfilled; for the tribe of Judah possessed legislative power till the time of Christ, and from that period the Jewish people have neither had dominion nor priesthood. Jesus Christ, therefore, must either be the true Shiloh, or the prophecy has failed; for the Jews cannot prove that they have had any thing like temporal power since his crucifixion. When they were so clamorous for the execution of Jesus, and Pilate told them to take the law into their own hands, they shrunk fearfully from the proposal, and acknowledged their slavish state by saying, “It is not lawful for us to put any man to death,” Joh 18:31. Here, then, we have a glorious proof of the veracity of Scripture, and an incontestible evidence of the truth of our religion.

When Jacob had finished blessing his sons, he charged them to bury him in the cave of Machpelah, with Abraham and Isaac, and, “gathering his feet into the bed, he yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people,”

Gen 49:33. Joseph, having closed the eyes of his father, and wept over him, commanded the physicians to embalm the body. After a general mourning of seventy days, he solicited the king’s permission to go with the remains of Jacob into Canaan, to which Pharaoh consented; and with Joseph went up all the state officers and principal nobility of Egypt, so that when they came to the place of interment, the Canaanites were astonished, and said, “This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians,” Gen 50:1-11.

Ja´cob, was the second son of Isaac by his wife Rebekah. Her conceiving is stated to have been supernatural. Led by peculiar feelings she went to inquire of the Lord, and was informed that she was indeed with child; that her offspring should be the founders of two nations, and that the elder should serve the younger: circumstances which ought to be borne in mind when a judgment is pronounced on her conduct in aiding Jacob to secure the privileges of birth to the exclusion of his elder brother Esau.

As the boys grew, Jacob appeared to partake of the gentle, quiet, and retiring character of his father, and was accordingly led to prefer the tranquil safety and pleasing occupations of a shepherd’s life to the bold and daring enterprises of the hunter, for which Esau had an irresistible predilection. Jacob, therefore, passed his days in or near the paternal tent, simple and unpretending in his manner of life, and finding in the flocks and herds which he kept images and emotions which both filled and satisfied his heart. That selfishness and a prudence which approached to cunning had a seat in the heart of the youth Jacob, appears but too plain in his dealing with Esau, when he exacted from a famishing brother so large a price for a mess of pottage as the surrender of his birthright.

The leaning which his mother had in favor of Jacob would naturally be augmented by the conduct of Esau in marrying, doubtless contrary to his parents’ wishes, two Hittite women, who are recorded to have been a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah.

Circumstances thus prepared the way for procuring the transfer of the birthright, when Isaac, being now old, proceeded to take steps to pronounce the irrevocable blessing which acted with all the force of a modern testamentary bequest. This blessing, then, it was essential that Jacob should receive in preference to Esau. Here Rebekah appears the chief agent; Jacob is a mere instrument in her hands. Isaac directs Esau to procure him some venison. This Rebekah hears, and urges her reluctant favorite to personate his elder brother. Jacob suggests difficulties; they are met by Rebekah, who is ready to incur any personal danger so that her object might be gained. Her voice is obeyed, the venison is brought, Jacob is equipped for the deceit; he helps out his fraud by direct falsehood, and the old man, whose senses are now failing, is at last with difficulty deceived. It cannot be denied that this is a most reprehensible transaction, and presents a truly painful picture; in which a mother conspires with one son in order to cheat her aged husband, with a view to deprive another son of his rightful inheritance. Justification is here impossible; but it should not be forgotten in the estimate we form that there was a promise in favor of Jacob, that Jacob’s qualities had endeared him to his mother, and that the prospect to her was dark and threatening which arose when she saw the neglected Esau at the head of the house, and his hateful wives assuming command over herself.

Punishment in this world always follows close upon the heels of transgression. Fear seized the guilty Jacob, who is sent by his father, at the suggestion of Rebekah, to the original seat of the family, in order that he might find a wife among his cousins, the daughters of his mother’s brother, Laban the Syrian. Before he is dismissed Jacob again receives his father’s blessing, the object obviously being to keep alive in the young man’s mind the great promise given to Abraham, and thus to transmit that influence which, under the aid of Divine Providence, was to end in placing the family in possession of the land of Palestine, and in so doing to make it ’a multitude of people.’ On his journey eastward he tarried all night upon a certain plain, where he was favored with a vision, and received a promise of divine protection in all the way on which he should go.

Jacob, on coming ’into the land of the people of the East,’ providentially met with Rachel, Laban’s daughter, to whom, with true Eastern simplicity and politeness, he showed such courtesy as the duties of pastoral life suggest and admit. And here his gentle and affectionate nature displays itself under the influence of the bonds of kindred and the fair form of youth:—’Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice and wept.’

After he had been with his uncle the space of a month, Laban inquires of him what reward he expects for his services. He asks for the ’beautiful and well-favored Rachel.’ His request is granted on condition of a seven years’ service—a long period truly, but to Jacob ’they seemed but a few days for the love he had to her.’ When the time was expired, the crafty Laban availed himself of the customs of the country, in order to substitute his elder and ’tender-eyed’ daughter Leah. In the morning Jacob found how he had been beguiled; but Laban excused himself, saying, ’It must not be done in our country, to give the younger before the first-born.’ Another seven years service gains for Jacob the beloved Rachel. Leah, however, has the compensatory privilege of being the mother of the first-born—Reuben; three other sons successively follow, namely, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, sons of Leah. This fruitfulness was a painful subject of reflection to the barren Rachel, who employed language on this occasion that called forth a reply from her husband which shows that, mild as was the character of Jacob, it was by no means wanting in force and energy (Gen 30:2). An arrangement, however, took place, by which Rachel had children by means of her maid Bilhah, of whom Dan and Naphtali were born. Two other sons—Gad and Asher—were born to Jacob of Leah’s maid, Zilpah. Leah herself bare two more sons, namely, Issachar and Zebulun; she also bare a daughter, Dinah. At length Rachel herself bare a son, and she called his name Joseph.

Most faithfully, and with great success, had Jacob served his uncle for fourteen years, when he became desirous of returning to his parents. At the urgent request of Laban, however, he is induced to remain. The language employed upon this occasion (Gen 30:25, sq.) shows that Jacob’s character had gained considerably during his service both in strength and comprehensiveness; but the means which he employed in order to make his bargain with his uncle work so as to enrich himself, prove too clearly that his moral feelings had not undergone an equal improvement, and that the original taint of prudence, and the sad lessons of his mother in deceit, had produced some of their natural fruit in his bosom.

The prosperity of Jacob displeased and grieved Laban, so that a separation seemed desirable. His wives are ready to accompany him. Accordingly he set out, with his family and his property, ’to go to Isaac his father in the land of Canaan.’ It was not till the third day that Laban learned that Jacob had fled, when he immediately set out in pursuit of his nephew, and after seven days’ journey overtook him in Mount Gilead. Laban, however, is divinely warned not to hinder Jacob’s return. Reproach and recrimination ensued. Even a charge of theft is put forward by Laban—’Wherefore hast thou stolen my gods?’ In truth, Rachel had carried off certain images which were the objects of superstitious reverence. Ignorant of this misdeed, Jacob boldly called for a search, adding, ’With whomsoever thou findest thy gods, let him not live.’ A crafty woman’s cleverness eluded the keen eye of Laban. Rachel, by an appeal which one of her sex alone could make, deceived her father.

Laban’s conduct on this occasion called forth a reply from Jacob, from which it appears that his service had been most severe, and which also proves that however this severe service might have encouraged a certain servility, it had not prevented the development in Jacob’s soul of a high and energetic spirit, which when roused could assert its rights and give utterance to sentiments both just, striking, and forcible.

Peace, however, being restored, Laban, on the ensuing morning, took a friendly, if not an affectionate farewell of his daughters and their sons, and returned home. Meanwhile Jacob, going on his way, had to pass near the land of Seir, in which Esau dwelt. Remembering his own conduct and his brother’s threat, he was seized with fear, and sent messengers before in order to propitiate Esau, who, however, had no evil design against him; but, when he ’saw Jacob, ran to meet him and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept’—the one tears of joyful recognition, the other of gladness at unexpected escape.

It was immediately preceding this interview that Jacob passed the night in wrestling with ’a man,’ who is afterwards recognized as God, and who at length overcame Jacob by touching the hollow of his thigh. His name also was on this event changed by the mysterious antagonist into Israel, ’for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men and hast prevailed’ (Gen 32:28). It is added that on this account his descendants abstained from eating the thigh of slaughtered animals.

Having, by the misconduct of Hamor the Hivite and the hardy valor of his sons, been involved in danger from the natives of Shechem in Canaan, Jacob is divinely directed, and under the divine protection proceeds to Bethel, where he is to ’make an altar unto God that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother.’ Obedient to the divine command, he first purifies his family from ’strange gods,’ which he hid under ’the oak which is by Shechem;’ after which God appeared to him again with the important declaration, ’I am God Almighty,’ and renewed the Abrahamic covenant. While journeying from Bethel to Ephrath, his beloved Rachel lost her life in giving birth to her second son, Benjamin. At length Jacob came to his father Isaac at Mamre, the family residence, in time to pay the last attentions to the aged patriarch. Not long after this bereavement Jacob was robbed of his beloved son Joseph through the jealousy and bad faith of his brothers. This loss is the occasion of showing us how strong were Jacob’s paternal feelings; for on seeing what appeared to be proofs that ’some evil beast had devoured Joseph,’ the old man ’rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days, and refused to be comforted…. I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning’ (Gen 37:33-35).

A widely extended famine induced Jacob to send his sons down into Egypt, where he had heard there was corn, without knowing by whose instrumentality. The patriarch, however, retained his youngest son Benjamin, ’lest mischief should befall him,’ as it had befallen Joseph. The young men returned with the needed supplies of corn. They related, however, that they had been taken for spies, and that there was but one way in which they could disprove the charge, namely, by carrying down Benjamin to ’the lord of the land.’ This Jacob vehemently refused:—’Me have ye bereaved; Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin; my son shall not go down with you; if mischief befall him, then shall ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave’ (Gen 42:36). The pressure of the famine, however, at length forced Jacob to allow Benjamin to accompany his brothers on a second visit to Egypt; whence in due time they brought back to their father the pleasing intelligence, ’Joseph is yet alive, and he is governor over all the land of Egypt.’ How naturally is the effect of this on Jacob told—’and Jacob’s heart fainted, for he believed them not.’ When, however, they had gone into particulars, he added, ’Enough, Joseph my son is yet alive; I will go and see him before I die.’

Encouraged ’in the visions of the night,’ Jacob goes down to Egypt. ’And Joseph made ready his chariot, and went up to meet Israel his father, to Goshen, and presented himself unto him; and he fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while. And Israel said unto Joseph, Now let me die, since I have seen thy face, because thou art yet alive’ (Gen 46:29). Joseph proceeded to conduct his father into the presence of the Egyptian monarch, when the man of God, with that self-consciousness and dignity which religion gives, instead of offering slavish adulation, ’blessed Pharaoh.’ Struck with the patriarch’s venerable air, the king asked, ’How old art thou?’ What composure and elevation is there in the reply, ’The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years; few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage: and Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from before Pharaoh’ (Gen 47:8-10).

Jacob, with his sons, now entered into possession of some of the best land of Egypt, where they carried on their pastoral occupations, and enjoyed a very large share of earthly prosperity. The aged patriarch, after being strangely tossed about on a very rough ocean, found at last a tranquil harbor, where all the best affections of his nature were gently exercised and largely unfolded. After a lapse of time Joseph, being informed that his father was sick, went to him, when ’Israel strengthened himself, and sat up in his bed.’ He acquainted Joseph with the divine promise of the land of Canaan which yet remained to be fulfilled, and took Joseph’s sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, in place of Reuben and Simeon, whom he had lost. Then having convened his sons, the venerable patriarch pronounced on them also a blessing, which is full of the loftiest thought, expressed in the most poetical diction, and adorned by the most vividly descriptive and engaging imagery, showing how deeply religions his character had become, how freshly it retained its fervor to the last, and how greatly it had increased in strength, elevation, and dignity:—’And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people’ (Gen 49:33).

Son of Isaac and Rebekah, and twin-brother to Esau. As at his birth he held his brother’s heel, he was called Jacob, that is, the heelholder, one who comes behind and catches the heel of his adversary, a supplanter, Gen 25:26 . This was a king of predictive intimation of his future conduct in life. Jacob was meek and peaceable, living a shepherd life at home. Esau was more turbulent and fierce, and passionately fond of hunting. Isaac was partial to Esau, Rebekah to Jacob. Jacob having taken advantage of his brother’s absence and his father’s infirmity to obtain the blessing of the birthright, or primogeniture, was compelled to fly into Mesopotamia to avoid the consequences of his brother’s wrath, Gen 27:1-28:22. On his journey the Lord appeared to him in a dream, (see LADDER,) promised him His protection, and declared His purpose relative to his descendants’ possessing the land of Canaan, and the descent of the Messiah through him, Gen 28:10, etc. His subsequent days, which he calls "few and evil," were clouded with many sorrows, yet amid them all he was sustained by the care and favor of God. On his solitary journey of six hundred miles into Mesopotamia, and during the toils and injuries of this twenty years’ service with Laban, God still prospered him, and on his return to the land of promise inclined the hostile spirits of Laban and of Esau to peace. On the border of Canaan the angels of God met him, and the God of angels wrestled with him, yielded him the blessing, and gave him the honored name of Israel. But sore trials awaited him: his mother was no more; his sister-wives imbittered his life with their jealousies; his children Dinah, Simeon, Levi and Reuben filled him with grief and shame; his beloved Rachel and his father were removed by death; Joseph his favorite son he had given up as slain by wild beasts; and the loss of Benjamin threatened to bring his gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. But the sunset of his life was majestically calm and bright. For seventeen years, he enjoyed in the land of Goshen a serene happiness: he gave a dying blessing in Jehovah’s name to his assembled sons; visions of their future prosperity rose before his eyes, especially the long line of the royal race of Judah, culminating in the glorious kingdom of SHILOH. "He saw it, and was glad." Soon after, he was gathered to his fathers, and his body was embalmed, and buried with all possible honors in the burial-place of Abraham near Hebron, B. C. 1836-1689. In the history of Jacob we observe that in repeated instances he used unjustifiable means to secure promised advantages, instead of waiting, in faith and obedience, for the unfailing providence of God. We observe also the divine chastisement of his sins, and his steadfast growth in grace to the last, Gen 24:1-50 . His name is found in the New Testament, illustrating the sovereignty of God and the power of faith, 1Ch 9:13 Heb 11:9,21 .\par

Ja’cob. (supplanter). The second son of Isaac and Rebekah. He was born with Esau, probably at the well of Lahai-roi, about B.C. 1837. His history is related in the latter half of the book of Genesis. He bought the birthright from his brother Esau, and afterward, acquired the blessing intended for Esau, by practicing a well-known deceit on Isaac.

(Jacob did not obtain the blessing because of his deceit, but in spite of it. That which was promised, he would have received in some good way; but Jacob and his mother, distrusting God’s promise, sought the promised blessing in a wrong way, and received with it trouble and sorrow. -- Editor).

Jacob, in his 78th year, was sent from the family home to avoid his brother, and to seek a wife among his kindred in Padan-aram. As he passed through Bethel, God appeared to him.

After the lapse of twenty-one years, he returned from Padan-aram with two wives, two concubines, eleven sons and a daughter, and large property. He escaped from the angry pursuit of Laban, from a meeting with Esau, and from the vengeance of the Canaanites provoked by the murder of Shechem; and in each of these three emergencies, he was aided and strengthened by the interposition of God, and in sign of the grace, won by a night of wrestling with God, his name was changed at Jabbok into Israel.

Deborah and Rachel died before he reached Hebron; Joseph, the favorite son of Jacob, was sold into Egypt eleven years before the death of Isaac; and Jacob had probably exceeded his 130th year when he went tither. He was presented to Pharaoh, and dwelt for seventeen years in Rameses and Goshen, and died in his 147th year. His body was embalmed, carried with great care and pomp into the land of Canaan, and deposited with his fathers, and his wife Leah, in the cave of Machpelah.

The example of Jacob is quoted by the first and the last of the minor prophets. Besides the frequent mention of his name in conjunction with the names of the other two patriarchs, there are distinct references to the events in the life of Jacob in four books of the New Testament - Joh 1:51; Joh 4:5; Joh 4:12; Act 7:12; Act 7:16; Rom 9:11-13; Heb 11:21; Heb 12:16.

(See ESAU; ISAAC.) ("supplanter", or "holding the heel".) Esau’s twin brother, but second in point of priority. Son of Isaac, then 60 years old, and Rebekah. As Jacob "took his brother by the heel (the action of a wrestler) in the womb" (Hos 12:3), so the spiritual Israel, every believer, having no right in himself to the inheritance, by faith when being born again of the Spirit takes hold of the bruised heel, the humanity, of Christ crucified, "the Firstborn of many brethren." He by becoming a curse for us became a blessing to the true Israel; contrast Heb 12:16-17. Jacob was a "plain," i.e. an upright man, steady and domestic, affectionate, so his mother’s favorite: Gen 25:24, etc., "dwelling in tents," i.e. staying at home, minding the flocks and household duties; not, like Esau, wandering abroad in keen quest of game, "a man of the field," wild, restless, self indulgent, and seldom at home in the tent.

Having bought the birthright from Esau, he afterward, at Rebekah’s instigation, stole the blessing which his father intended for Esau, but which God had appointed to him even when the two sons were yet unborn; "the elder shall serve the younger" (Gen 25:23; Gen 27:29; Mal 1:3; Rom 9:12). His seeking a right end by wrong means (Genesis 27) entailed a life-long retribution in kind. Instead of occupying the first place of honour in the family he had to flee for his life; instead of a double portion, he fled with only the staff in his hand. It was now, when his schemes utterly failed, God’s grace began to work in him and for him, amidst his heavy outward crosses. If he had waited in faith God’s time, and God’s way, of giving the blessing promised by God, and not unlawfully with carnal policy foiled Isaac’s intention, God would have defeated his father’s foolish purpose and Jacob would have escaped his well deserved chastisement.

The fear of man, precautions cunning, habitual timidity as to danger, characterize him, as we might have expected in one quiet and shrewd to begin with, then schooled in a life exposed to danger from Esau, to grasping selfishness from Laban, and to undutifulness from most of his sons (Gen 31:15; Gen 31:42; Gen 34:5; Gen 34:30; Gen 43:6; Gen 43:11-12). Jacob’s grand superiority lay in his abiding trust in the living God. Faith made him "covet earnestly the best gift," though his mode of getting it (first by purchase from the reckless, profane Esau, at the cost of red pottage, taking ungenerous advantage of his brother’s hunger; next by deceit) was most unworthy.

When sent forth by his parents to escape Esau, and to get a wife in Padan Aram, he for the first time is presented before us as enjoying God’s manifestations at Bethel in his vision of the ladder set up on earth, and the top reaching heaven, with "Jehovah standing above, and the angels of God ascending and descending (not descending and ascending, for the earth is presupposed as already the scene of their activity) on it," typifying God’s providence and grace arranging all things for His people’s good through the ministry of "angels" (Genesis 28; Heb 1:14). When his conscience made him feel his flight was the just penalty of his deceit God comforts him by promises of His grace.

Still more typifying Messiah, through whom heaven is opened and also joined to earth, and angels minister with ceaseless activity to Him first, then to His people (Joh 14:6; Rev 4:1; Act 7:56; Heb 9:8; Heb 10:19-20). Jacob the man of guile saw Him at the top of the ladder; Nathanael, an Israelite without guile, saw Him at the bottom in His humiliation, which was the necessary first step upward to glory. Joh 1:51; "hereafter," Greek "from now," the process was then beginning which shall eventuate in the restoration of the union between heaven and earth, with greater glory than before (Rev 5:8; Revelation 21:1 - 22:21). Then followed God’s promise of (1) the land and (2) of universal blessing to all families of the earth "in his seed," i.e. Christ; meanwhile he should have

(1) God’s presence,

(2) protection in all places,

(3) restoration to home,

(4) unfailing faithfulness (Gen 28:15; compare Gen 28:20-21).

Recognizing God’s manifestation as sanctifying the spot, he made his stony pillow into a pillar, consecrated with oil (See BETHEL), and taking up God’s word he vowed that as surely as God would fulfill His promises (he asked no more than "bread and raiment") Jehovah should be his God, and of all that God gave he would surely give a tenth to Him; not waiting until he should be rich to do so, but while still poor; a pattern to us (compare Gen 32:10). Next follows his seven years’ service under greedy Laban, in lieu of presents to the parents (the usual mode of obtaining a wife in the East, Gen 24:53, which Jacob was unable to give), and the imposition of Leah upon him instead of Rachel; the first installment of his retributive chastisement in kind for his own deceit. Kennicott suggested that Jacob served 14 years for his wives, then during 20 years he took care of Laban’s cattle as a friend, then during six years he served for wages (Gen 31:38; Gen 31:41).

"One (zeh) 20 years I was with thee (tending thy flocks, but not in thy house); another (zeh) 20 years I was for myself in thy house, serving thee 14 years for thy two daughters, and six years for thy cattle." The ordinary view that he was only 20 years old in Padan Aram would make him 77 years old in going there; and as Joseph, the second youngest, was born at the end of the first 14 years, the 11 children born before Benjamin would be all born within six or seven years, Leah’s six, Rachel’s one, Bilhah’s two, and Zilpah’s two. It is not certain that Dinah was born at this time. Zebulun may have been borne by Leah later than Joseph, it not being certain that the births all followed in the order of their enumeration, which is that of the mothers, not that of the births. Rachel gave her maid to Jacob not necessarily after the birth of Leah’s fourth son; so Bilhah may have borne Dan and Naphtali before Judah’s birth.

Leah then, not being likely to have another son, probably gave Zilpah to Jacob, and Asher and Naphtali were born; in the beginning of the last of the seven years probably Leah bore Issachar, and at its end Zebulun. But in the view of Kennicott and Speaker’s Commentary Jacob went to Laban at 57; in the first 14 years had sons, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah by Leah; Dan and Naphtali by Bilhah; in the 20 years (Gen 35:38) next had Gad and Asher by Zilpah, Issachar and Zebulun by Leah, lastly Dinah by Leah and Joseph by Rachel; then six years’ service for cattle, then flees from Padan Aram where he had been 40 years, at 97. In Jacob’s 98th year Benjamin is born and Rachel dies. Joseph at 17 goes to Egypt, at 30 is governor. At 130 Jacob goes to Egypt (Gen 46:1); dies at 147 (Gen 47:28).

The assigning of 40, instead of 20, years to his sojourn with Laban allows time for Er and Onan to be grown up when married; their strong passions leading them to marry, even so, at an early age for that time. The common chronology needs some correction, since it makes Judah marry at 20, Er and Onan at 15. On Jacob desiring to leave, Laban attested God’s presence with Jacob. "I have found by experience (Hebrew "by omens from serpents," the term showing Laban’s paganness: Gen 30:19; Gen 30:32) that the Lord hath blessed me for thy sake." Jacob then required as wages all the speckled and spotted sheep and goats, which usually are few, sheep in the East being generally white, the goats black or brown, not speckled.

With characteristic sharpness Jacob adopted a double plan of increasing the wages agreed on. Peeling rods of (Gesenius) storax ("poplar"), almond ("hazel"), and plane tree ("chesnut") in strips, so that the dazzling white wood of these trees should appear under the dark outside, he put them in the drinking troughs; the cattle consequently brought forth spotted, speckled young, which by the agreement became Jacob’s. Thus by trickery he foiled Laban’s trickery in putting three days’ journey between his flock tended by Jacob and Jacob’s stipulated flock of spotted and speckled goats and brown put under the care of his sons. Secondly, Jacob separated the speckled young, which were his, so as to be constantly in view of Laban’s one-colored flock. Moreover he adopted the trick with the rods only at the copulation of the strong sheep, namely, at the summer copulation not the autumn; for lambs conceived in spring were thought stronger.

Laban changed the terms frequently ("ten times") when he saw Jacob’s success, but in vain. Jacob accounted to his wives for his success by narrating his dream, which he had at the time the cattle conceived (Gen 31:10). This dream was at the beginning of the six years. "God hath taken away your father’s cattle and given them to me." God’s command to Jacob to return was in a dream at the close of the six years (Gen 31:11-13; in 12 translated leaped for "leap," and were for "are".) In the latter God states the true cause of his success; not his trickery, but "I have seen all that Laban doeth unto thee": the repetition of "in a dream" twice implies two dreams. Jacob’s polygamy was contrary to the original law of paradise (Gen 2:23-24; Mat 19:5). Leah was imposed on him when he had designed to marry Rachel only, and the maids were given him by his wives to obtain offspring.

The times of ignorance, when the gospel had not yet restored the original standard, tolerated evils which would be inexcusable now. Jealousies were the result of polygamy in Jacob’s case, as was sure to happen. The most characteristic scene of Jacob’s higher life was his wrestling until break of day (compare Luk 6:12) with the Angel of Jehovah, in human form, for a blessing. "By his strength he had power with God, yea he had power over the Angel and prevailed, he wept and made supplication unto Him" (Hos 12:3-4). So He received the name Israel, "contender with God," a pattern to us (Mat 11:12; Mat 15:22; Rev 3:21; Luk 13:24). (See ISRAEL.) His "strength" was conscious weakness constraining him, when his thigh was put out of joint and he could put forth no effort of his own, to hang upon Him; teaching us the irresistible might of conscious weakness hanging on Almighty strength (Job 23:6; Isa 27:5; Isa 40:29-31; 2Co 12:9-10).

"I will not let Thee go except Thou bless me" is a model prayer (Gen 32:26). Tears (recorded by Hosea under an independent Spirit of revelation) and supplications were his weapons; type of Messiah (Heb 5:7). The vision of the two encampments of angels on either side of him prepared him for the vision of the Lord of angels. (See MAHANAIM.) Thus he saw, "they that be with us (believers) are more than they that be with" our enemies (2Ki 6:16-17). Wrestling first with God, we can victoriously wrestle with Satan (Eph 6:12). Jacob like David felt "what time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee" (Psa 56:3-4; Psa 56:11; 1Sa 30:6).

His is one of the earliest prayers on record (Gen 32:7; Gen 32:9-12). He pleads as arguments (compare Isa 43:26), first God’s covenant keeping character to the children of His people, "O God of my father Abraham and Isaac"; next, His word and promises (Isa 31:3; Isa 31:13), "the Lord which saidst unto me, Return ... and I will deal well with thee"; next, his own unworthiness, "I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies," etc. (compare Isa 28:20-22); next the petition itself, "deliver me ... from Esau," appealing to God’s, known pity for the helpless, "I fear him lest he ... smite ... the mother with the children"; again falling back on God’s own word, "Thou saidst, I will surely do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea;" etc. The present, artfully made seem larger by putting a space between drove and drove, and each driver in turn saying, "they be thy servant Jacob’s, ... a present unto my lord Esau," was calculated by successive appeals to impress the impulsive elder brother (Mat 5:25).

Having left Canaan in guilt, now on his return Jacob must re-enter it with deep searchings of heart and wrestlings with God for the recovery of that sinless faith which he had forfeited by deceit and which lays hold of the covenant. Jacob is made to know he has more to fear from God’s displeasure than from Esau’s enmity Once that he stands right with God he need not fear Esau. There followed therefore the wrestling "alone" with Jehovah (compare Mat 14:23; Mar 1:35); his being named "Israel"; and his asking God’s name, to which the only reply was, God "blessed him there." Blessing is God’s name, i.e. the character wherein He reveals Himself to His people (Exo 34:5-7). Jacob called the place Peniel, "the face of God." Next Jacob came to Succoth, then crossed Jordan, and near Shechem bought his only possession in Canaan, the field whereon he tented, from the children of Hamer, Shechem’s father, for 100 kesita, i.e. ingots of silver of a certain weight.

The old versions translated "lambs," an ancient standard of wealth before coinage was practiced. For "Shalem, a city of Shechem," translated with Samaritan Pentateuch, "Jacob came in peace to the city of Shechem," though there is still a Salim E. of Nablus (Shechem). His settlement here in the N. instead of with his father in the S. at Beersheba may have been to avoid collision with Esau and to make an independent settlement in the promised land. It seems to have been in a time of his temporary religious declension after his escape from Esau through God’s interposition. Undue intercourse with the Canaanites around ended in Dinah’s fall and the cruel retribution by Simeon and Levi, which so imperiled his position among the surrounding Canaanites, and which so deeply affected him (Gen 33:17; Gen 33:19; Genesis 34; Gen 49:5-6).

It is true he erected an altar, El Elohe Israel, claiming God as his own "the God of Israel." Still God saw need for calling him to a personal and domestic revival. Jacob understood it so, and called his household to put away their strange gods (namely, Rachel’s stolen teraphim and the idols of Shechem, which was spoiled just before), their earrings (used as idolatrous phylacteries), and uncleanness; and then proceeded to perform what he had vowed so long ago, namely, to make the stone pillar God’s house (Gen 28:22). When thus once more he sought peace with God "the terror of God was upon the cities around" (compare Jos 2:9). They made no attempt such as Jacob feared to avenge the slaughter of the Shechemites. Reaching Bethel once more after 40 years, where he had seen the heavenly ladder, he has a vision of God confirming his name "Israel" and the promise of nations springing from him, and of his seed inheriting the land; He therefore rears again the stone pillar to El Shaddai, "God Almighty," the name whereby God had appeared to Abram also when He changed his name to Abraham.

Then followed the birth of Benjamin, which completed the tribal twelve (Genesis 35). The loss of his favorite son Joseph was his heaviest trial, his deceit to Isaac now being repaid by his sons’ cruel deceit to himself. Tender affection for wife and children was his characteristic (Gen 37:33-35; Gen 42:36; Gen 45:28). By special revelation at Beersheba (Genesis 46) allaying his fears of going to Egypt, which Isaac had been expressly forbidden to do (Gen 26:2), he went down. This marks the close of the first stage in the covenant and the beginning of the second stage. Leaving Canaan as a family, Israel returned as a nation.

In Egypt the transformation took place; the civilization, arts, and sciences of Egypt adapted it well for the divine purpose of training Israel in this second stage of their history; Jacob and his family, numbering 70, or as Stephen from Septuagint reads, 75 souls (Act 7:14), according as Joseph’s children only or his grandchildren also are counted. Jacob’s sons’ wives are not reckoned in the 70 persons, only the unmarried daughter Dinah and a granddaughter. In the number are included, according to Hebrew usage, some who were still "in the loins of their fathers." Benjamin’s (then only 24) ten sons were probably born in Egypt subsequently. So Pharez’ two sons and Asher’s two grandsons by Beriah. In the genealogy those named are the heads of tribes and of famiLies. At 130 Jacob blessed Pharaoh and termed his life a "pilgrimage" of days "few and evil" (47; Heb 11:9; Heb 11:13). The catalog of ills includes his sufferings:

(1) from Esau,

(2) Laban,

(3) maiming by the Angel,

(4) Dinah’s violation and Simeon and Levi’s cruelty,

(5) loss of Joseph,

(6) Simeon’s imprisonment,

(7) Benjamin’s departure,

(8) Rachel’s death,

(9) Reuben’s incest.

All these seemed "against" him, but all was for him, because God was for him (Rom 8:28; Rom 8:31; Rom 8:37; Gen 42:36). His true grandeur and sublimity burst forth at his latter end; his triumphant and grateful review of life," God, before whom my fathers did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, the Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lad!" His blessing Joseph’s sons was an act of "faith" (Heb 11:21), "leaning upon the top of his staff," an additional fact brought out by Paul (adopting Septuagint), as he worshipped on his bed (Gen 47:31; Gen 48:2); the staff symbolized his "pilgrim" spirit seeking the heavenly city (Gen 32:10). Faith adapted him to receive prophetic insight into the characters and destiny of Ephraim and Manasseh respectively, as also of his other representatives.

He anticipates the future as present, saying "I have given to thee (Joseph’s descendants) above thy brethren (Ephraim was the chief tribe of the N.) one portion of that land which I in the person of my descendants (Joshua and Israel) am destined to take with sword and bow from the Amorites" (Gen 48:22). In Gen 49:28 his prophecy as to his several sons and the tribes springing from them is called a "blessing" because, though a portion was denunciatory, yet as a whole all were within the covenant of blessing, but with modifications according to their characteristics. What already was gave intimation to the spirit of prophecy in Jacob of what would be. His prophecy of Shiloh’s coming in connection with Judah’s ceasing to have the sceptre and a lawgiver more accurately defined the Messianic promise than it had been before.

The general promise of "the seed" sprung from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob he now limits to Judah. His faith in "bowing on his bed" after Joseph promised to bury him in Canaan (Gen 47:29-30) consisted in his confidence of God’s giving Canaan to his seed, and he therefore earnestly desired to be buried there. Epistle to Hebrew omits his last blessing on his 12 sons, because Paul "plucks only the flowers by his way and leaves the whole meadow to his hearers" (Delitzsch). His secret and true life is epitomized in "I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord" (Gen 49:18). At 147 he died, and his body was embalmed and after a grand state funeral procession buried with his fathers in the cave of Machpelah before Mamre (Genesis 1).

Jacob’s Well. See Sychar.

[Ja’cob]

Son of Isaac and Rebekah. Though a twin, he is called ’the younger,’ being born after Esau. Before the children were born it was said, "the elder shall serve the younger." The promises made by God to Abraham were thus confirmed to Jacob, as they had been to Isaac. When they grew up, Esau became a hunter, whereas Jacob was a peaceful man, dwelling in tents. Isaac loved Esau, and Rebekah loved Jacob. The typical character of these three patriarchs has been described thus: "In general, Abraham is the root of all promise, and the picture of the life of faith; Isaac is a type of the heavenly Man, who receives the church; and Jacob represents Israel as heir of the promises according to the flesh." The difference may be seen by comparing Gen 22:17 (’stars ’ and ’sand’), with Gen 26:4 (’stars’ only), and Gen 28:14 (’dust of the earth’ only).

Though Jacob was heir of the promises, and valued God’s blessing in a selfish manner, he sought it not by faith, but tried in an evil and mean way to obtain it: first in buying the birthright when his brother was at the point of death; and then, in obtaining the blessing from his father by lying and deceit: a blessing which would surely have been his in God’s way if he had waited: cf. Gen 48:14-20.

Jacob had then to become a wanderer; but God was faithful to him, and spoke to him, not openly as to Abraham, but in a dream. The ladder reaching to heaven, and the angels ascending and descending on it, showed that he on earth was the object of heaven’s care. The promises as to the land being possessed by his descendants, and all nations being blessed in his Seed, were confirmed to him, with this difference that in connection with the latter promise it says "in thee and in thy seed ," because it includes the earthly blessings to his seed in the millennium. God also said He would keep Jacob wherever he went, and bring him back to the promised land. Jacob called the place Beth-el, saying that it was the house of God, and the gate of heaven. It is figurative of Israel’s position, not in heaven, but the ’gate’ is theirs. He made a vow that if God would bless him and bring him back in peace, Jehovah should be his God. This was not the language of faith.

Jacob, who had tricked his brother, was treated in a similar way by Laban, and Leah was given to him as wife instead of Rachel, though he had Rachel, the one he loved, afterwards. He had not learnt to trust God, but used subtle ways to increase his possessions; and he also was dealt with in a like manner, having his wages changed ’ten times.’ But God was watching over him and bade him return to the land of his fathers; and when Laban pursued after him, God warned him in a dream not to speak to Jacob either good or bad. They made a covenant together, and each went his way.

Immediately afterwards the angels of God met Jacob, and he recognised them as ’God’s host.’ Then he had to meet Esau, and doubtless conscience smote him, for he was greatly alarmed. He prayed to God for help, yet was full of plans, sending presents to appease his brother, and

dividing his people into two bands, so that if one of them were smitten, the other might escape. When he was alone God took him in hand: a ’man’ (called ’the angel’ in Hos 12:4) wrestled with him. He was lamed, yet he clung, and in faith said, "I will not let thee go, except thou bless me." He was accounted a victor, and his name was changed from Jacob to ISRAEL: "for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed." God did not yet make known His name to him.

God protected him from Esau, as He had from Laban: they kissed each other and wept. He then feigned that he would follow Esau to Seir, but turned aside to Shechem, where he bought the portion of a field, thus settling down for his own ease in the midst of the Canaanites, instead of going to Beth-el, God’s house, from whence he had started. His peace was soon disturbed by his daughter Dinah going to see the daughters of the land, and being dishonoured, which was avenged by the slaughter of the Shechemites by his sons Simeon and Levi, bringing Jacob into great fear.

God used this humiliating sorrow to discipline Jacob, and recover him to his true calling. He therefore bade Jacob go to Beth-el, and make an altar there. This disclosed a sad state of things: he had to meet God, and must purify himself, and his household must put away their strange gods. He built an altar and called it, ’El-beth-el;’ ’the God of Bethel.’ God renewed His promises and revealed Himself to Jacob as GOD ALMIGHTY.

Jacob loved Joseph more than all his other sons, which caused them to hate Joseph; they also hated him for the communications given to him through dreams, and eventually sold him to the Ishmeelites. Again Jacob was dealt with deceitfully; his sons pretended that they had found Joseph’s coat stained with blood, and Jacob was greatly distressed. But God was watching and overruling all for good. When Jacob and his household arrived in Egypt, he as a prince of God blessed Pharaoh king of Egypt. He lived in Egypt seventeen years, and died at the good old age of 147.

Jacob at the close of his life rose up to the height of God’s thoughts, and by faith blessed the two sons of Joseph, being led of God to cross his hands, and gave the richest blessing to Ephraim. Then, as a true prophet of God, he called all his sons before him, and blessed them, with an appropriate prophecy as to the historical future of each (considered under each of the sons’ names). He fell asleep, and his body was embalmed and carried into Palestine to lie with those of Abraham and Isaac.

Jacob being named ISRAEL led to his descendants being called the CHILDREN OF ISRAEL. They are however frequently addressed as ’JACOB,’ or ’house of Jacob,’ as if they had not preserved the higher character involved in the name of ’Israel,’ but must be addressed by the natural name of their forefather, Jacob. Gen 25 - Gen 49.

[Ja’cob]

Father of Joseph the husband of Mary. Mat 1:15-16.

JACOB.—1. According to the genealogical list in Matthew, Jacob (Ἰακώβ) is the father of Joseph the husband of Mary (Mat 1:15-16).

2. One of the reputed progenitors of the Jewish nation. Apart from the reference to Jacob’s well (πηγὴ τοῦ Ἰακώβ, see next art.), in Joh 4:6, and his place in the genealogies of Matthew and Luke (Mat 1:2, Luk 3:34), Jacob is mentioned in the Gospels only as one of the three patriarchs (Mat 8:11 ‘Many shall come from the east and the west; and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob …’ cf. Luk 13:28 f., Mat 22:32 || Mar 12:26, Luk 20:37 ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’). These three were grouped from early times (Exo 2:24; Exo 3:6; Exo 3:15-16, Lev 26:42, 1Ki 18:36, 2Ki 13:23, Jer 33:26, 1Ch 29:18, 2Ch 30:6), and occupied a place apart in Jewish thought. According to the Rabbis, they alone were entitled to be called אָבוֹח ‘fathers.’ To them was traced not only the origin of the nation, but also the beginning of true worship. As a descendant of these three, a Jew might claim nobility and a special relationship to God. This claim was recognized as וְכוּח אָבוֹח ‘righteousness of the fathers,’ and was based on Exo 32:13. It was denounced by John the Baptist (see Abraham, and cf. Mat 3:9, Luk 3:8), and it figured prominently in the conflicts between Jesus and the Pharisees (cf. Joh 8:33; Joh 8:37). Apparently in the time of Jesus it was liable to be abused, and on this account later Rabbis refused to lay stress upon it, declaring it no longer valid. In Rabbinic literature, Jacob is recognized as the most important of the three patriarchs (cf. Lev 26:42). He prevails with God (Gen 32:28). He names the sanctuary the house of God (Gen 28:22), and, in contrast to Abraham the father of Ishmael, and Isaac the father of Esau, Jacob inherits the promise in his children (49).

Literature.—A most suggestive analysis of the character of Jacob, and a full discussion of the problems of the narrative in Genesis, including the names ‘Jacob’ and ‘Israel,’ is given by Driver in Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible ii. 526–535; cf. also Stanley, Jewish Church, i. pp. 46–66; Gore, Studia Biblica, iii. 37 f.; Ph. Berger, ‘La Signification Historique des Noms des Patriarches Hébreux’ in Mémoires de la Société Linguistique, vi. 150.

G. Gordon Stott.

By: Solomon Schechter, S. Mendelsohn

1. Tanna of the second century; probably identical with Jacob b. Ḳorshai (= "the Ḳorshaite," or "of Ḳorsha"), the contemporary of Simon b. Gamaliel II. Of his relations with this patriarch the Talmud has preserved the following incident: Nathan the Babylonian and Meïr had determined to humiliate Simon and bring about his deposition by putting to him questions on 'Uḳẓin, which he had not mastered; but Jacob prevented the patriarch's discomfiture by indirectly turning his attention to the neglected treatise (Hor. 13b). He was a grandson of Elisha ben Abuyah on his mother's side (Ḳid. 39b; Ḥul. 142a), and was a teacher of Judah I. (Yer. Shab. x. 12c).Jacob is frequently met in halakic controversies with Akiba's later disciples (see Tosef., Zeb. x. 9, 11; ib. Tem. i. 17; ib. Ṭoh. vi. 5, 6). Sometimes he cites Meïr as an authority (Tosef., Ma'as. Sh. ii. 10; ib. Yeb. xii. 11). The compiler of the Mishnah cites Jacob (Tosef., 'Ab. Zarah, v. [vi.] 4), and preserves the following eschatological remarks of his: "This world is as if it were a vestibule to the future world: prepare thyself in the vestibule that thou mayest [becomingly] enter the reception-room. One hour devoted to penitence and good deeds in this life is worth more than the whole of the life hereafter [where no opportunity is given for improvement]; and one hour's happiness in the world to come is worth more than all the pleasures of this world" (Ab. iv. 16, 17).In this spirit Jacob interprets the rewards attached to filial reverence and to sparing the dam when rifling a bird's nest: "That thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee" (Deut. v. 16, xxii. 7). An incident once came under his notice that seemed to falsify this Scriptural promise. A dutiful son, in obedience to his parent's wish, climbed a tree after some birds. He duly complied with the Scriptural requirements, and yet, in descending, he fell and was killed. Thereupon Jacob remarked, "In this world there is no reward for good deeds: the rewards promised will be awarded in the world which is all good and immeasurably long" (Ḳid. 39b). Many decades later a prominent Babylonian amora remarked, "Had Aḥer [Elisha b. Abuyah] interpreted those promises as did his daughter's son he would not have become a sinner" (ib.; comp. Yer. Ḥag. ii. 77b; Eccl. R. vii. 8).Bibliography: Bacher, Ag. Tan. ii. 395; Brüll, Mebo ha-Mishnah, i. 242; Frankel, Darke ha-Mishnah, p. 202; Hamburger, R. B. T. ii.; Weiss, Dor, ii. 171.

2. Palestinian amora of the fourth century; contemporary of R. Jeremiah; probably identical with Jacob b. Aḥa (comp. Pes. 91b with Yer. Pes. viii. 36a, B. M. 101a with Yer. B. Ḳ. ix. 6d, and 'Ab. Zarah 13b with Yer. 'Ab. Zarah i. 39d).

JACOB.—1. Son of Isaac and Rebekah. His name is probably an elliptical form of an original Jakob’el, ‘God follows’ (i.e. ‘rewards’), which has been found both on Babylonian tablets and on the pylons of the temple of Karnak. By the time of Jacob this earlier history of the word was overlooked or forgotten, and the name was understood as meaning ‘one who takes by the heel, and thus tries to trip up or supplant’ (Gen 25:26; Gen 27:36, Hos 12:3). His history is recounted in Gen 25:21 to Gen 50:13, the materials being unequally contributed from three sources. For the details of analysis see Dillmann, Com., and Driver, LOT [Note: OT Introd. to the Literature of the Old Testament.] ³, p. 16. P [Note: Priestly Narrative.] supplies but a brief outline; J [Note: Jahwist.] and E [Note: Elohist.] are closely interwoven, though a degree of original independence is shown by an occasional divergence in tradition, which adds to the credibility of the joint narrative.

Jacob was born in answer to prayer (Gen 25:21), near Beersheba; and the later rivalry between Israel and Edom was thought of as prefigured in the strife of the twins in the womb (Gen 25:22 f., 2Es 3:16; 2Es 6:8-10, Rom 9:11-13). The differences between the two brothers, each contrasting with the other in character and habit, were marked from the beginning. Jacob grew up a ‘quiet man’ (Gen 25:27 RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] ), a shepherd and herdsman. Whilst still at home, he succeeded in overreaching Esau in two ways. He took advantage of Esau’s hunger and heedlessness to secure the birthright, which gave him precedence even during the father’s lifetime (Gen 43:33), and afterwards a double portion of the patrimony (Deu 21:17), with probably the domestic priesthood. At a later time, after careful consideration (Gen 27:11 ff.), he adopted the device suggested by his mother, and, allaying with ingenious falsehoods (Gen 27:20) his father’s suspicion, intercepted also his blessing. Isaac was dismayed, but instead of revoking the blessing confirmed it (Gen 27:33-37), and was not able to remove Esau’s bitterness. In both blessings later political and geographical conditions are reflected. To Jacob is promised Canaan, a well-watered land of fields and vineyards (Deu 11:14; Deu 33:28), with sovereignty over its peoples, even those who were ‘brethren’ or descended from the same ancestry as Israel (Gen 19:37 f., 2Sa 8:12; 2Sa 8:14). Esau is consigned to the dry and rocky districts of Idumæa, with a life of war and plunder; but his subjection to Jacob is limited in duration (2Ki 8:22), if not also in completeness (Gen 27:40 f., which points to the restlessness of Edom).

Of this successful craft on Jacob’s part the natural result on Esau’s was hatred and resentment, to avoid which Jacob left his home to spend a few days (Gen 27:44) with his uncle in Haran. Two different motives are assigned. JE [Note: Jewish Encyclopedia.] represents Rebekah as pleading with her son his danger from Esau; but P [Note: Priestly Narrative.] represents her as suggesting to Isaac the danger that Jacob might marry a Hittite wife (Gen 27:46). The traditions appear on literary grounds to have come from different sources; but there is no real difficulty in the narrative as it stands. Not only are man’s motives often complex; but a woman would be likely to use different pleas to a husband and to a son, and if a mother can counsel her son to yield to his fear, a father would be more alive to the possibility of an outbreak of folly. On his way to Haran, Jacob passed a night at Bethel (cf. Gen 13:3 f.), and his sleep was, not unnaturally, disturbed by dreams; the cromlechs and stone terraces of the district seemed to arrange themselves into a ladder reaching from earth to heaven, with angels ascending and descending, whilst Jehovah Himself bent over him (Gen 28:13 RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] ) with loving assurances. Reminded thus of the watchful providence of God, Jacob’s alarms were transmuted into religions awe. He marked the sanctity of the spot by setting up as a sacred pillar the boulder on which his head had rested, and undertook to dedicate a tithe of all his gains. Thence forward Bethel became a famous sanctuary, and Jacob himself visited it again (Gen 35:1; cf. Hos 12:4).

Arrived at Haran, Jacob met in his uncle his superior for a time in the art of overreaching. By a ruse Laban secured fourteen years’ service (Gen 29:27, Hos 12:12, Jdt 8:26), to which six years more were added, under an ingenious arrangement in which the exacting uncle was at last outwitted (Gen 30:31 ff.). At the end of the term Jacob was the head of a household conspicuous even in those days for its magnitude and prosperity. Quarrels with Laban and his sons ensued, but God is represented as intervening to turn their arbitrary actions (Gen 31:7 ff.) to Jacob’s advantage. At length he took flight whilst Laban was engaged in sheep-shearing, and, re-crossing the Euphrates on his way home, reached Gilead. There he was overtaken by Laban, whose exasperation was increased by the fact that his teraphim, or household gods, had been taken away by the fugitives, Rachel’s hope in stealing them being to appropriate the good fortune of her fathers. The dispute that followed was closed by an alliance of friendship, the double covenant being sealed by setting up in commemoration a cairn with a solitary boulder by its side (Gen 31:45 f., 52), and by sharing a sacrificial meal. Jacob promised to treat Laban’s daughters with special kindness, and both Jacob and Laban undertook to respect the boundary they had agreed upon between the territories of Israel and of the Syrians. Thereupon Laban returned home; and Jacob continued his journey to Canaan, and was met by the angels of God (Gen 32:1), as if to congratulate and welcome him as he approached the Land of Promise.

Jacobs next problem was to conciliate his brother, who was reported to be advancing against him with a large body of men (Gen 32:6). Three measures were adopted. When a submissive message elicited no response, Jacob in dismay turned to God, though without any expression of regret for the deceit by which he had wronged his brother, and proceeded to divide his party into two companies, in the hope that one at least would escape, and to try to appease Esau with a great gift. The next night came the turning-point in Jacob’s life. Hitherto he had been ambitious, steady of purpose, subject to genuine religious feeling, but given up almost wholly to the use of crooked methods. Now the higher elements in his nature gain the ascendency; and henceforth, though he is no less resourceful and politic, his fear of God ceases to be spoilt by intervening passions or a competing self-confidence. Alone on the banks of the Jabbok (Wady Zerka), full of doubt as to the fate that would overtake him, he recognizes at last that his real antagonist is not Esau but God. All his fraud and deceit had been pre-eminently sin against God; and what he needed supremely was not reconciliation with his brother, but the blessing of God. So vivid was the impression, that the entire night seemed to be spent in actual wrestling with a living man. His thigh was sprained in the contest; but since his will was so fixed that he simply would not be refused, the blessing came with the daybreak (Gen 32:28). His name was changed to Israel, which means etymologically ‘God perseveres,’ but was applied to Jacob in the sense of ‘Perseverer with God’ (Hos 12:3 f.). And as a name was to a Hebrew a symbol of nature (Isa 1:26; Isa 61:3), its change was a symbol of a changed character; and the supplanter became the one who persevered in putting forth his strength in communion with God, and therefore prevailed. His brother received him cordially (Isa 33:4), and offered to escort him during the rest of the journey. The offer was courteously declined, ostensibly because of the difference of pace between the two companies, but probably also with a view to incur no obligation and to risk no rupture. Esau returned to Seir; and Jacob moved on to a suitable site for an encampment, which received the name of Succoth, from the booths that were erected on it (Isa 33:17). It was east of the Jordan, and probably not far from the junction with the Jabbok. The valley was suitable for the recuperation of the flocks and herds after so long a journey; and it is probable, from the character of the buildings erected, as well as from the fact that opportunity must be given for Dinah, one of the youngest of the children (Isa 30:21), to reach a marriageable age (Isa 34:2 ff.), that Jacob stayed there for several years.

After a residence of uncertain length at Succoth, Jacob crossed the Jordan and advanced to Shechem, where he purchased a plot of ground which became afterwards of special interest. Joshua seems to have regarded it as the limit of his expedition, and there the Law was promulgated and Joseph’s hones were buried (Jos 24:25; Jos 24:32; cf. Act 7:16); and for a time it was the centre of the confederation of the northern tribes (1Ki 12:1, 2Ch 10:1). Again Jacob’s stay must not be measured by days; for he erected an altar (2Ch 33:20) and dug a well (Joh 4:6; Joh 4:12), and was detained by domestic troubles, if not of his own original intention. The troubles began with the seduction or outrage of Dinah; but the narrative that follows is evidently compacted of two traditions. According to the one, the transaction was personal, and involved a fulfilment by Shechem of a certain unspecified condition; according to the other, the entire clan was involved on either side, and the story is that of the danger of the absorption of Israel by the local Canaanites and its avoidance through the interposition of Simeon and Levi. But most of the difficulties disappear on the assumption that Shechem’s marriage was, as was natural, expedited, a delight to himself and generally approved amongst his kindred (Gen 34:19). That pressing matter being settled, the question of an alliance between the two cians, with the sinister motives that prevailed on either side, would be gradually, perhaps slowly, brought to an issue. There would be time to persuade the Shechemites to consent to be circumcised, and to arrange for the treacherous reprisai. Jacob’s part in the proceedings was confined chiefly to a timid reproach of his sons for entangling his household in peril, to which they replied with the plea that the honour of the family was the first consideration.

The state of feeling aroused by the vengeance executed on Shechem made it desirable for Jacob to continue his journey. He was directed by God to proceed some twenty miles southwards to Bethel. Before starting, due preparations were made for a visit to so sacred a spot. The amulets and images of foreign gods in the possession of his retainers were collected and huried under a terebinth (Gen 35:4; cf. Jos 24:26, Jdg 9:6). The people through whom he passed were smitten with such a panic by the news of what had happened at Shechem as not to interfere with him. Arrived at Bethel, he added an altar (Gen 35:7) to the monolith he had erected on his previous visit, and received in a theophany, for which in mood he was well prepared, a renewal of the promise of regal prosperity. The additional pillar he set up (Gen 35:14) was probably a sepulchral stele to the memory of Deborah (cf. Gen 35:20), dedicated with appropriate religious services; unless the verse is out of place in the narrative, and is really J [Note: Jahwist.] ’s version of what E [Note: Elohist.] relates in Gen 28:18. From Bethel Jacob led his caravan to Ephrath, a few miles from which place Rachel died in childbirth. This Ephrath was evidently not far from Bethel, and well to the north of Jerusalem (1Sa 10:2 f., Jer 31:15); and therefore the gloss ‘the same is Bethlehem’ must be due to a confusion with the other Ephrath (Rth 4:11, Mic 5:2), which was south of Jerusalem. The next stopping-place was the tower of Eder (Gen 35:21) or ‘the flock’—a generic name for the watch-towers erected to aid in the protection of the flocks from robbers and wild beasts. Gen 4:8 applies a similar term to the fortified southern spur of Zion. But it cannot he proved that the two allusions coalesce; and actually nothing is known of the site of Jacob’s encampment, except that it was between Ephrath and Hebron. His journey was ended when he reached the last-named place (Gen 35:27), the home of his fathers, where he met Esau again, and apparently for the last time, at the funeral of Isaac.

From the time of his return to Hebron, Jacob ceases to be the central figure of the Biblical narrative, which thenceforward revolves round Joseph. Among the leading incidents are Joseph’s mission to inquire after his brethren’s welfare, the inconsolable sorrow of the old man on the receipt of what seemed conclusive evidence of Joseph’s death, the despatch of his surviving sons except Benjamin to buy corn in Egypt (cf. Act 7:12 ff.), the bitterness of the reproach with which he greeted them on their return, and his belated and despairing consent to another expedition as the only alternative to death from famine. The story turns next to Jacob’s delight at the news that Joseph is alive, and to his own journey to Egypt through Beersheha, his early home, where he was encouraged by God in visions of the night (Gen 46:1-7). In Egypt he was met by Joseph, and, after an interview with the Pharaoh, settled in the pastoral district of Goshen (Gen 47:6), afterwards known as ‘the land of Rameses’ (from Rameses ii. of the nineteenth dynasty), in the eastern part of the Delta (Gen 47:11). This migration of Jacob to Egypt was an event of the first magnitude in the history of Israel (Deu 26:5 f., Act 7:14 f.), as a stage in the great providential preparation for Redemption. Jacob lived in Egypt seventeen years (Gen 47:28), at the close of which, feeling death to be nigh, he extracted a pledge from Joseph to bury him in Canaan, and adopted his two grandsons, placing the younger first in anticipation of the pre-eminence of the tribe that would descend from him (Gen 48:19, Heb 11:21). To Joseph himself was promised, as a token of special affection, the conquered districts of Shechem on the lower slopes of Gerizim (Gen 48:22, Joh 4:5). Finally, the old man gathered his sons about him, and pronounced upon each in turn a blessing, afterwards wrought up into the elaborate poetical form of Gen 49:2-27. The tribes are reviewed in order, and the character of each is sketched in a description of that of its founder. The atmosphere of the poem in regard alike to geography and to history is that of the period of the judges and early kings, when, therefore, the genuine tradition must have taken the form in which it has been preserved. After blessing his sons, Jacob gave them together the directions concerning his funeral which he had given previously to Joseph, and died (Gen 49:33). His body was embalmed, convoyed to Canaan by a great procession according to the Egyptian custom, and buried in the cave of Machpeiah near Hebron (Gen 50:13).

Opinion is divided as to the degree to which Jacob has been idealized in the Biblical story. If it be remembered that the narrative is based upon popular oral tradition, and did not receive its present form until long after the time to which it relates, and that an interest in national origins is both natural and distinctly manifested in parts of Genesis, some idealization may readily he conceded. It may be sought in three directions—in the attempt to find explanations of existing institutions, in the anticipation of religious conceptions and sentiments that belonged to the narrator’s times, and in the investment of the reputed ancestor with the characteristics of the tribe descended from him. All the conditions are best met by the view that Jacob was a real person, and that the incidents recorded of him are substantially historical. His character, as depicted, is a mixture of evil and good; and his career shows how, by discipline and grace, the better elements came to prevail, and God was enabled to use a faulty man for a great purpose.

2. Father of Joseph, the husband of Mary (Mat 1:15 f.).

R. W. Moss.

The son of Isaac and Rebecca, third great patriarch of the chosen people, and the immediate ancestor of the twelve tribes of Israel. He secured through a ruse the blessing which Isaac intended for Esau, and thus was confirmed Jacob’s possession of the birthright, his struggle for which had begun before his birth. He fled to Haran, the dwelling place of Laban, his maternal uncle, serving 14 years for Laban’s daughter Rachel. He finally departed secretly for Chanaan. After stopping at Bethel and Ephrata (Genesis 35), he came to Hebron where he dwelt quietly, leaving it only to rejoin his son Joseph in Egypt, and to spend his last days in the land of Gessen.

The son of Isaac and Rebecca, third great patriarch of the chosen people, and the immediate ancestor of the twelve tribes of Israel. The incidents of his life are given in parts of Gen., xxv, 21-1, 13, wherein the documents (J, E, P) are distinguished by modern scholars (see ABRAHAM, I, 52). His name-- possibly an abbreviation of Jacob-El (Babylonian: Ya kub-ilu), with which compare Israel, Ismael etc. -- means "supplanter", and refers to a well-known circumstance of his birth (Genesis 25:25). His early years were marked by various efforts to get the birthright from his brother Esau. His struggle for it began before he was born (xxv, 22-5). Later, he took advantage of Esau’s thoughtlessness and despair to buy it from him for a pottage of lentils (xxv, 29-33). In virtue of this purchase, and through a ruse, he finally got it by securing the blessing which Isaac intended for Esau (xxvii, 1-37), Then it was that, to escape his brother’s avenging wrath, and apparently also to obtain a wife from his parents’ stock, he fled to Haran, the dwelling place of Laban, his maternal uncle (xxvii, 41-xxviii, 5). On his way thither, he had at Luza the vision of the angels ascending and descending by a mysterious ladder which reached from earth to heaven, and of Yahweh renewing to him the glorious promises which He had made to Abraham and to Isaac; in consequence of this, he called the place Beth-El, and vowed exclusive worship to Yahweh should He accompany him on his way and bring him back safely home (xxviii, 11-22). Jacob’s relations with Laban’s household form an interesting episode, the details of which are perfectly true to Eastern life and need not be set forth here. Besides blessing him with eleven children, God granted to Jacob a great material prosperity, so that Laban was naturally desirous of detaining him. But Jacob, long wearied with Laban’s frequent trickery, and also bidden by God to return, departed secretly, and, although overtaken and threatened by his angry father-in-law, he managed to appease him and to pursue his own way towards Chanaan (xxix-xxxi). He managed also--after a vision of angels at Mahanaim, and a whole night’s wrestling with God at Phanuel, on which latter occasion he received a new blessing and the significant name of Israel--to appease his brother Easu, who had come to meet him with 400 men (xxxii-xxxiii, 16).Passing through Socoth, Jacob first settled near Salem, a city of the Sichemites, and there raised an altar to the God of Israel (xxxiii, 17-20). Compelled to leave on account of the enmity of the Chanaanites--the precise occasion of which is uncertain--he went to Bethel, where he fulfilled the vow which he had made when on his way to Haran (xxxiv-xxxv, 15). Proceeding farther south, he came to Ephrata, where he buried Rachel, who died giving birth to Benjamin, and where he erected a pillar on the site of her grave. Thence, through Migdal- Eder, he came to Hebron, where he was joined by Esau for their father’s burial (xxxv, 16-29). In Hebron, Jacob lived quietly as the head of a numerous pastoral family, received with inconsolable grief the apparent evidence of Joseph’s cruel death, passed through the pressure of famine, and agreed most reluctantly to his separation from Benjamin (xxxvii, 1-4; xlii, 35-38; xliii, 1-14). The news that Joseph was still alive and invited him to come to Egypt revived the patriarch, who, passing through Bersabee, reached Egypt with his sons and grandchildren (xlv, 25-xlix). There it was given him to meet Joseph again, to enjoy the honours conferred upon him by Pharaoh, and to spend prosperously his last days in the land of Gessen. There, on his death- bed, he foretold the future of fortunes of the respective descendants of his sons, and passed away at the age of 147 (xlvi, 29-xlix). According to his last wishes, he was buried in the land of Chanaan (1, 1-13). Despite the various difficulties met with in the examination of the Biblical narrative and dealt with in detail by commentators, it is quite certain that the history of Jacob is that of a real person whose actual deeds are recorded with substantial accuracy. Jacob’s character is a mixture of good and evil, gradually chastened by the experience of a long life, and upon the whole not unworthy of being used by God for the purpose of His mercy towards the chosen people. The Talmudic legends concerning Jacob are the acme of fancy.-----------------------------------FRANCIS E. GIGOT Transcribed by Paul T. Crowley Dedicated to Mr. Cornelius Crowley The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIIICopyright © 1910 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

jā´kub:

I.    Name

1.    Form and Distribution

2.    Etymology and Associations

II.    His Place in the Patriarchal Succession

1.    As the Son of Isaac and Rebekah

2.    As the Brother of Esau

3.    As Father of the Twelve

III.    Biography

1.    With Isaac in Canaan

2.    To Aram and Back

3.    In Canaan Again

4.    Last Years in Egypt

IV.    Character and Beliefs

1.    Natural Qualities

2.    Stages of Development

3.    Attitude toward the Promise

4.    How Far a “Type” of Israel

V.    References Outside of Genesis

1.    In the Old Testament

2.    In the New Testament

VI.    Modern Interpretations of Jacob

1.    Personification of the Hebrew Nation

2.    God and Demi-God

3.    Character of Fiction

I. Name

1. Form and Distribution

יעקב, ya‛ărḳōbẖ̱ (5 times יעקוב, ya‛ăḳōwbh); Ἰακώβ, Iakō̇b, is in form a verb in the Qal imperfect, 3rd masculine singular. Like some 50 other Hebrew names of this same form, it has no subject for the verb expressed. But there are a number of independent indications that Jacob belongs to that large class of names consisting of a verb with some Divine name or title (in this case ’Ēl) as the subject, from which the common abbreviated form is derived by omitting the subject. (a) In Babylonian documents of the period of the Patriarchs, there occur such personal names as Ja-ku-bi, Ja-ku-ub-ilu (the former doubtless an abbreviation of the latter), and Aq-bu-ú (compare Aq-bi-a-ḥu), according to Hilprext a syncopated form for A-qu(?)-bu(-ú), like Aq-bi-ilı̂ alongside of A-qa-bi-ili; all of which may be associated with the same root עקב, ‛āḳabh, as appears in Jacob (see H. Ranke, Early Babylonian Personal Names, 1905, with annotations by Professor Hilprext as editor, especially pp. 67, 113, 98 and 4). (b) In the list of places in Palestine conquered by the Pharaoh Thutmose III appears a certain J’qb’r, which in Egyptian characters represents the Semitic letters יעקבאל, ya‛ăḳōbh-’ēl, and which therefore seems to show that in the earlier half of the 15th century bc (so Petrie, Breasted) there was a place (not a tribe; see W. M. Müller, Asien und Europa, 162ff) in Central Palestine that bore a name in some way connected with “Jacob.” Moreover, a Pharaoh of the Hyksos period bears a name that looks like ya‛ăḳōbh-’ēl (Spiegelberg, Orientalische Literaturzeitung, VII, 130). (c) In the Jewish tractate Pirḳē ’Ābhōth, iii.l, we read of a Jew named ‛Ǎḳabhyāh, which is a name composed of the same verbal root as that in Jacob, together with the Divine name Yāhū (i.e. Yahweh) in its common abbreviated form. It should be noted that the personal names ‛Aḳḳūbh and Ya‛ăḳōbhāh (accent on the penult) also occur in the Old Testament, the former borne by no less than 4 different persons; also that in the Palmyrene inscriptions we find a person named עתעקב, a name in which this same verb עקב, is preceded by the name of the god ‛Ate, just as in ̇‛Ǎḳabhyāh it is followed by the name Yāhū̌.

2. Etymology and Associations

Such being the form and distribution of the name, it remains to inquire: What do we know of its etymology and what were the associations it conveyed to the Hebrew ear?

The verb in all its usages is capable of deduction, by simple association of ideas, from the noun “heel.” “To heel” might mean: (a) “to take hold of by the heel” (so probably Hos 12:3; compare Gen 27:36); (b) “to follow with evil intent,” “to supplant” or in general “to deceive” (so Gen 27:36; Jer 9:4, where the parallel, “go about with slanders,” is interesting because the word so translated is akin to the noun “foot,” as “supplant” is to “heel”); (c) “to follow with good intent,” whether as a slave (compare our English “to heel,” of a dog) for service, or as a guard for protection, hence, “to guard” (so in Ethiopic), “to keep guard over”, and thus “to restrain” (so Job 37:4); (d) “to follow,” “to succeed,” “to take the place of another” (so Arabic, and the Hebrew noun עקב, ‛ēḳebh, “consequence,” “recompense,” whether of reward or punishment).

Among these four significations, which most commends itself as the original intent in the use of this verb to form a proper name? The answer to this question depends upon the degree of strength with which the Divine name was felt to be the subject of the verb As Jacob-el, the simplest interpretation of the name is undoubtedly, as Baethgen urges (Beiträge zur sem. Religionsgeschichte, 158), “God rewardeth” ((d) above), like Nathanael, “God hath given,” etc. But we have already seen that centuries before the time when Jacob is said to have been born, this name was shortened by dropping the Divine subject; and in this shortened form it would be more likely to call up in the minds of all Semites who used it, associations with the primary, physical notion of its root ((a) above). Hence, there is no ground to deny that even in the patriarchal period, this familiar personal name Jacob lay ready at hand - a name ready made, as it were - for this child, in view of the peculiar circumstances of its birth; we may say, indeed, one could not escape the use of it. (A parallel case, perhaps, is Gen 38:28, Gen 38:30, Zerah; compare Zerahiah.) The associations of this root in everyday use in Jacob’s family to mean “to supplant” led to the fresh realization of its appropriateness to his character and conduct when he was grown ((b) above). This construction does not interfere with a connection between the patriarch Jacob and the “Jacob-els” referred to above (under 1, (b)), should that connection on other grounds appear probable. Such a longer form was perhaps for every “Jacob” an alternative form of his name, and under certain circumstances may have been used by or of even the patriarch Jacob.

II. Place in the Patriarchal Succession

1. As the Son of Isaac and Rebekah

In the dynasty of the “heirs of the promise,” Jacob takes his place, first, as the successor of Isaac. In Isaac’s life the most significant single fact had been his marriage with Rebekah instead of with a woman of Canaan. Jacob therefore represents the first generation of those who are determinately separate from their environment. Abraham and his household were immigrants in Canaan; Jacob and Esau were natives of Canaan in the second generation, yet had not a drop of Canaanitish blood in their veins. Their birth was delayed till 20 years after the marriage of their parents. Rebekah’s barrenness had certainly the same effect, and probably the same purpose, as that of Sarah: it drove Isaac to Divine aid, demanded of him as it had of Abraham that “faith and patience” through which they “inherited the promises” (Heb 6:12), and made the children of this pair also the evident gift of God’s grace, so that Isaac was the better able “by faith” to “bless Jacob and Esau even concerning things to come” (Heb 11:20).

2. As the Brother of Esau

These twin brothers therefore share thus far the same relation to their parents and to what their parents transmit to them. But here the likeness ceases. “Being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth, it was said unto (Rebecca), The elder shall serve the younger” (Rom 9:11, Rom 9:12). In the Genesis-narrative, without any doctrinal assertions either adduced to explain it, or deduced from it, the fact is nevertheless made as clear as it is in Malachi or Romans, that Esau is rejected, and Jacob is chosen as a link in the chain of inheritance that receives and transmits the promise.

3. As Father of the Twelve

With Jacob the last person is reached who, for his own generation, thus sums up in a single individual “the seed” of promise. He becomes the father of 12 sons, who are the progenitors of the tribes of the “peculiar people.” It is for this reason that this people bears his name, and not that of his father Isaac or that of his grandfather Abraham. The “children of Israel,” the “house of Jacob,” are the totality of the seed of the promise. The Edomites too are children of Isaac. Ishmaelites equally with Israelites boast of descent from Abraham. But the twelve tribes that called themselves “Israel” were all descendants of Jacob, and were the only descendants of Jacob on the agnatic principle of family-constitution.

III. Biography

The life of a wanderer (Deu 26:5 the Revised Version, margin) such as Jacob was, may often be best divided on the geographical principle. Jacob’s career falls into the four distinct periods: that of his residence with Isaac in Canaan, that of his residence with Laban in Aram, that of his independent life in Canaan and that of his migration to Egypt.

1. With Isaac in Canaan

Jacob’s birth was remarkable in respect of (a) its delay for 20 years as noted above, (b) that condition of his mother which led to the Divine oracle concerning his future greatness and supremacy, and (c) The unusual phenomenon that gave him his name: “he holds by the heel” (see above, I, 2). Unlike his twin brother, Jacob seems to have been free from any physical peculiarities; his smoothness (Gen 27:11) is only predicated of him in contrast to Esau’s hairiness. These brothers, as they developed, grew apart in tastes and habits. Jacob, like his father in his quiet manner of life and (for that reason perhaps) the companion and favorite of his mother, found early the opportunity to obtain Esau’s sworn renunciation of his right of primogeniture, by taking advantage of his habits, his impulsiveness and his fundamental indifference to the higher things of the family, the things of the future (Gen 25:32). It was not until long afterward that the companion scene to this first “supplanting” (Gen 27:36) was enacted. Both sons meanwhile are to be thought of simply as members of Isaac’s following, during all the period of his successive sojourns in Gerar, the Valley of Gerar and Beersheba (Gen 26). Within this period, when the brothers were 40 years of age, occurred Esau’s marriage with two Hittite women. Jacob, remembering his own mother’s origin, bided his time to find the woman who should be the mother of his children. The question whether she should be brought to him, as Rebekah was to Isaac, or he should go to find her, was settled at last by a family feud that only his absence could heal. This feud was occasioned by the fraud that Jacob at Rebekah’s behest practiced upon his father and brother, when these two were minded to nullify the clearly revealed purpose of the oracle (Gen 25:23) and the sanctions of a solemn oath (Gen 25:33). Isaac’s partiality for Esau arose perhaps as much from Esau’s resemblance to the active, impulsive nature of his mother, as from the sensual gratification afforded Isaac by the savory dishes his son’s hunting supplied. At any rate, this partiality defeated itself because it overreached itself. The wife, who had learned to be eyes and ears for a husband’s failing senses, detected the secret scheme, counterplotted with as much skill as unscrupulousness, and while she obtained the paternal blessing for her favorite son, fell nevertheless under the painful necessity of choosing between losing him through his brother’s revenge or losing him by absence from home. She chose, of course, the latter alternative, and herself brought about Jacob’s departure, by pleading to Isaac the necessity for obtaining a woman as Jacob’s wife of a sort different from the Canaanitish women that Esau had married. Thus ends the first portion of Jacob’s life.

2. To Aram and Back

It is no young man that sets out thus to escape a brother’s vengeance, and perhaps to find a wife at length among his mother’s kindred. It was long before this that Esau at the age of forty had married the Hittite women (compare Gen 26:34 with Gen 27:46). Yet to one who had hitherto spent his life subordinate to his father, indulged by his mother, in awe of a brother’s physical superiority, and “dwelling in tents, a quiet (domestic) man” (Gen 25:27), this journey of 500 or 600 miles, with no one to guide, counsel or defend, was as new an experience as if he had really been the stripling that he is sometimes represented to have been. All the most significant chapters in life awaited him: self-determination, love, marriage, fatherhood, domestic provision and administration, adjustment of his relations with men, and above all a personal and independent religious experience.

Of these things, all were to come to him in the 20 years of absence from Canaan, and the last was to come first; for the dream of Jacob at Beth-el was of course but the opening scene in the long drama of God’s direct dealing with Jacob. Yet it was the determinative scene, for God in His latest and fullest manifestation to Jacob was just “the God of Beth-el” (Gen 35:7; Gen 48:3; Gen 49:24).

With the arrival at Haran came love at once, though not for 7 years the consummation of that love. Its strength is naïvely indicated by the writer in two ways: impliedly in the sudden output of physical power at the well-side (Gen 29:10), and expressly in the patient years of toil for Rachel’s sake, which “seemed unto him but a few days for the love he had to her” (Gen 29:20). Jacob is not primarily to be blamed for the polygamy that brought trouble into his home-life and sowed the seeds of division and jealousy in the nation of the future. Although much of Israel’s history can be summed up in the rivalry of Leah and Rachel - Judah and Joseph - yet it was not Jacob’s choice but Laban’s fraud that introduced this cause of schism. At the end of his 7 years’ labor Jacob received as wife not Rachel but Leah, on the belated plea that to give the younger daughter before the elder was not the custom of the country. This was the first of the “ten times” that Laban “changed the wages” of Jacob (Gen 31:7, Gen 31:41). Rachel became Jacob’s wife 7 days after Leah, and for this second wife he “served 7 other years.” During these 7 years were born most of the sons and daughters (Gen 37:35) that formed the actual family, the nucleus of that large caravan that Jacob took back with him to Canaan. Dinah is the only daughter named; Gen 30:21 is obviously in preparation for the story of Gen 34 (see especially Gen 34:31). Four sons of Leah were the oldest: Reuben, with the right of primogeniture, Simeon, Levi and Judah. Next came the 4 sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, the personal slaves of the two wives (compare ABRAHAM, IV, 2); the two pairs of sons were probably of about the same age (compare order in Gen 49). Leah’s 5th and 6th sons were separated by an interval of uncertain length from her older group. And Joseph, the youngest son born in Haran, was Rachel’s first child, equally beloved by his mother, and by his father for her sake (Gen 33:2; compare Gen 44:20), as well as because he was the youngest of the eleven (Gen 37:3).

Jacob’s years of service for his wives were followed by 6 years of service rendered for a stipulated wage. Laban’s cunning in limiting the amount of this wage in a variety of ways was matched by Jacob’s cunning in devising means to overreach his uncle, so that the penniless wanderer of 20 years before becomes the wealthy proprietor of countless cattle and of the hosts of slaves necessary for their care (Gen 32:10). At the same time the apology of Jacob for his conduct during this entire period of residence in Haran is spirited (Gen 31:36-42); it is apparently unanswerable by Laban (Gen 31:43); and it is confirmed, both by the evident concurrence of Leah and Rachel (Gen 31:14-16), and by indications in the narrative that the justice (not merely the partiality) of God gave to each party his due recompense: to Jacob the rich returns of skillful, patient industry; to Laban rebuke and warning (Gen 31:5-13, Gen 31:24, Gen 31:29, Gen 31:42).

The manner of Jacob’s departure from Haran was determined by the strained relations between his uncle and himself. His motive in going, however, is represented as being fundamentally the desire to terminate an absence from his father’s country that had already grown too long (Gen 31:30; compare Gen 30:25) - a desire which in fact presented itself to him in the form of a revelation of God’s own purpose and command (Gen 31:3). Unhappily, his clear record was stained by the act of another than himself, who nevertheless, as a member of his family, entailed thus upon him the burden of responsibility. Rachel, like Laban her father, was devoted to the superstition that manifested itself in the keeping and consulting of t^erāphı̄m, a custom which, whether more nearly akin to fetishism, totemism, or ancestor-worship, was felt to be incompatible with the worship of the one true God. (Note that the “teraphim” of Gen 31:19, Gen 31:34 f are the same as the “gods” of Gen 31:30, Gen 31:32 and, apparently, of Gen 35:2, Gen 35:4.) This theft furnished Laban with a pretext for pursuit. What he meant to do he probably knew but imperfectly himself. Coercion of some sort he would doubtless have brought to bear upon Jacob and his caravan, had he not recognized in a dream the God whom Jacob worshipped, and heard Him utter a word of warning against the use of violence. Laban failed to find his stolen gods, for his daughter was as crafty and ready-witted as he. The whole adventure ended in a formal reconciliation, with the usual sacrificial and memorial token (Gen 31:43-55).

After Laban, Esau. One danger is no sooner escaped than a worse threatens. Yet between them lies the pledge of Divine presence and protection in the vision of God’s host at Mahanaim: just a simple statement, with none of the fanciful detail that popular story-telling loves, but the sober record of a tradition to which the supernatural was matter of fact. Even the longer passage that preserves the occurrence at Peniel is conceived in the same spirit. What the revelation of the host of God had not sufficed to teach this faithless, anxious, scheming patriarch, that God sought to teach him in the night-struggle, with its ineffaceable physical memorial of a human impotence that can compass no more than to cling to Divine omnipotence (Gen 32:22-32). The devices of crafty Jacob to disarm an offended and supposedly implacable brother proved as useless as that bootless wrestling of the night before; Esau’s peculiar disposition was not of Jacob’s making, but of God’s, and to it alone Jacob owed his safety. The practical wisdom of Jacob dictated his insistence upon bringing to a speedy termination the proposed association with his changeable brother, amid the difficulties of a journey that could not be shared by such divergent social and racial elements as Esau’s armed host and Jacob’s caravan, without discontent on the one side and disaster on the other. The brothers part, not to meet again until they meet to bury their father at Hebron (Gen 35:29).

3. In Canaan Again

Before Jacob’s arrival in the South of Canaan where his father yet lived and where his own youth had been spent, he passed through a period of wandering in Central Palestine, somewhat similar to that narrated of his grandfather Abraham. To any such nomad, wandering slowly from Aram toward Egypt, a period of residence in the region of Mt. Ephraim was a natural chapter in his book of travels. Jacob’s longer stops, recorded for us, were (1) at Succoth, east of the Jordan near Peniel, (2) at Shechem and (3) at Beth-el.

Nothing worthy of record occurred at Succoth, but the stay at Shechem was eventful. Genesis 34, which tells the story of Dinah’s seduction and her brother’s revenge, throws as much light upon the relations of Jacob and the Canaanites, as does chapter 14 or chapter 23 upon Abraham’s relations, or chapter 26 upon Isaac’s relations, with such settled inhabitants of the land. There is a strange blending of moral and immoral elements in Jacob and his family as portrayed in this contretemps. There is the persistent tradition of separateness from the Canaanites bequeathed from Abraham’s day (chapter 24), together with a growing family consciousness and sense of superiority (Gen 34:7, Gen 34:14, Gen 34:31). And at the same time there is indifference to their unique moral station among the environing tribes, shown in Dinah’s social relations with them (Gen 34:1), in the treachery and cruelty of Simeon and Levi (Gen 34:25-29), and in Jacob’s greater concern for the security of his possessions than for the preservation of his good name (Gen 26:30).

It was this concern for the safety of the family and its wealth that achieved the end which dread of social absorption would apparently never have achieved - the termination of a long residence where there was moral danger for all. For a second time Jacob had fairly to be driven to Beth-el. Safety from his foes was again a gift of God (Gen 35:5), and in a renewal of the old forgotten ideals of consecration (Gen 35:2-8), he and all his following move from the painful associations of Shechem to the hallowed associations of Beth-el. Here were renewed the various phases of all God’s earlier communications to this patriarch and to his fathers before him. The new name of Israel, hitherto so ill deserved, is henceforth to find realization in his life; his fathers’ God is to be his God; his seed is to inherit the land of promise, and is to be no mean tribe, but a group of peoples with kings to rule over them like the nations round about (Gen 35:9-12). No wonder that Jacob here raises anew his monument of stone - emblem of the “Stone of Israel” (Gen 49:24) - and stamps forever, by this public act, upon ancient Luz (Gen 35:6), the name of Beth-el which he had privately given it years before (Gen 28:19).

Losses and griefs characterized the family life of the patriarch at this period. The death of his mother’s Syrian nurse at Beth-el (Gen 35:8; compare Gen 24:59) was followed by the death of his beloved wife Rachel at Ephrath (Gen 35:19; Gen 48:7) in bringing forth the youngest of his 12 sons, Benjamin. At about the same time the eldest of the 12, Reuben, forfeited the honor of his station in the family by an act that showed all too clearly the effect of recent association with Canaanites (Gen 35:22). Finally, death claimed Jacob’s aged father, whose latest years had been robbed of the companionship, not only of this son, but also of the son whom his partiality had all but made a fratricide; at Isaac’s grave in Hebron the ill-matched brothers met once more, thenceforth to go their separate ways, both in their personal careers and in their descendants’ history (Gen 35:29).

Jacob now is by right of patriarchal custom head of all the family. He too takes up his residence at Hebron (Gen 37:14), and the story of the family fortunes is now pursued under the new title of “the generations of Jacob” (Gen 37:2). True, most of this story revolves about Joseph, the youngest of the family save Benjamin; yet the occurrence of passages like Gen 38, devoted exclusively to Judah’s affairs, or 46:8-27, the enumeration of Jacob’s entire family through its secondary ramifications, or Gen 49, the blessing of Jacob on all his sons - all these prove that Jacob, not Joseph, is the true center of the narrative until his death. As long as he lives he is the real head of his house, and not merely a superannuated veteran like Isaac. Not only Joseph, the boy of 17 (Gen 37:2), but also the self-willed elder sons, even a score of years later, come and go at his bidding (Gen 42 through 45). Joseph’s dearest thought, as it is his first thought, is for his aged father (Gen 43:7, Gen 43:27; Gen 44:19; and especially Gen 45:3, Gen 45:9, Gen 45:13, Gen 45:23, and Gen 46:29).

4. Last Years in Egypt

It is this devotion of Joseph that results in Jacob’s migration to Egypt. What honors there Joseph can show his father he shows him: he presents him to Pharaoh, who for Joseph’s sake receives him with dignity, and assigns him a home and sustenance for himself and all his people as honored guests of the land of Egypt (Gen 47:7-12). Yet in Beersheba, while en route to Egypt, Jacob had obtained a greater honor than this reception by Pharaoh. He had found there, as ready to respond to his sacrifices as ever to those of his fathers, the God of his father Isaac, and had received the gracious assurance of Divine guidance in this momentous journey, fraught with so vast a significance for the future nation and the world (Gen 46:1-4): God Himself would go with him into Egypt and give him, not merely the gratification of once more embracing his long-lost son, but the fulfillment of the covenant-promise (Gen 15:13-16) that he and his were not turning their backs upon Canaan forever. Though 130 years of age when he stood before Pharaoh, Jacob felt his days to have been “few” as well as “evil,” in comparison with those of his fathers (Gen 47:9). And in fact he had yet 17 years to live in Goshen (Gen 47:28).

These last days are passed over without record, save of the growth and prosperity of the family. But at their close came the impartation of the ancestral blessings, with the last will of the dying patriarch. After adopting Joseph’s sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, as his own, Jacob blesses them, preferring the younger to the elder as he himself had once been preferred to Esau, and assigns to Joseph the “double portion” of the firstborn - that “preeminence” which he denies to Reuben (Gen 48:22; Gen 49:4). In poetry that combines with the warm emotion and glowing imagery of its style and the unsurpassed elevation of its diction, a lyrical fervor of religious sentiment which demands for its author a personality that had passed through just such course of tuition as Jacob had experienced, the last words of Jacob, in Gen 49, mark a turning-point in the history of the people of God. This is a translation of biography into prophecy. On the assumption that it is genuine, we may confidently aver that it was simply unforgetable by those who heard it. Its auditors were its theme. Their descendants were its fulfillment. Neither the one class nor the other could ever let it pass out of memory.

It was “by faith,” we are well reminded, that Jacob “blessed” and “worshipped” “when he was dying” (Heb 11:21). For he held to the promises of God, and even in the hour of dissolution looked for the fulfillment of the covenant, according to which Canaan should belong to him and to his seed after him. He therefore set Joseph an example, by “giving commandment concerning his bones,” that they might rest in the burial-place of Abraham and Isaac near Hebron. To the accomplishment of this mission Joseph and all his brethren addressed themselves after their father’s decease and the 70 days of official mourning. Followed by a “very great company” of the notables of Egypt, including royal officials and representatives of the royal family, this Hebrew tribe carried up to sepulture in the land of promise the embalmed body of the patriarch from whom henceforth they were to take their tribal name, lamented him according to custom for 7 days, and then returned to their temporary home in Egypt, till their children should at length be “called” thence to become God’s son” (Hos 11:1) and inherit His promises to their father Jacob.

IV. Character and Beliefs

In the course of this account of Jacob’s career the inward as well as the outward fortunes of the man have somewhat appeared. Yet a more comprehensive view of the kind of man he was will not be superfluous at this point. With what disposition was he endowed - the natural nucleus for acquired characteristics and habits? Through what stages did he pass in the development of his beliefs and his character? In particular, what attitude did he maintain toward the most significant thing in his life, the promise of God to his house? And lastly, what resemblances may be traced in Israel the man to Israel the nation, of such sort that the one may be regarded as “typical” of the other? These matters deserve more than a passing notice.

1. Natural Qualities

From his father, Jacob inherited that domesticity and affectionate attachment to his home circle which appears in his life from beginning to end. He inherited shrewdness, initiative and resourcefulness from Rebekah - qualities which she shared apparently with her brother Laban and all his family. The conspicuous ethical faults of Abraham and Isaac alike are want of candor and want of courage. It is not surprising, therefore, to find the same failings in Jacob. Deceit and cowardice are visible again and again in the impartial record of his life. Both spring from unbelief. They belong to the natural man. God’s transformation of this man was wrought by faith - by awakening and nourishing in him a simple trust in the truth and power of the Divine word. For Jacob was not at any time in his career indifferent to the things of the spirit, the things unseen and belonging to the future. Unlike Esau, he was not callous to the touch of God. Whether through inheritance, or as a fruit of early teaching, he had as the inestimable treasure, the true capital of his spiritual career, a firm conviction of the value of what God had promised, and a supreme ambition to obtain it for himself and his children. But against the Divine plan for the attainment of this goal by faith, there worked in Jacob constantly his natural qualities, the non-moral as well as the immoral qualities, that urged him to save himself and his fortunes by “works” - by sagacity, cunning, compromise, pertinacity - anything and everything that would anticipate God’s accomplishing His purpose in His own time and His own way. In short, “the end justifies the means” is the program that, more than all others, finds illustration and rebuke in the character of Jacob.

2. Stages of Development

Starting with such a combination of natural endowments, social, practical, ethical, Jacob passed through a course of Divine tuition, which, by building upon some of them, repressing others and transfiguring the remainder, issued in the triumph of grace over nature, in the transformation of a Jacob into an Israel. This tuition has been well analyzed by a recent writer (Thomas, Genesis, III, 204 f) into the school of sorrow, the school of providence and the school of grace. Under the head of sorrow, it is not difficult to recall many experiences in the career just reviewed: long exile; disappointment; sinful passions of greed, anger, lust and envy in others, of which Jacob was the victim; perplexity; and, again and again, bereavement of those he held most dear.

But besides these sorrows, God’s providence dealt with him in ways most remarkable, and perhaps more instructive for the study of such Divine dealings than in the case of any other character in the Old Testament. By alternate giving and withholding, by danger here and deliverance there, by good and evil report, now by failure of “best laid schemes” and now by success with seemingly inadequate means, God developed in him the habit - not native to him as it seems to have been in part to Abraham and to Joseph, - of reliance on Divine power and guidance, of accepting the Divine will, of realizing the Divine nearness and faithfulness.

And lastly, there are those admirably graded lessons in the grace of God, that were imparted in the series of Divine appearances to the patriarch, at Beth-el, at Haran, at Peniel, at Beth-el again and at Beersheba. For if the substance of these Divine revelations be compared, it will be found that all are alike in the assurance (1) that God is with him to bless; (2) that the changes of his life are ordained of God and are for his ultimate good; and (3) that he is the heir of the ancestral promises.

It will further be found that they may be arranged in a variety of ways, according as one or another of the revelations be viewed as the climax. Thus (1), agreeing with the chronological order, the appearance at Beersheba may well be regarded as the climax of them all. Abraham had gone to Egypt to escape a famine (Gen 12:10), but he went without revelation, and returned with bitter experience of his error. Isaac essayed to go to Egypt for the same cause (Gen 26:1 f), and was prevented by revelation. Jacob now goes to Egypt, but he goes with the express approval of the God of his fathers, and with the explicit assurance that the same Divine providence which ordained this removal (Gen 50:20) will see that it does not frustrate any of the promises of God. This was a crisis in the history of the “Kingdom of God” on a paragraph with events like the Exodus, the Exile, or the Return.

(2) In its significance for his personal history, the first of these revelations was unique. Beth-el witnessed Jacob’s choice, evidently for the first time, of his fathers’ God as his God. And though we find Jacob later tolerating idolatry in his household and compromising his religious testimony by sin, we never find a hint of his own unfaithfulness to this first and final religious choice. This is further confirmed by the attachment of his later revelations to this primary one, as though this lent them the significance of continuity, and made possible the unity of his religious experience. So at Haran it was the “God of Beth-el” who directed his return (Gen 31:13); at Shechem it was to Beth-el that he was directed, in order that he might at length fulfill his Beth-el vow, by erecting there an altar to the God who had there appeared to him (Gen 35:1); and at Beth-el finally the promise of former years was renewed to him who was henceforth to be Israel (Gen 35:9-15).

(3) Though thus punctuated with the supernatural, the only striking bit of the marvelous in all this biography is the night scene at Peniel. And this too may justly be claimed as a climax in Jacob’s development. There he first received his new name, and though he deserved it as little in many scenes thereafter as he had deserved it before, yet the same could be said of many a man who has “seen the face of God,” but has yet to grasp, like Jacob, the lesson that the way to overcome is through the helpless but clinging importunity of faith.

(4) Rather than in any of the other scenes, however, it was at Beth-el the second time that the patriarch reached the topmost rung on the ladder of development. As already noticed, the substance of all the earlier revelations is here renewed and combined. It is no wonder that after this solemn theophany we find Jacob, like Moses later, ’enduring as seeing him who is invisible’ (Heb 11:27), and “waiting for the salvation” (Gen 49:18) of a God ’who is not ashamed of him, to be called his God’ (Heb 11:16), but is repeatedly called “the God of Jacob.”

Finally, such a comparison of these revelations to Jacob reveals a variety in the way God makes Himself known. In the first revelation, naturally, the effort is made chiefly to impress upon its recipient the identity of the revealing God with the God of his fathers. And it has been remarked already that in the later revelations the same care is taken to identify the Revealer with the One who gave that first revelation, or else to identify Him, as then, with the God of the fathers. Yet, in addition to this, there is a richness and suitability in the Divine names revealed, which a mechanical theory of literary sources not only leaves unexplained but fails even to recognize. At Beth-el first it is Yahweh, the personal name of this God, the God of his fathers, who enters into a new personal relation with Jacob; now, of all times in his career, he needs to know God by the differential mark that distinguishes Him absolutely from other gods, that there may never be confusion as to Yahweh’s identity. But this matter is settled for Jacob once for all. Thenceforth one of the ordinary terms for deity, with or without an attributive adjunct, serves to lift the patriarch’s soul into communication with his Divine Interlocutor. The most general word of all in the Semitic tongues for deity is ’Ēl, the word used in the revelations to Jacob at Haran in Gen (Gen 31:13), at Shechem (Gen 35:1), at Beth-el the second time (Gen 35:11) and at Beersheba (Gen 46:3). But it is never used alone. Like Allah in the Arabic language (= the God), so ’Ēl with the definite article before it serves to designate in Hebrew a particular divinity, not deity in general. Or else ’Ēl without the article is made definite by some genitive phrase that supplies the necessary identification: so in Jacob’s case, Ēl-beth-el (Gen 35:7; compare Gen 31:13) or Ēl-Elohe-Israel (Gen 33:20). Or, lastly, there is added to ’Ēl some determining title, with the force of an adjective, as Shaddai (translated “Almighty”) in Gen 35:11 (compare Gen 43:3). In clear distinction from this word, ’Ēl, with its archaic or poetic flavor, is the common Hebrew word for God, ’Ĕlōhı̄m̌. But while ’Ĕlōhı̄m is used regularly by the narrator of the Jacob-stories in speaking, or in letting his actors speak, of Jacob’s God, who to the monotheistic writer is of course the God and his own God, he never puts this word thus absolutely into the mouth of the revealing Deity. Jacob can say, when he awakes from his dream, “This is the house of ’Ĕlōhı̄m,” but God says to him in the dream, “I am the God (’Ĕlōhı̄m) of thy father” (Gen 28:17, Gen 28:13). At Mahanaim Jacob says, “This is the host of ’Ĕlōhı̄m̌” (Gen 32:2), but at Beersheba God says to Jacob, “I am ... the God (’Ĕlōhı̄m) of thy father” (Gen 46:3). Such are the distinctions maintained in the use of these words, all of them used of the same God, yet chosen in each case to fit the circumstances of speaker, hearer and situation.

The only passage in the story of Jacob that might appear to be an exception does in fact but prove the rule. At Peniel the angel of God explains the new name of Israel by saying, “Thou hast striven with God (’Ĕlōhı̄m) and with men, and hast prevailed.” Here the contrast with “men” proves that ’Ĕlōhı̄m without the article is just the right expression, even on the lips of Deity: neither Deity nor humanity has prevailed against Jacob (Gen 32:28).

Throughout the entire story of Jacob, therefore, his relations with Yahweh his God, after they were once established (Gen 28:13-16), are narrated in terms that emphasize the Divinity of Him who had thus entered into covenant-relationship with him: His Divinity - that is to say, those attributes in which His Divinity manifested itself in His dealings with Jacob.

3. Attitude Toward the Promise

From the foregoing, two things appear with respect to Jacob’s attitude toward the promise of God. First, with all his faults and vices he yet was spiritually sensitive; he responded to the approaches of his God concerning things of a value wholly spiritual - future good, moral and spiritual blessings. And second, he was capable of progress in these matters; that is, his reaction to the Divine tuition would appear, if charted, as a series of elevations, separated one from another, to be sure, by low levels and deep declines, yet each one higher than the last, and all taken collectively lifting the whole average up and up, till in the end faith has triumphed over sight, the future over present good, a yet unpossessed but Divinely promised Canaan over all the comfort and honors of Egypt, and the aged patriarch lives only to “wait for Yahweh’s salvation” (Gen 49:18).

The contrast of Jacob with Esau furnishes perhaps the best means of grasping the significance of these two facts for an estimate of Jacob’s attitude toward the promise. For in the first place, Esau, who possessed so much that Jacob lacked - directness, manliness, a sort of bonhomie, that made him superficially more attractive than his brother - Esau shows nowhere any real “sense” for things spiritual. The author of Hebrews has caught the man in the flash of a single word, “profane” (βέβηλος, bébē̄los) - of course, in the older, broader, etymological meaning of the term. Esau’s desires dwelt in the world of the non-sacred; they did not aspire to that world of nearness to God, where one must ’put off the shoes from off his feet, because the place whereon he stands is holy ground.’ And in the second place, there is no sign of growth in Esau. What we see him in his father’s encampment, that we see him to the end - so far as appears from the laconic story. With the virtues as well as the vices of the man who lives for the present - forgiving when strong enough to revenge, condescending when flattered, proud of power and independent of parental control or family tradition - Esau is as impartially depicted by the sacred historian as if the writer had been an Edomite instead of an Israelite: the sketch is evidently true to life, both from its objectivity and from its coherence.

Now what Esau was, Jacob was not. His fault in connection with the promises of God, the family tradition, the ancestral blessing, lay not in despising them, but in seeking them in immoral ways. Good was his aim; but he was ready to “do evil that good might come.” He was always tempted to be his own Providence, and God’s training was clearly directed, both by providential leadings and by gracious disclosures, to this corresponding purpose: to enlighten Jacob as to the nature of the promise; to assure him that it was his by grace; to awaken personal faith in its Divine Giver; and to supplement his “faith” by that “patience” without which none can “inherit the promises.” The faith that accepts was to issue at length in the faith that waits.

4. How Far a “Type” of Israel

A nation was to take its name from Jacob-Israel, and there are some passages of Scripture where it is uncertain whether the name designates the nation or its ancestor. In their respective relations to God and to the world of men and nations, there is a true sense in which the father was a “type” of the children. It is probably only a play of fancy that would discover a parallel in their respective careers, between the successive stages of life in the father’s home (Canaan), life in exile, a return, and a second exile. But it is not fanciful to note the resemblance between Jacob’s character and that of his descendants. With few exceptions the qualities mentioned above (IV, 2) will be found, mutatis mutandis, to be equally applicable to the nation of Israel. And even that curriculum in which the patriarch learned of God may be viewed as a type of the school in which the Hebrew people - not all of them, nor even the mass, but the “remnant” who approximated to the ideal Israel of the prophets, the “servant of Yahweh” - were taught the lessons of faith and patience, of renunciation and consecration, that appear with growing clearness on the pages of Isaiah, of Habakkuk, of Jeremiah, of Malachi. This is apparently Hosea’s point of view in Hos 12:2-4, Hos 12:12.

A word of caution, however, is needed at this point. There are limits to this equation. Even critics who regard Jacob under his title of Israel as merely the eponymous hero, created by legend to be the forefather of the nation (compare below, VI, 1), must confess that Jacob as Jacob is no such neutral creature, dressed only in the colors of his children’s racial qualities. There is a large residuum in Jacob, after all parallelisms have been traced, that refuses to fit the lines of Hebrew national character or history, and his typical relation in fact lies chiefly in the direction of the covenant-inheritance, after the fashion of Malachi’s allusion (Mal 1:2), interpreted by Paul (Rom 9:10-13).

V. References Outside of Genesis

Under his two names this personage Jacob or Israel is more frequently mentioned than any other in the whole of sacred history. Yet in the vast majority of cases the nation descended from him is intended by the name, which in the form of “Jacob” or “Israel” contains not the slightest, and in the form “children of Israel,” “house of Jacob” and the like, only the slightest, if any, allusion to the patriarch himself. But there still remain many passages in both Testaments where the Jacob or Israel of Gen is clearly alluded to.

1. In the Old Testament

There is a considerable group of passages that refer to him as the last of the patriarchal triumvirate - Abraham, Isaac and Jacob: so particularly of Yahweh as the “God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,” and of the covenant-oath as having been “sworn unto Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” And naturally the nation that is known by his name is frequently called by some phrase, equivalent to the formal b^enē yisrā’ēl, yet through its unusualness lending more significance to the idea of their derivation from him: so “seed of Jacob” and (frequently) “house of Jacob (Israel).” But there are a few Old Testament passages outside of Gen in which so much of Jacob’s history has been preserved, that from these allusions alone a fair notion might have been gathered concerning the Hebrews’ tradition of their common ancestor, even if all the story in Gen had been lost. These passages are: Jos 24:3, Jos 24:4, Jos 24:32; Psa 105:10-23; Hos 12:2-4, Hos 12:12; Mal 1:2 f. Besides these, there are other allusions, scattered a word here and a sentence there, from all of which together we learn as follows. God gave to Isaac twin sons, Esau and Jacob, the latter at birth taking the former by the heel. God elected Jacob to be the recipient of the covenant-promise made to his father Isaac and to his grandfather Abraham; and this choice involved the rejection of Esau. Yahweh appeared to Jacob at Beth-el and told him the land of Canaan was to be his and his seed’s after him forever. Circumstances not explained caused Jacob to flee from his home in Canaan to Aram, where he served as a shepherd to obtain a wife as his wage. He became the father of 12 sons. He strove with the angel of God and prevailed amid earnest supplication. His name was by Yahweh Himself changed to Israel. Under Divine protection as God’s chosen one and representative, his life was that of a wanderer from place to place; once only he bought a piece of land, for a hundred pieces, near Shechem, from Hamor, the father of Shechem. A famine drove him down to Egypt, but not without providential preparation for the reception there of himself and all his family, through the remarkable fortunes of his son Joseph, sold, exiled, imprisoned, delivered, and exalted to a position where he could dispose of rulers and nations. In Egypt the children of Jacob multiplied rapidly, and at his death he made the sons of Joseph the heirs of the only portion of Canaanitish soil that he had acquired.

From this it appears, first, that not much that is essential in the biography of Jacob would have perished though Genesis had been lost; and, second, that the sum of the incidental allusions outside Gen resemble the total impression of the narratives in Genesis - in other words, that the Biblical tradition is self-consistent. And it runs back to a date (Hosea, 8th century bc) little farther removed from the events recounted than the length of time that separates our own day from the Norman conquest, or the Fall of Constantinople from the Hegira, or Jesus Christ from Solomon.

2. In the New Testament

In the New Testament also there are, besides the references to Jacob simply as the father of his nation, several passages that recall events in his life or traits of his character. These are: Joh 4:5, Joh 4:6, Joh 4:12; Act 7:12, Act 7:14-16; Rom 9:10-13; Heb 11:9, Heb 11:20 f. In the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman it appears that the Samaritans cherished the association of Jacob with the ground he bought near Shechem, and with the well he dug while sojourning there with his sons and his flocks; they prided themselves on its transmission to them through Joseph, not to the hated Jews through Judah, and magnified themselves in magnifying Jacob’s “greatness” and calling him “our father.” Stephen’s speech, as Luke reports it, includes in its rapid historical flight a hint or two about Jacob beyond the bare fact of his place in the tribal genealogy. Moved by the famine prevailing in Egypt and Canaan, Jacob twice dispatches his sons to buy grain in Egypt, and the second time Joseph is made known to his brothers, and his race becomes manifest to Pharaoh. At Joseph’s behest, Jacob and all the family remove to Egypt. There all remain until their death, but the “fathers” (Joseph and his brethren; compare Jerome, Epistola cviii, edition Migne) are buried in the family possession near Shechem. (Here emerges one of those divergences from the Old Testament tradition that are a notable feature of Stephen’s speech, and that have furnished occasion for much speculation upon their origin, value and implications. See commentaries on Acts.) Paul’s interest in Jacob appears in connection with his discussion of Divine election, where he calls attention to the oracle of Gen 25:23 and to the use already made of the passage by Malachi (Mal 1:2 f), and reminds his readers that this choice of Jacob and rejection of Esau was made by God even before these twin sons of Isaac and Rebecca were born. Finally, the author of He, when charting the heroes of faith, focuses his glass for a moment upon Jacob: first, as sharing with Abraham and Isaac the promise of God and the life of unworldly, expectant faith (Heb 11:9); and second, as receiving from Isaac, and at his death transmitting to his grandsons, blessings that had value only for one who worships and believes a God with power over “things to come” (Heb 11:20 f).

VI. Modern Interpretations of Jacob

For those who see in the patriarchal narratives anything - myth, legend, saga - rather than true biography, there is, of course, a different interpretation of the characters and events portrayed in the familiar Genesis-stories, and a different value placed upon the stories themselves.

Apart from the allegorizing treatment accorded them by Philo the Jew and early Christian writers of like mind (see specimen in ABRAHAM), these views belong to modern criticism. To critics who make Hebrew history begin with the settlement of Canaan by the nomad Israelites fresh from the desert, even the Mosaic age and the Egyptian residence are totally unhistorical - much more so these tales of a pre-Mosaic patriarchal age. Yet even those writers who admit the broad outlines of a residence of the tribes in Egypt, an exodus of some sort, and a founder of the nation named Moses, are for the most part skeptical of this cycle of family figures and fortunes in a remote age, with its nomads wandering between Mesopotamia and Canaan. and to and fro in Canaan, its circumstantial acquaintance with the names and relationships of each individual through those 4 long patriarchal generations, and its obvious foreshadowing of much that the later tribes were on this same soil to act out centuries later. This, we are told, is not history. Whatever else it may be, it is not a reliable account of such memorable events as compel their own immortality in the memories and through the written records of mankind.

1. Personification of the Hebrew Nation

The commonest view held, collectively of the entire narrative, specifically of Jacob, is that which sees here the precipitate from a pure solution of the national character and fortunes. Wellhausen, e.g., says (Prolegomena(6), 316): “The material here is not mythical, but national; therefore clearer (namely, than in Gen 1 through 11) and in a certain sense historical. To be sure there is no historical knowledge to be gained here about the patriarchs, but only about the time in which the stories concerning them arose in the people of Israel; this later time with its inward and outward characteristics is here unintentionally projected into the gray antiquity and mirrored therein like a glorified phantasm ... (p. 318). Jacob is more realistically drawn than the other two (Abraham and Isaac).” In section IV, 4, above, we observed that, while many of Jacob’s personal qualities prefigured the qualities of the later Hebrew people, there were some others that did not at all fit this equation. Wellhausen himself remarks this, in regard to the contrast between warlike Israel and the peaceful ancestors they invented for themselves. In his attempt to account for this contrast, he can only urge that a nation condemned to eternal wars would naturally look back upon, as well as forward to, a golden age of peace. (An alternative explanation he states, only to reject.) He fails to observe that this plea does not in the least alter the fact - his plea is indeed but a restatement of the fact - that this phenomenon is absolutely at variance with his hypothesis of how these stories of Jacob and the rest came to be what they are (see Meyer, Die Israeliten und ihre Nachbarstämme, 250ff).

2. God and Demi-God

This general view, which when carried to its extreme implications (as by Steuernagel, Die Einwanderung der israelitischen Stämme in Kanaan, 1901) comes perilously near the reductio ad absurdum that is its own refutation, has been rejected by that whole group of critics, who, following Nöldeke, see in Jacob, as in so many others of the patriarchs, an original deity (myth), first abased to the grade of a hero (heroic legend), and at last degraded to the level of a clown (tales of jest or marvel). Adherents of this trend of interpretation differ widely among themselves as to details, but Jacob is generally regarded as a Canaanitish deity, whose local shrine was at Shechem, Beth-el or Peniel, and whose cult was taken over by the Hebrews, their own object of worship being substituted for him, and the outstanding features of his personality being made over into a hero that Israel appropriated as their national ancestor, even to the extent of giving him the secondary name of Israel. Stade attempted a combination of this “mythical” view with the “national” view in the interest of his theory of primitive animism, by making the patriarch a “mythological figure revered as an eponymous hero.” This theory, in any form, requires the assumption, which there is nothing to support, that Jacob (or Jacob-el) is a name originally belonging to a deity and framed to fit his supposed character. At first, then, it meant “’Ēl deceives” or “’Ēl recompenses” (so B. Luther, ZATW, 1901, 60ff; compare also the same writer, as well as Meyer himself, in the latter’s Israeliten, etc., 109ff, 271ff). Meyer proposes the monstrosity of a nominal sentence with the translation, “’He deceives’ is ’Ēľ.” Thus, the first element of the name Jacob came to be felt as the name itself (= “Jacob is God”), and it was launched upon its course of evolution into the human personage that Genesis knows. It suffices to say with regard to all this, that in addition to its being inherently improbable - not to say, unproved - it goes directly in the face of the archaeological evidence adduced under I, 1, above. The simple fact that Jacob(-el) was a personal name for men, of everyday occurrence in the 2nd-3rd millenniums bc, is quite enough to overthrow this whole hypothesis; for, as Luther himself remarks (op. cit., 65), the above evolution of the name is essential to the “mythical” theory: “when this alteration took place cannot be told; yet it has to be postulated, since otherwise it remains inexplicable, how personal names could arise out of these formations (like Jacob-el) by rejection of the ’Ēľ.”

3. Character of Fiction

The inadequacy of the two theories hitherto advanced to account for the facts of Genesis being thus evident, Gunkel and others have explicitly rejected them and enunciated a third theory, which may be called the saga-theory. According to Gunkel, “to understand the persons of Genesis as nations is by no means a general key to their interpretation”; and, “against the whole assumption that the principal patriarchal figures are originally gods is this fact first and foremost, that the names Jacob and Abraham are shown by the Babylonian to be customary personal names, and furthermore that the tales about them cannot be understood at all as echoes of original myths.” In place of these discredited views Gunkel (compare also Gressmann, ZATW, 1910, 1ff) makes of Jacob simply a character in the stories (marvelous, humorous, pathetic and the like) current in ancient Israel, especially on the lips of the professional story-teller. Whereas much of the material in these stories came to the Hebrews from the Babylonians, Canaanites or Egyptians, Jacob himself is declared to have belonged to the old Hebrew saga, with its flavor of nomadic desert life and sheep-raising. “The original Jacob may be the sly shepherd Jacob, who fools the hunter Esau; another tale, of the deceit of a father-in-law by his son-in-law, was added to it - the more naturally because both are shepherds; a third cycle, about an old man that loves his youngest son, was transferred to this figure, and that youngest son received the name of Joseph at a time when Jacob was identified with Israel’s assumed ancestor ’Israel.’ Thus our result is, that the most important patriarchs are creations of fiction” (Schriften des Altes Testament, 5te Lieferung, 42).

It is so obvious that this new attitude toward the patriarchs lends itself to a more sympathetic criticism of the narrative of Genesis, that critics who adopt it are at pains to deny any intention on their part of rehabilitating Jacob and others as historical figures. “Saga,” we are told, “is not capable of preserving through so many centuries a picture” of the real character or deeds of its heroes, even supposing that persons bearing these names once actually lived; and we are reminded of the contrast between the Etzel of saga and the Attila of history, the Dietrich of saga and the Theodoric of history. But as against this we need to note, first, that the long and involved course of development through which, ex hypothesi, these stories have passed before reaching their final stage (the Jahwist document (Jahwist), 9th century bc; Gunkel, op. cit., 8, 46) involves a very high antiquity for the earlier stages, and thus reduces to a narrow strip of time those “so many centuries” that are supposed to separate the actual Jacob from the Jacob of saga (compare ABRAHAM, VII, 4); and second, that the presuppositions as to the origin, nature and value of saga with which this school of criticism operates are, for the most part, only an elaborate statement of the undisputed major premise in a syllogism, of which the minor premise is: the Genesis-stories are saga. Against this last proposition, however, there lie many weighty considerations, that are by no means counterbalanced by those resemblances of a general sort which any student of comparative literature can easily discern (see also Baethgen, op. cit., 158).

(Ἰáêþâ)

Jacob, the younger son of Isaac, was the father of the twelve patriarchs who were the heads of the tribes of Israel.

The story of the ante-natal struggle of Esau and Jacob (to which allusion is made in Hos_12:3), and of the oracle spoken to their mother (Rom_9:11 || Gen_25:23), is a folk-tale which vividly reflects the rivalries of Israel and Edom. The Hebrews boasted of their superiority to the powerful kindred race which dwelt on their southern border. To be more than a match for those hereditary foes, gaining the advantage over them either by force of arms or by nimbleness of wit, was a point of national honour. By hook or by crook the Israelites rarely failed to come off victorious over the Edomites. And the popular mind liked to think that the characteristics and fortunes of the two rival nations were mysteriously foreshadowed before the birth of their far-off ancestors. From the beginning God chose the younger son for Himself, and decreed that the elder should be servant to the younger. In the words of a prophet who on this matter expresses the general belief, God loved Jacob, but hated Esau (Mal_1:2-3). St. Paul uses this Divine preference to illustrate that principle of election which he sees operating all through the history of Israel, and of which he finds startling contemporary evidence in the nation’s apostasy from the Messiah, and God’s choice of the Gentiles. That the elder brother (and nation) should serve the younger, that the natural heir should be foredoomed to lose the birthright and the blessing, that (apart from good or evil) the one should appear to be accepted and the other rejected-all this was evidence of an inscrutable selectiveness, by which God works out His universal purpose (ἡ êáôʼ ἐêëïãὴí ôïῦ èåïῦ ðñüèåóéò [see Esau]). The election of grace (ἐêëïãὴ ÷Üñéôïò) is the central idea in St. Paul’s philosophy of history. It is an attempt to give a rationale of the fact that ‘Universal History, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here’ (Carlyle, On Heroes and Hero-Worship, Lect. i.).

In a speech before the Sanhedrin, Stephen made allusion to the story of Jacob’s sending his sons down to Egypt, of Joseph’s sending for his father, and of Jacob s descent into Egypt and death there (Act_7:8; Act_7:12; Act_7:14). As an evidence of Jacob’s faith, the writer of Hebrews selects a death-bed scene (Act_11:21). ‘He blessed the two sons of Joseph,’ giving them one of the finest benedictions ever uttered by human lips, invoking the God of history, providence, and grace to be their Shepherd-God (Gen_48:15-16). Then ‘he worshipped leaning upon the top of his staff.’ In the original (Gen_47:31) this act precedes the blessing, and while the Septuagint reads ‘upon the top of his staff,’ other versions, including the English, have ‘on the bed.’ The difference of reading is due to Heb. punctuation (äַîִּèָä ‘the staff,’ äַîִּèָä ‘the bed’), and does not greatly alter the sense. Jacob, who is here the ideal Israelite, gives conscious or unconscious proof of his faith by taking leave of life with a high dignity and solemnity. Meekly submitting himself to the will of God, he teaches all his posterity to worship the ‘God of Jacob’ with their latest breath.

Stephen refers (Act_7:46) to David’s desire ‘to find a habitation for the God of Jacob.’ Here, too, Jacob is not an individual but a nation. The usage was common in every epoch of Hebrew literature: in the earliest period-‘Come, curse me Jacob’ … ‘Who can count the dust of Jacob?’ (Num_23:7; Num_23:10); in the Exile-‘Fear not, thou worm Jacob’ (Isa_41:14); and in the Maccabaean age, when Judas ‘made Jacob glad with his acts’ (1Ma_3:7); after which it was naturally taken over into the NT. Jacob’s other name ‘Israel’ had the same two senses, personal and national, a circumstance which gives piquancy to the Pauline dictum (Rom_9:6): ‘Not all who are of Israel (i.e. born of the patriarch) are Israel’ (i.e. the chosen people of God). Many of them are only ὁ Ἰóñáὴë êáôὰ óÜñêá, Israelites by birth, whereas in a higher sense all Christians are ὁ Ἰóñáὴë ôïῦ èåïῦ (Gal_6:16). Naturally the name ‘Jacob’ never acquired this new meaning: Israel was the ideal people of God, whether Jewish or Gentile, Jacob the actual Jewish nation composed of very imperfect human beings. The two words are appropriately combined in St. Paul’s prevision of a far-off Divine event which must be the goal of history: ‘All Israel shall be saved, for … a Deliverer … shall turn away iniquity from Jacob’ (Rom_11:26).

James Strahan.

(John 4, but Old Testament)

- Or Israel, grandson of the patriarch Abraham and ancestor of the 12 tribes of Israel. His son Joseph - of the "coat of many colours" - was sold into captivity in Egypt and became only second in importance to the Pharaoh during the seven year famine

Gen 25:26 (c) This is a type, throughout his life, of the Christian who, though he fails and falls, quickly builds an altar, brings the Lamb of GOD by faith, and hides under Calvary and the precious blood for every sin. Though Jacob often wandered, he returned to GOD at once. He wanted to know GOD. He wrestled during the season with GOD. He gave liberally to GOD. GOD is "the God of Jacob." (See also Gen 49:24, and other places).

Events relating to a child’s birth often influenced parents in their choice of a name for the child. Isaac and Rebekah gave the second of their twin sons the name Jacob (meaning ‘to hold the heel’) because at the birth the baby Jacob’s hand took hold of the heel of the first twin, Esau (Gen 25:24-26). When the two boys grew to adulthood, Jacob proved to be true to his name when he again took hold of what belonged to his brother, by cunningly taking from him the family birthright and the father’s blessing (Gen 27:36).

From the beginning God made it clear that he had chosen Jacob, not Esau, as the one through whom he would fulfil his promises to Abraham. But that was no excuse for Jacob’s trickery (Gen 25:23; Mal 1:2; Rom 9:10-13).

The line of descent from Abraham through Isaac and Jacob was the line God used to produce the nation that became his channel of blessing to the whole world (Gen 28:13-14). To the generations that followed, God was known as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Gen 50:24; Exo 3:6; Deu 1:8; Mat 22:32; Act 3:13). The nation descended from Jacob was commonly called Israel (after Jacob’s alternative name; Gen 32:28), though in poetical writings it was sometimes called Jacob (Num 23:21; Isa 2:5; Isa 43:28; Mal 3:6; Rom 11:26).

Building for the future

Jacob was a selfishly ambitious young man who was determined to become powerful and prosperous. By ruthless bargaining he took from Esau the right of the firstborn to become family head and receive a double portion of the inheritance (Gen 25:27-34; see FIRSTBORN). Later, by lies and deceit, he gained his father’s blessing This confirmed the benefits of the birthright, in relation to both the family and the nation that was to grow out of it (Gen 27:1-29; see BLESSING). (Concerning the lesser blessings given to the elder brother see ESAU.)

To escape his brother’s anger, Jacob fled north. His excuse was that he was going to Paddan-aram to look for a wife among his parent’s relatives (Gen 27:41-46; Gen 28:1-5). Before Jacob left Canaan, God graciously confirmed the promise given to Abraham, and assured Jacob that one day he would return to Canaan (Gen 28:10-22).

It was twenty years before Jacob returned. In Paddan-aram he fell in love with Rachel, younger daughter of his uncle Laban, and agreed to work seven years for Laban as the bride-price for Rachel. Laban tricked Jacob by giving him Leah, the elder daughter, instead. He then agreed to give Rachel as well, but only after Jacob agreed to work another seven years as the extra bride-price (Gen 29:1-30).

Upon completion of the second seven years, Jacob decided to work an additional six years. His purpose was to build up his personal flocks of sheep and goats, which he considered to be compensation for Laban’s repeated trickery. There was a constant battle, as two cunning dealers tried to outdo each other (Gen 30:25-43; Gen 31:41).

During these twenty years Jacob also built a large family. Leah produced several sons, but Rachel remained childless. Rachel therefore gave her maid to Jacob, so that through the maid he might produce sons whom Rachel could adopt as her own. Not to be outdone, Leah did the same. Finally Rachel produced a son, Joseph, and he became Jacob’s favourite (Gen 29:31-35; Gen 30:1-24). When at last Jacob and his family fled from Laban, Laban pursued them. In the end Jacob and Laban marked out a boundary between them and made a formal agreement not to attack each other again (Genesis 31).

A changed man

As he headed for Canaan, Jacob knew that if he was to live in safety he would have to put things right with Esau. Esau by this time had established a powerful clan (Edom) in neighbouring regions to the south-east. Jacob was beginning to learn humility such as he had not known before and cried to God for help (Gen 32:1-12).

God taught Jacob, through a conflict he had one night with a special messenger from God, that his proud self-confidence had to be broken if he was really to receive God’s blessing. The crisis in Jacob’s life was marked by God’s gift to him of a new name, Israel, ‘an overcomer with God’ (Gen 32:13-32). Jacob began to change. He humbled himself before Esau and begged his forgiveness, with the result that instead of further tension and conflict between the two brothers there was friendship and cooperation (Gen 33:1-17).

Jacob then crossed the Jordan into Canaan, where he demonstrated his faith in God’s promises by buying a piece of land. He at least now had permanent possession of part of the land God had promised to him and his descendants (Gen 33:18-20). At Bethel God renewed his promises (Gen 35:1-15; cf. Gen 28:13-22). As if to emphasize that this occupancy of Canaan was by God’s grace alone, the writer of Genesis includes two shameful stories that show the unworthiness of Jacob’s family to receive God’s blessings (Genesis 34; Genesis 38). The only son of Jacob to be born in Canaan was the youngest, Benjamin (Gen 35:16-26).

The family moved south to Hebron to be with the aged Isaac in his last few years (Gen 35:27-28). It seems that Jacob remained there while his sons took his flocks from place to place looking for pastures (Gen 37:14-17). Out of these circumstances came the dramatic sequence of events recorded in the long story of Joseph (see JOSEPH THE SON OF JACOB). The outcome of that story was that Jacob and all his family moved south through Beersheba and settled in Egypt (Gen 46:1-7; Gen 46:26).

Jacob lived in Egypt seventeen years (Gen 47:28). Before he died, he raised Joseph’s two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, to the same status as his own sons (Gen 48:1-6). This was because he had given Joseph the birthright that the eldest son had lost (1Ch 5:1-2; cf. Gen 35:22). Now Joseph, through his two sons, would receive twice the inheritance of the other sons (Gen 48:14-16; Gen 49:26). Jacob then announced his blessing on all his sons in turn (Gen 49:1-27; Heb 11:21). By insisting that his sons bury him in Canaan, he expressed his faith that Canaan would become the land of his descendants (Gen 47:29-31; Gen 49:28-33; cf. Gen 46:4). His sons carried out his wish (Gen 50:12-13).

Or Israel, ancestor of the people of

Israel (also called Israelites and, later,

Jews). See Gen. 32:24–28 for the story of

how Jacob was given the name Israel. He

was the father of twelve sons from whom

the twelve tribes of Israel descended,

and the name Jacob continued to be used

for the nation or people of Israel.