Jacob

Jacob, Hebrew patriarch who is considered the traditional ancestor of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. He is renamed Israel after the pivotal scene in which he wrestles with a divine being. In the genealogy recounted in the Hebrew Bible, Jacob is the grandson of Abraham and Sarah and the son of Isaac and Rebekah. The most noteworthy episodes in Jacob’s life include his birth along with his twin Esau, his acquisition of the birthright from his father, his vision in a dream of a ladder to heaven, his labors to obtain marriages with Rachel and Leah, his supernatural wrestling encounter, and his role in the story of his son Joseph.

Birth and birthright

Jacob’s story begins in Genesis 25. During Rebekah’s pregnancy with the twins, Jacob and Esau, she notices that they are fighting in her womb and she asks God why. God replies (Genesis 25:23):

“Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples born of you shall be divided;
the one shall be stronger than the other;
the elder shall serve the younger.”

Esau is born first and is described as red and hairy, and the latter quality is said to be the meaning of his name. Jacob is born second but emerges holding the heel of his twin brother. The name Jacob means both “holding the heel” and, foreshadowing his relationship with his brother, “supplants.” Esau grows up to be a talented hunter and the favorite of his father, whereas Jacob grows up to be a quiet, indoor-favoring child and the beloved of his mother.

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Esau, as the older brother, would logically have the birthright preference; however, he sells it to Jacob (Genesis 25:29–34). One day while Jacob is making red stew, Esau, who had returned from the fields, asks him for some. The text states that the alternative name of Esau as Edom, meaning “red,” comes from this stew. Jacob agrees to give Esau some of the soup on the condition that Esau sells him his birthright, which Esau agrees to out of hunger and indifference to his birthright. Later, in Genesis 27, when Isaac is old, blind, and dying, he promises to bless Esau. Rebekah overhears this plan and urges Jacob to disguise himself as Esau. She puts animal hides on his arms and neck so they would feel hairy should Isaac try to touch him. Jacob goes to Isaac with this hairy disguise, deceitfully announces himself as Esau, and obtains his father’s blessing—much to the chagrin of his brother. Esau threatens to kill Jacob, but Rebekah sends her beloved son to the home of her brother Laban in Harran in Mesopotamia.

Jacob’s ladder

On his way from Beersheba to Harran, Jacob stops for the night to sleep. As described in Genesis 28:12–15, he dreams of a stairway, sometimes interpreted as a ladder, reaching from heaven to earth and upon which angels descend and ascend. God speaks to Jacob, affirming that he is the God of Abraham and Isaac, promises him the land on which he lies, forecasts that his offspring will be numerous and will spread in all directions, and vows to protect him. This exchange reaffirms God’s covenant in the next generation. Upon awakening, Jacob declares that where he sleeps must be the house of God, hence he names it Bethel (Hebrew: “House of God”).

Marriage and children

After arriving at his uncle Laban’s home in Harran, Jacob falls in love with his cousin Rachel, the younger of Laban’s two daughters. He works for her father (his uncle) for seven years to obtain Rachel’s hand in marriage. It is said that his labors seemed a trifle because of his love for Rachel: “they seemed to him but a few days because of his love for her” (Genesis 29:20). After the seven years elapse, Jacob demands that Laban bring him the daughter for whose marriage he has been working. Laban holds a feast and brings Leah in place of Rachel to Jacob. When Jacob awakens in the morning to find Leah in his bed—another instance of disguised identity in Jacob’s narrative—Jacob accuses Laban of deceiving him. Laban replies that it is improper in his country to marry off the younger daughter before the elder—a subtle counterargument to Jacob’s own usurpation of Esau’s role as elder son. The two men make a deal that Jacob will work for another seven years to marry Rachel, which Jacob does gladly.

Jacob then serves Laban for another six years, during which he proves a successful herdsman, amasses a large amount of property, and has 12 children with Rachel, Leah, and their two maidservants during this period in Harran. His progeny establish the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Because Jacob prefers Rachel, God grants children to Leah but leaves Rachel barren, at least at first. Leah gives birth to Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah. Levi does not found a tribe but is regarded as the ancestor of the Levites. From Judah descend a tribe and the Davidic monarchy. Jealous of her sister but unable to conceive, Rachel insists that Jacob have children with her maid Bilhah, who bears Dan and Naphtali. Leah follows suit, gives her maid Zilpah to Jacob, and Zilpah later gives birth to Gad and Asher. Leah then proceeds to give birth to two more sons and a daughter: Issachar, Zebulun, and Dinah. Finally, God, remembering Rachel, grants her a son: Joseph. Joseph does not directly found a tribe, but his sons establish the tribes of Manasseh and Ephraim. Later, after the family returns to Canaan, Rachel and Jacob’s son Benjamin is born.

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Wrestling with a divine being

Laban makes numerous attempts to undercut Jacob’s success in animal husbandry, but Jacob continuously prospers. Tiring of Laban’s machinations, Jacob wishes to return to his homeland. He flees with his wives and children to return to Canaan. On the way Jacob sends his wives and children across the Jabbok River but himself stays back for the night. As described in Genesis 32:24–29, all night long Jacob wrestles with a mysterious stranger, an unidentified divine being. It is unclear in the text, and has since been much debated, whether he wrestles with an angel (as suggested by Hosea 12:4) or with God (the text at Genesis 32:28 specifies that he struggled with Elohim, a name for God). When Jacob asks the unidentified divine wrestler for his name, he responds only with the question of why Jacob asks. The divine wrestler strikes Jacob on the hip socket, causing him to limp. The being asks Jacob to let go as dawn nears, but Jacob refuses unless he receives a blessing. The being agrees and gives Jacob a new name: Israel (Hebrew: ישראל), meaning “he who struggles with God” or “God struggles.” Jacob names the place where this transpired Peniel (Hebrew פניאל: “The Face of God”).

Later years

Jacob then meets again with Esau, reconciles their erstwhile differences, and settles in Shechem in Canaan with his family. They later continue to Bethel and on to Ephrathah (Bethlehem), where Rachel dies while giving birth to Benjamin.

The story of Jacob’s later years casts him as a secondary figure within the story of Joseph, who in the next generation takes on the mantle of the primary focus of the biblical narrative. Joseph is the favored among Jacob’s sons because he is the firstborn to Rachel, Jacob’s beloved wife. Jacob makes Joseph the multicolored coat for which he is well-known, but the act incites jealousy in the other brothers. They sell him into slavery, fake his death, and convince Jacob it is the act of a wild animal. Jacob grieves over the news. Joseph is taken to Egypt, where he eventually arises to a position of prominence. During a famine in Canaan, Jacob and Joseph’s brothers travel to Egypt where they reconnect with Joseph and settle. Jacob dies in Egypt at the age of 147, but he commands that his bones be taken back to Canaan. His bones are carried with the Israelites during the Exodus from Egypt, and he is then buried in Hebron in the cave of Machpelah.

Religious significance and beyond

Religious and cultural interpretations of the story of Jacob have similarities and differences across the Abrahamic religions. Scholars concerned with the meaning in its original ancient context suggest that stories about Jacob’s birth and his acquisition of the birthright provide an apology for the relationship between Edom (according to the Bible, a people descended from Esau) and ancient Israel in Davidic times (c. 1020–922 bce). Edom, the older nation, was made subject to Israel by David (2 Samuel 8). The Jacob stories assume and emphasize that all things occur by divine design. The divine objective is of overriding significance; it is God’s will that Esau (Edom) shall live in the desert and be subject to Israel. In this instance the account of Jacob and Esau makes a statement about the identities of the Israelites and Edomites couched in narrative and religious sensibilities.

Within later Judaism, Jacob is Israel, the father of the Twelve Tribes, and a key patriarch of the Jewish people. Some rabbinic authorities have interpreted his penchant for staying inside as indicative of his scholarly predilection, reflecting an ideal of intensive Torah study that is significant in Orthodox Judaism. For Muslims, Jacob (Yaʿqūb) is regarded as a prophet (nabī), alongside figures such as Abraham, Isaac, Adam, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad.

Later Christians and Jews mined the story of Jacob for moral and theological meaning. Many readers have wrestled with the scene of Jacob’s wrestling with a divine being. Some Jewish commentators have argued that it is Esau’s guardian angel, and some have further contended that the episode marks Jacob’s shift from immoral to moral, from the deceiver to the divinely blessed Israel. Others have wrested the theme of theological wrestling from the physical to the metaphorical level: It is about inner conflict. From a Christian perspective, Charles Wesley’s hymn “Wrestling Jacob” (“Come, O Thou Traveler Unknown”), published in 1742, casts the stranger as Jesus, identified as Love, and reimagines the classic tale of the Hebrew Bible as a path of conversion to Christianity.

Many readers have been troubled by Jacob’s scheming in the beginning of his story and try to make sense of it in the context of his narrative arc and the biblical text in general. Christian commentators have generally amplified Jacob’s righteousness but have wrestled with the seeming contradiction. St. Paul in Romans 9 reads this early part of Jacob’s story as a reminder of the primacy of God’s will and mercy: God’s will supersedes human intentions and norms. St. Augustine, and, following him, St. Thomas Aquinas, have insisted that Jacob is not lying but participating in a divine mystery foreshadowed by God’s prophecy to Rebekah prior to his birth.

Beyond the realm of strictly religious and textual materials, Jacob’s vivid dream of the ladder and his mysterious wrestling match have captured artistic imaginations and been made the subjects of many paintings. These two key scenes are depicted in pieces by notable artists such as Rembrandt, Gustave Doré, William Blake, and Marc Chagall.