Jacob

• 1. Introduction

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  Jacob was born grasping the heel of his older twin brother Esau, and that grip became his name. In Hebrew, Yaʿaqōv ties to ʿaqev, the word for heel. It is glossed as heel-catcher, supplanter, even leg-puller. The image fits a man whose story turns on outmaneuvering those around him. He bought his brother's birthright for a bowl of red stew. He fooled his blind father into giving him a blessing meant for someone else. Yet this same figure would later be renamed Israel, and his twelve sons would be remembered as the forefathers of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. How does a deceiver become a patriarch? What did he wrestle in the dark by the ford of the Jabbok, and why did he limp ever after? And how did a family fleeing famine in Canaan end up settled in the province of Goshen in Egypt? The answers run through four women, a stolen blessing, and a son sold into slavery.

• 2. The Stolen Blessing

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  Isaac was 60 years old when his twins were born, after 20 years of marriage. The boys grew into opposites. Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a simple man who dwelt in tents. Isaac loved Esau for his venison, but Rebecca loved Jacob. That divided household set the stage for the deception to come.

  As Isaac aged he became blind and uncertain when he would die, so he asked Esau to hunt game and prepare savory meat before receiving a blessing. Rebecca overheard. She remembered the prophecy she had been given before the birth, that the elder would serve the younger. She dressed Jacob in Esau's garments and laid goatskins on his arms and neck to mimic his brother's hairy skin.

  Disguised, Jacob entered his father's room. Isaac, suspicious that the hunt went so fast, felt his son and was confused, saying, "The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau!" He asked directly, "Art thou my very son Esau?" and Jacob answered, "I am." Isaac ate, drank, and gave the blessing meant for the firstborn.

  Esau returned moments too late. The realization shocked Isaac, who nonetheless confirmed, "Indeed, he will be blessed!" Heartbroken, Esau begged for his own blessing and received only that he would live by his sword and serve his brother. He vowed to kill Jacob once Isaac died. Hearing of this, Rebecca sent Jacob away to her brother Laban's house in Haran until Esau's anger subsided.

• 3. Four Mothers, Twelve Sons

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  Jacob was 77 years old when he reached Haran and met Rachel, his cousin, working as a shepherdess at a well. He loved her immediately and agreed to work seven years for Laban to marry her. Those years seemed to him "but a few days, for the love he had for her."

  When the time came, Laban switched the veiled bride, giving Jacob the older sister Leah instead of Rachel. Laban defended himself by saying his country never gave a younger daughter before the elder. He offered Rachel too, in return for another seven years of labor. After a week of celebration with Leah, Jacob married Rachel and worked the second term.

  The children came from four women. Leah bore four sons quickly: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah. Rachel, barren, gave her handmaid Bilhah, who bore Dan and Naphtali. Leah then gave her handmaid Zilpah, who bore Gad and Asher. Leah became fertile again and bore Issachar, Zebulun, and a daughter, Dinah. At last God remembered Rachel, who gave birth to Joseph, and later Benjamin. From these twelve sons came the descendants known collectively as the Israelites.

  When Jacob finally set out for home, Rachel stole Laban's teraphim, his household idols. Laban pursued for seven days and, warned by God in a dream to say nothing good or bad, searched the camp. Rachel hid the idols by sitting on them and claiming she could not rise because she was menstruating. The two men parted with a pact of peace near Gilead.

• 4. Wrestling At Penuel

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  Near Mahanaim, Jacob learned that Esau was coming to meet him with 400 men. Filled with apprehension, he prayed, then sent ahead a tribute of flocks with the words, "A present to my lord Esau from thy servant Jacob." That night he moved his family and possessions across the ford Jabbok and was left alone.

  There a mysterious being appeared, described variously as a man, an angel, or God, and the two wrestled until daybreak. Unable to overpower Jacob, the being touched the sinew of his thigh, the gid hanasheh, and Jacob developed a limp. From this comes the practice that the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh on the hip socket.

  Jacob demanded a blessing. The being declared he would now be called Yisra'el, Israel, a name read by different commentators as one who has prevailed with God, a prince with God, or one who struggled with the divine. Jacob asked the being's name, but it refused to answer. He called the place Penuel, meaning face of God, saying, "I have seen God face to face and lived."

  The reunion with Esau proved gentler than feared. Jacob's gifts of camels, goats, and flocks appeased his brother's spirit of revenge, and the meeting was emotional. Jacob arranged his household carefully, placing the maidservants and their children in front, Leah and hers next, and Rachel and Joseph in the rear, the safest position. To some readers that arrangement was proof he still favored Joseph.

• 5. Blood And Burial

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  At Shechem Jacob bought a parcel of land, the site now identified as Joseph's Tomb. There his daughter Dinah was seized by the ruler's son. Her brothers Simeon and Levi agreed to a marriage on the condition that every man of Shechem be circumcised. On the third day, while the men were still in pain, the two brothers killed them all by the sword, rescued Dinah, and plundered the city. Jacob condemned the act, saying they had made him "a stench to the Canaanites and Perizzites," and rebuked them again on his deathbed.

  At Bethel, where Jacob had a further vision of blessing, Rebecca's nurse Deborah died and was buried beneath a tree Jacob named Allon Bachuth, the Oak of Weepings. According to the Midrash the plural form hints that Rebecca also died at this time, though her death is not recorded in scripture.

  Near Bethlehem, Rachel went into labor and died bearing her second son, Benjamin, Jacob's twelfth. Jacob buried her and raised a monument. Rachel's Tomb outside Bethlehem remains a site of pilgrimage and prayer. He was finally reunited with his father Isaac in Mamre, outside Hebron. When Isaac died at the age of 180, Jacob and Esau together buried him in the Cave of the Patriarchs, the plot Abraham had purchased as a family burial ground.

• 6. The Loss Of Joseph

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  In Hebron Jacob loved Rachel's firstborn Joseph above all his children. When Joseph was 17 he made him a long coat of many colors, and the half brothers' jealousy hardened into hatred. Joseph's dreams, which implied his family would bow to him, drove them to conspire, even as Jacob rebuked the boy yet privately contemplated his words.

  Sent to check on his brothers feeding flocks in Shechem, Joseph never returned home. His brothers brought back a coat soaked in goat's blood. Jacob recognized it at once and cried, "It is my son's tunic. A wild beast has devoured him. Without doubt Joseph is torn to pieces." He tore his clothes, put sackcloth around his waist, and mourned for days, and no one in his house could comfort him. The truth was that his older sons had sold Joseph into slavery on a caravan headed for Egypt.

  Twenty years later a severe famine struck the whole region, lasting seven years and crippling nations, with only Egypt prospering. In its second year, when Jacob was about 130, he sent his sons to buy grain but kept Benjamin home. The sons returned with grain, news that Simeon had been taken prisoner, and the unsettling discovery that their payment money was still in their sacks. Only when Judah pledged himself for Benjamin did Jacob relent, sending balm, honey, spices, myrrh, pistachio nuts, and almonds, with the words, "If I am bereaved, I am bereaved!"

• 7. Reunion In Egypt

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  When the sons returned from their second trip they came with 20 donkeys of goods and Egyptian transport wagons, and the news that Joseph was alive and governor over all Egypt. Jacob's heart "stood still," and seeing the wagons he declared, "Joseph my son is still alive. I will go and see him before I die."

  Jacob and his entire house of 70 gathered their livestock and set out. At Beersheba he stopped to make an offering to Yahweh, and God reassured the patriarch who had reservations about leaving the land of his forefathers. The reunion came at Goshen, after 22 years apart. Father and son embraced and wept, and Jacob said, "Now let me die, since I have seen your face, because you are still alive."

  Brought before the Pharaoh, Jacob blessed him, and when asked his age replied that he was 130 years old. Because the Pharaoh held Joseph in such high regard, the family was settled to pasture in the land of Ramses, in the province of Goshen. There the house of Israel multiplied exceedingly over 17 years, surviving even the worst of the seven-year famine.

• 8. Blessing And Departure

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  At 147 Jacob made Joseph swear not to bury him in Egypt but to carry him to Canaan to rest with his forefathers. When he fell ill and his vision failed, Joseph brought his sons Ephraim and Manasseh. Jacob crossed his hands, laying his right on the younger Ephraim, and when Joseph tried to switch them he refused, saying the younger brother would be the greater, just as he himself had surpassed his elder brother Esau. Then he called all twelve sons and prophesied their blessings or curses in order of their ages.

  After Jacob died, the family and the Egyptians mourned him 70 days, and he was embalmed for 40 days. Joseph led a great procession of Pharaoh's servants and the elders of Israel and Egypt beyond the Jordan to Atad, where they kept seven days of mourning. Their lamentation was so deep that the watching Canaanites named the place Abel Mizraim. Then they buried him in the cave of Machpelah, the field Abraham had bought from Ephron the Hittite.

  Whether Jacob was a historical figure remains contested. William Albright once dated the patriarchal narratives to about the 19th century BCE, but later scholars resisted that use of archaeology. Thomas Thompson and William Dever argue the stories are late literary compositions. Excavations in the Timna Valley turned up what may be the earliest camel bones in Israel, dated to around 930 BCE, a clue some read as evidence the tales were written no earlier than the 10th century BCE.