No 15

(Jacob)

His name means “he clutched” or “he clutches” because when he was born he held the heel of his firstborn twin, Esau. So, from the beginning Jacob was a supplanter and we see this trend continue as he took advantage of the elder brother’s hunger and “stole” his birthright (Gen 25:32). We also see that Jacob “stole” his elder brother’s first born blessing by a cunning act with his mother, Rebecca helping (Gen 27:24). At first glance, these appear to be strange ways to obtain the favour of God but as the Bible says in Malachi 1:2, 3 “…yet I loved Jacob And I hated Esau,…” So what may appear to be unjust and wrong to our eyes was actually part of God’s plan for His people, because the Bible refers to the Lord as being the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; he was one of the patriarchs of Israel.

His name was changed to Israel (Gen 32:28 & 35:10) which means “he who has struggled with God” . He had 4 wives and they gave him 13 children, 12 of which became the tribes of Israel. It is quite fitting that 25% of the book of Genesis concerns Jacob and his family because they are the foundation of the nation of Israel; we looked at the individual tribes in others studies (see studies # 147, 154, 172, 181, 187, 197, 205 and 206). In Genesis 49, we also saw the blessings that he gave to his children and he considered Joseph’s two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh (Gen 48:5) to be his own.

Jacob died while he was in Egypt and on his deathbed, he requested that he be buried in the same place as Abraham and Isaac were, in the cave of Machpelah in a field that Abraham bought from Ephron, the Hittite to bury Sarah.