Jacob

JACOB

Scripture references:
Genesis 25–35; 48–49
Romans 9:6–13

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JACOB’S ROLE IN SCRIPTURE

It’s tempting to skip over Jacob in our discussion of great men of the Old Testament. Jacob is hardly a savory character. Yet, in God’s economy Jacob fathered twelve sons who are the source of the twelve tribes of Israel, and thus of God’s Old Testament people. Jacob’s significance is reflected in the fact that his names (Jacob, and later Israel) are found 2,549 times in our Bible!

Yet, it simply is because Jacob gave his second name, “Israel,” to a people that his name is mentioned so often. Both Isaac and Jacob are significant primarily because their histories permit us to trace the passage of the covenant God made with Abraham from Abraham to the Jewish people as a whole. The covenant passed from Abraham, to his son Isaac, and then to his son Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel.

In Romans 9, Paul made an important point concerning the passage of the covenant to these sons. Isaac had an older half-brother, Ishmael. Yet the covenant promises were passed to Isaac. Jacob had an older twin brother, Esau. Yet the covenant promises were passed to Jacob, and God decisively rejected Esau. According to the apostle Paul, this demonstrates an important truth. God is Sovereign, and is free to act as He chooses without reference to human conventions. While in ancient culture the older son was to inherit the tangible and intangible property of the father, God saw fit to do things His way. That Jacob was in many ways an unsavory character simply reminds us that the bestowing of God’s gifts do not depend on our righteousness but rather on the grace and unmerited favor of our God.

JACOB’S LIFE AND TIMES

Jacob spent his youth living a nomadic life with his parents and twin brother Esau. A rivalry developed between the two brothers, fostered by the fact that their father favored the outdoorsman, Esau, while their mother favored Jacob. The rivalry and the parents’ favoritism introduced discord and hostility into the family.

Jacob supplanted his brother (Gen. 25:27–34; 27:1–41).In biblical times, the oldest son inherited twice the amount of younger sons, as well as family headship. Despite the fact that Esau was minutes older than Jacob, and thus the eldest, God intended Jacob to inherit the covenant promises He had given to Abraham, which were the family’s true legacy. Rather than be patient and wait for God to work this out in His own way, Jacob took matters into his own hands.

One day when Esau came in from hunting and was hungry, he asked Jacob for some stew Jacob was cooking. Jacob proposed a trade: the stew for Esau’s birthright. Esau’s easy acquiescence showed how little concern he had for spiritual things; Jacob’s proposal showed how little Jacob cared for integrity.

Years later, when Isaac felt that his death was near, he determined to bless his boys. In that era, the “blessing” of a father had the force of a will and was also thought to fix the future of the sons he blessed. When his wife Rebekah learned that Isaac intended to give his blessing to Esau, Rebekah urged Jacob to pretend to be his brother. Jacob deceived the now blind Isaac, who gave Jacob the blessing he had intended for Esau. When Isaac learned what had happened, he bowed to God’s will and confirmed passage of the covenant promise and other blessings to Jacob.

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Jacob’s offer to trade his stew for Esau’s birthright provides significant insight into the character of each.

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Rebekah and Jacob’s deceit gained their objective but at a terrible cost. Esau now hated his brother and planned to kill Jacob when their father died. When Rebekah learned what Esau intended to do, she sent Jacob away, ostensibly to obtain a bride from her own family back in Haran. Little did Rebekah realize when she plotted with Jacob that once her best loved son left home, she would never see him again. Jacob was gone from Canaan for twenty years, during which time his mother died.

Jacob in Haran(Gen. 28–31). In Haran Jacob located his uncle Laban’s family. There he fell deeply in love with Laban’s younger daughter, Rachel. However in Laban, Jacob found his match as a trickster. Lacking a dowry, Jacob promised to work for Laban for seven years for Rachel. Documents from the period show that an exchange of service in place of the payment of money as a bride price was not unusual. But at the wedding Laban substituted Rachel’s older sister Leah. When dawn came, Jacob discovered the trick, and stormed out to confront his uncle. The slippery Laban made excuses, and Jacob was forced to work an additional seven years for Rachel.

With this obligation met, Laban, realizing that God had blessed him because of Jacob, worked out other agreements to keep Jacob in his employ. To Jacob’s frustration Laban kept changing the terms of the agreement. Jacob learned by experience the frustration his brother Esau must have felt when Jacob tricked Esau! Finally, after twenty years, God directed Jacob to return to the promised land.

The journey home (Gen. 32–35).During his years in Haran, Jacob had sired eleven boys and one girl, and through God’s intervention had gained large flocks and herds. On his way home, Jacob was terrified of the possible reaction of his brother, Esau. Jacob sent gifts of sheep and cattle on ahead to pacify his brother. When Esau met Jacob, however, he greeted him gladly. During the years Jacob was away, Esau had become rich. To Esau, the original “material man,” all he had ever cared about were material possessions. Since he was now wealthy, Esau cared nothing about Jacob’s possession of God’s covenant promises.

The Genesis text tells us of several adventures of Jacob’s family in Canaan, but the essence of the story is that Jacob was again in the land that God had promised to Abraham and his offspring. There Jacob was content to live a nomadic lifestyle as his father and grandfather before him.

Jacob’s great tragedy (Gen. 37).For many years Jacob’s great love, Rachel, had remained childless. Finally she had a son, Joseph, who became his father’s favorite. Just as favoritism had ruined the harmony of Jacob’s childhood family, so the favoritism he now showed toward Joseph destroyed his happiness. Jacob’s other sons grew to resent Joseph. They plotted to kill him, but instead sold him as a slave to traders bound for Egypt. They then took Joseph’s distinctive coat, sprinkled it with goat’s blood, and let Jacob conclude that wild animals had killed his son.

Jacob’s resettlement to Egypt(Gen. 39–50). Jacob mourned for years for his lost son, never dreaming that Joseph was alive and had risen to head the government of Egypt. When a famine struck Canaan, and Joseph’s brothers went to Egypt to buy grain, the family was reunited. Jacob and the seventy-five members of his clan were welcomed in Egypt, where their offspring remained for several hundred years, multiplying to a population of some two million persons.

Jacob ended his life in Egypt, content to be reunited with Joseph and Joseph’s two sons. But when Jacob died his body was returned to Canaan, and he was buried there beside Abraham and Sarah, with his parents Isaac and Rebekah, and his wife Leah.

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ESAU: THE MATERIALISTIC MAN

Jacob and Esau were twins, but they were quite different individuals. We rightly criticize Jacob for defrauding and cheating Esau of his birthright; yet we need to be aware of Esau’s total indifference to spiritual realities.

The “birthright” in ancient times was the right of the eldest son to leadership of the family, to the bulk of the tangible and to all of the intangible family assets. Isaac’s intangible asset was the covenant of promise God had given to Abraham and his descendants. When the hungry Esau readily traded this birthright for a bowl of Jacob’s stew, he showed his contempt for spiritual realities and for God. Esau was a truly material man; for him this world of sight and touch and taste and feel was all that counted.

Later, after Jacob stole Esau’s blessing by tricking their father Isaac, Esau planned to murder his brother. Esau was angry with his brother for defrauding him, but what moved Esau to consider murder was the fear that Jacob would now take possession of the bulk of the family’s wealth.

Years later, when Jacob returned to Canaan from the land to which he had fled from Esau’s wrath, Esau met his brother graciously. The threat to Esau’s wealth had not materialized; Esau had in fact taken possession of their father’s entire estate! Esau’s remark, “I have enough, my brother” (Gen. 33:9) explains his lack of rancor. All Esau had ever wanted was to be wealthy in this world’s goods. And Esau, the material man, was wealthy indeed. Jacob could keep God’s covenant promises, and even keep the little flocks and herds he had offered as a gift to win his brother’s favor. Since Jacob did not ask the one-third of the family estate to which he was entitled, Esau could afford to be generous!

How tragic is the fate of the materialistic man. Like Esau, he may gain wealth beyond his dreams. But like Esau, he will never grasp the significance of the spiritual and will enter eternity as a truly poor man.

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EXPLORING JACOB’S RELATIONSHIPS

Jacob’s relationship with God. The biblical text traces the development of Jacob’s personal relationship with God.

God’s choice of Jacob (Gen. 25:19–26). The apostle Paul made it clear that Jacob was God’s choice to inherit the covenant promises. This choice was announced to his mother, Rebekah, before Jacob’s birth. The apostle drew an important lesson from this fact. He wrote in Romans 9:10 that “when Rebecca also had conceived by one man, even by our father Isaac (for the children not yet being born, nor having done anything good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls).” Paul’s point is simply that God’s choice of Jacob did not depend on what Jacob had done or would do, or on Jacob’s character. God was and is free to choose. And, when He chooses, God intends to do us good, no matter how flawed our nature might be.

God was involved in Jacob’s life before Jacob was born as He is in ours.

Jacob’s desire for Esau’s birthright (Gen. 25:29–34).It would be wrong to suppose at this point that Jacob had a conscious personal relationship with God. What Jacob did have was enough faith to see the value of the spiritual. In this he contrasts with Esau, to whom the notion of a spiritual realm beyond what he could see and taste and feel seemed nonsense. Today, too, some seem more aware of and open to the spiritual, while others are utter materialists who are blind to every spiritual reality. How important it is to cultivate spiritual sensitivity, for such may prove to be the door though which God enters our life.

Jacob’s initial meeting with God (Gen. 28:10–22). When Jacob was forced to flee from his home he had an experience with God at a site he named Bethel [“house of God”]. In a dream, Jacob saw angels passing back and forth between heaven and earth. The vision stunned Jacob, and before he left the next morning he made a pledge:

If God will be with me, and keep me in this way that I am going, and give me bread to eat and clothing to put on, so that I come back to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God (Gen. 28:20).

For Jacob, this was a first step in welcoming God into his life. Like our own first steps, this one seems to have been taken for selfish reasons. Jacob was willing to commit himself to the Lord in exchange for protection, food, clothing, and a safe return home. One day, Jacob would learn that the greatest benefit of any relationship with the Lord is His presence and that the greatest reason to seek Him is to praise and enjoy Him forever. But for now, this was as far as Jacob could see.

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Jacob’s vision of angels at Bethel convinced him to trust himself and his future to the Lord.

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This first step was acceptable to the Lord, even as our first faltering steps of faith are acceptable to Him.

God’s intervention on Jacob’s behalf (Gen. 30:25–43). During the years that Jacob worked for Laban, God blessed Jacob’s every effort. Laban was becoming rich!

When Laban schemed to defraud Jacob, God taught Jacob how to transfer much of Laban’s wealth in herds to himself, while always dealing honestly with his uncle. In time, Laban and his sons saw their wealth dwindle and Jacob’s wealth increase. At that point, God told Jacob it was time to return to the Promised Land.

Jacob prayed to God (Gen. 32:1–12). Despite his fear of Esau, Jacob set out for home. When he reached the borders of Canaan, Jacob saw an encampment of angels waiting to accompany him home. Despite this vision, Jacob was afraid. He took all the precautions humanly possible to secure his family should Esau attack, and then turned to prayer. Jacob’s prayer showed a maturity and spiritual depth lacking in his early years.

I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies and the truth which You have shown Your servant; for I crossed over this Jordan with my staff, and now I have become two companies. Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for I fear him, lest he come and attack me and the mother with the children. For You said, “I will surely treat you well, and make your descendants as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude” (Gen. 32:10–12).

This prayer demonstrated an appreciation for the Lord and a reliance on His promises of which Jacob was not capable earlier in his life.

Jacob wrestled with God (Gen. 32:22–32). That night, Jacob sent his herds and family across the river while he remained behind. There he wrestled with a “Man” whom Jacob identified as a theophany— a pre-incarnation appearance of God in human form. Jacob refused to release his hold on his supernatural opponent, and the Lord blessed Jacob and changed his name to Israel. The nature of this encounter remains a mystery, but the new name God gave Jacob echoed throughout Old Testament history.

Jacob/Israel’s mature faith (Gen. 48:15–16). The last incident in which we gain a sense of Jacob’s relationship with God occurred in Egypt. Jacob was near death, and he called for his sons and grandchildren. He blessed Joseph’s two sons, and said:

God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked,

The God who has fed me all my life long to this day,

The Angel who has redeemed me from all evil,

Bless the lads. (Gen. 48:15, 16)

To Joseph he said, “Behold, I am dying, but God will be with you and bring you back to the land of your fathers” (Gen. 48:21).

Jacob, who began life relying on tricks and on his wits to gain spiritual ends, had finally come to the place where he acknowledged God’s hand in all, and where he encouraged his son to wait, trustingly, on the Lord.

It took a long journey to bring Jacob/Israel to this point. May you and I accomplish that journey from self-reliance to complete reliance on God more quickly.

Jacob’s relationship with his wives (Gen. 29, 30).Jacob had children by four women. Two were wives, Rachel and Leah. The other two, Bildad and Zilpah, were surrogates forced on Jacob by the two wives in a competition to give their husband sons. Little is said of the impact of this arrangement on Jacob, but the text reveals much about its impact on the women. [For a study of that impact, see the companion book in this series, Every Woman in the Bible.]

Clearly, Jacob had a deep and abiding love for Rachel, and just as clearly, Jacob put up with, but did not love, Leah. We sense Leah’s pain in the names she gave her sons, names that reflect her dwindling hope to win her husband’s affection.

Reuben: “now therefore, my husband will love me” (29:32)

Simeon: “because the Lord has heard I am unloved” (29:33)

Levi: “now this time my husband will become attached to me” (29:34).

At last, Leah realized that whatever she did, her husband would never truly care for her, so she named her next son Judah: “Now I will praise the Lord.”

We can sense something of the pressure on Jacob that his wives’ competition for sons caused. But the real tragedy is that in this polygamous family one wife was loved and the other unloved, and the two slave girls the wives forced on Jacob were treated as objects, with no say in what happened to them.

For those who imagine that God’s intent that marriage involve one man and one woman somehow limits human beings, a study of Jacob and his wives is revealing indeed. How tragic for the man who seeks relationships with many women, to be deprived of the blessings of growing toward oneness with his wife. And how tragic for the women, to be in a relationship which at best depersonalizes and devalues them as human beings.

Jacob’s relationship with Esau. See the sketch of Esau on pages 70–71.

JACOB: AN EXAMPLE FOR TODAY

Jacob is honored as one of the patriarchs through whom God’s covenant promises were transmitted to His Old Testament people, the Jews. In a sense Jacob is most significant as a conduit of both revelation and grace.

At the same time, Jacob’s experiences can teach us much about ourselves and our relationship with God. How clearly we see in Jacob our own tendency to take matters into our own hands, even when God has promised to act in His own time. How clearly we see our own willingness to cut corners when we think it will bring us closer to some goal. Yet Jacob also reminds us of our potential for spiritual growth and transformation. If we are spiritually sensitive and value a relationship with God, as Jacob did, God will speak to our open hearts. God will graciously and gradually work within us, until like Jacob we reach a point in which we have learned to value grace.

What specific lessons can we learn from Jacob?

•     Jacob teaches us to look past material gain and value the spiritual. We must never lose sight of the fact that God is there and that the reality He inhabits is far more important than the shadow world we know through our senses.

•     Jacob reminds us that God intends to correct our character flaws. Often, He does this by making us victims of the same kind of hurt we inflict on others. God is not willing to leave His chosen ones unchanged. We can correct ourselves. Or He will correct us.

•     Jacob reminds us that the purpose we serve is greater than we are. Jacob was the conduit through which God intended to bless the world. That God uses us to bless others is far more important than that we live happy and prosperous lives.

•     Jacob’s life journey reminds us that God never deserts His own. God was with Jacob before Jacob knew him. He ventured with Jacob on all his travels. He stayed close to Jacob as his life drew to an end. There is no place we can go, no time we can inhabit, where God is absent. His presence is, and will ever remain, our hope.

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