Jacob

Overview

• Jacob is the son of Isaac and Rebekah and the third of the patriarchs. Renamed Israel after wrestling with God, his twelve sons became the twelve tribes of Israel.
• His vision of the ladder joining earth to heaven is read by the Fathers and the Church's hymns as a figure of Christ and of the Theotokos.

His Story

Jacob was the younger of Isaac and Rebekah's twins, born grasping his brother's heel — hence his name, "he supplants" (Genesis 25.24-26). Growing up a quiet man dwelling in tents, he bought the birthright from the famished Esau for a bowl of lentils (Genesis 25.29-34); and later, at Rebekah's urging, he disguised himself as Esau and received from the blind Isaac the covenant blessing meant for the elder (Genesis 27). To escape Esau's anger, he was sent away to Rebekah's brother Laban in Haran (Genesis 27.41-28.5).

On the way, at Bethel, he saw in a dream a ladder set up between earth and heaven, with the angels of God ascending and descending upon it, and the Lord standing above it renewing the promise; waking, he set up the stone as a pillar and vowed his tithe to God (Genesis 28.10-22).

In Haran he loved Rachel and agreed to serve Laban seven years for her, but on the wedding night was given her elder sister Leah instead, and so served seven years more (Genesis 29.15-30). Through Leah, Rachel, and their maidservants Bilhah and Zilpah, he fathered eleven sons and a daughter (Genesis 29.31-30.24), and by cunning husbandry his flocks multiplied greatly (Genesis 30.25-43). At last he fled Laban's household; Laban pursued him, but the two made a covenant of peace at Mizpah (Genesis 31).

Nearing home in dread of Esau, Jacob sent gifts ahead, and in the night a mysterious Man wrestled with him until daybreak; Jacob would not let go without a blessing, and was renamed Israel, "for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed" (Genesis 32.22-32). The meeting with Esau proved peaceful, and the brothers parted reconciled (Genesis 33). He returned to Bethel, where God confirmed his new name (Genesis 35.1-15), and there Rachel died giving birth to Benjamin (Genesis 35.16-20); soon after, Isaac died and was buried by his sons (Genesis 35.27-29).

In old age Jacob mourned Joseph as dead (Genesis 37.34-35), until the famine drew his sons to Egypt and Joseph was revealed alive; then Jacob brought his whole household — seventy souls — down to Egypt and settled in Goshen (Genesis 46). Before he died he blessed Joseph's sons Ephraim and Manasseh, crossing his hands to set the younger first (Genesis 48), and pronounced his prophetic blessings over the twelve tribes (Genesis 49). He charged his sons to bury him with his fathers, died, and was carried back to the cave of Machpelah (Genesis 49.29-50.14).

Jacob's Ladder

The ladder at Bethel became one of the richest types in Scripture. The Fathers read it as a figure of Christ, who Himself says the angels of God ascend and descend "upon the Son of Man" (John 1.51), joining heaven to earth; and the Church's hymns hail the Theotokos as the very ladder by which God came down to us.[^1] So too Jacob's wrestling and renaming make him "Israel," the father of God's people who see God. See Typology in Scripture, Theotokos.

Sources

[^1]: Genesis 25; Genesis 27–Genesis 33; Genesis 35; Genesis 46–Genesis 50 — the life of Jacob/Israel; the ladder read as a type of Christ (John 1.51) and of the Theotokos in the patristic tradition and the Church's hymnography (e.g. St. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho).