Who Was Jacob?

The father of the children of Israel.

"Jacob's Ladder" by Wenceslas Hollar. (1607-1677)

Jacob (Ya’akov in Hebrew) is one of Judaism’s three patriarchs, and appears throughout many chapters of the Book of Genesis. He is the son of Isaac and Rebecca, the grandson of Abraham and Sarah, and the father of 12 sons, the progenitors of the 12 tribes of Israel. He is also the father of Dinah, whose rape prompts a brutal act of family vengeance.

Jacob first appears in the Torah portion Parashat Toldot (Genesis 25:19 – 28:9), when Rebecca is pregnant and feels Jacob and his twin brother, Esau, struggling with each other in utero. The twins’ struggle continues after birth, with Jacob becoming his mother’s favorite, while Esau, the firstborn, becomes Isaac’s favorite. Jacob forces Esau, a hunter, into selling him his birthright for a bowl of lentil soup. Years later, at Rebecca’s urging, Jacob pretends to be Esau and tricks Isaac into giving him Esau’s firstborn blessing — then flees to live with his uncle Laban before Esau can respond.

On his journey, Jacob has a dream in which angels go up and down a ladder connecting earth to heaven. God appears before Jacob and renews the covenant that God had made with Abraham.

At Laban’s, Jacob goes from deceiver to deceived. In another case of one sibling posing as another, Laban promises that after seven years of labor Jacob can marry Laban’s daughter Rachel. Instead, Laban hides his other daughter, Leah, under the bridal veil, thus tricking Jacob into marrying the wrong sister. Laban then makes Jacob work another seven years before letting him marry Rachel. Jacob also acquires two handmaids, sometimes referred to as concubines, who bear some of his children.

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Years later, Jacob peacefully reunites with Esau after wrestling with an angel and having his name changed to Israel, a name that means “wrestle with God.”

However, the sibling conflict in Jacob’s relationship to Esau (as well at the conflict in Rachel’s relationship to Leah) is echoed in the relationships among Jacob’s own children: Jacob favors his son Joseph, making the other sons so jealous that they sell Joseph into slavery and lie to Jacob about it. Joseph’s own adventures in Egypt, in which he ultimately succeeds in becoming the Pharaoh’s prime minister and forgiving the brothers, conclude with his reunion with Jacob, who blesses Joseph’s sons, but dies soon afterward. Joseph and his brothers have Jacob buried in Hebron, at his request.

Learn more about Jacob in the commentaries below: