Lives of Scripture

Jacob, Isaac and Rebekah's younger twin, emerged grasping Esau's heel and later bought Esau's birthright for a bowl of stew (Genesis 25:24-34). At his mother's urging, he deceived his blind, dying father into giving him Esau's blessing instead, disguising himself as his hairy brother -- a lie that sent him fleeing Esau's anger to Rebekah's family in Haran (27:1-45). On the way, God renewed Abraham's covenant promise to him in a dream of a ladder to heaven at Bethel (28:10-22). In Haran, Jacob served his uncle Laban twenty years, himself deceived on his wedding night into marrying Leah before Rachel, and fathered eleven sons and a daughter through Leah, Rachel, and their servants Bilhah and Zilpah before fleeing Laban's growing hostility (29-31). Returning toward Canaan, Jacob wrestled all night with a divine figure at Peniel, who renamed him Israel -- he struggles with God -- and left him limping (32:22-32). He reconciled peacefully with Esau, but his family's troubles continued: his daughter Dinah was assaulted, and his favorite son Joseph, born to Rachel, was sold into slavery by his own brothers, who told Jacob he was dead (34; 37). Decades later, famine drove Jacob's sons to Egypt, where Joseph, now a ruler there, revealed himself and brought his aging father to live out his final years in Goshen (42-47). Before dying, Jacob blessed each of his twelve sons with prophetic words shaping Israel's tribes, and was buried beside Abraham and Isaac at Machpelah (48-50).