Introduction
Jacob, later renamed Israel, is the younger twin son of Isaac and Rebekah, whose deception of his father to receive the covenant blessing, and whose subsequent life of exile, labour, wrestling with a divine being, and eventual reconciliation with his brother, form the central patriarchal narrative of Genesis 25-50. His twelve sons, by his two wives and their servants, become the eponymous ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel.
This article follows the biblical account in Genesis. Where later Jewish, Christian or Islamic tradition adds detail not found in the text itself, the article identifies it as such.
Family
- Father: Isaac
- Mother: Rebekah
- Wives: Leah, Rachel, Bilhah, Zilpah
- Children: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, Benjamin, Dinah
- Siblings: Esau
Birthright and blessing
Jacob acquired Esau's birthright by trading a bowl of stew for it, and later, with his mother Rebekah's active help, deceived his blind, aging father Isaac into giving him the blessing intended for Esau, disguising himself with goatskins and Esau's clothing to imitate his brother's hairiness and scent.
Flight and Laban's household
Fearing Esau's fury, Jacob fled to his uncle Laban in Paddan-aram. On the way, he had a vision at Bethel of a ladder reaching to heaven, with angels ascending and descending, and God renewed the covenant promise to him there. At Laban's household, Jacob worked seven years to marry Rachel but was deceived into marrying her elder sister Leah first, then worked seven more years for Rachel as well, eventually also fathering children by both women's servants, Bilhah and Zilpah, twelve sons and a daughter, Dinah, in total.
Wrestling and the name Israel
Returning to Canaan after twenty years and fearing a confrontation with Esau, Jacob spent a night alone wrestling with a mysterious figure (understood in the text as divine), who, unable to prevail, dislocated Jacob's hip but blessed him and renamed him Israel, "for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed". Jacob named the place Peniel, "for I have seen God face to face".
Reconciliation and later life
Esau met the returning Jacob not with violence but with an emotional embrace. Jacob's later years included the tragedy of Dinah's assault at Shechem and his sons' violent revenge, the apparent death of Joseph (in reality sold into Egyptian slavery), and, in old age, the family's move to Egypt during a famine, where Jacob was reunited with Joseph before his death, formally adopting Joseph's two sons Ephraim and Manasseh as his own before blessing all his sons individually shortly before he died.