Jacob was Isaac’s son and the man who received the name Israel. Genesis connects his twelve sons with the twelve tribes of Israel. Conflict with his brother Esau led him away from home to Haran, where he formed a household before returning to Canaan. In his later years, famine brought him to Egypt and to a reunion with Joseph, the son he had believed dead.
Isaac prayed for his wife Rebekah because she had no children. When she conceived twins who struggled within her, she asked God what was happening. God told her that two nations would emerge and that the older would serve the younger. Esau was born first, followed by Jacob holding his brother’s heel.
Esau grew into a hunter, while Jacob lived among the tents. Isaac loved Esau and the game he brought home; Rebekah loved Jacob. When Esau returned exhausted and asked for stew, Jacob demanded his birthright, the status of the firstborn son, in exchange. Esau said it was no use to him if he was about to die, swore to sell it, and ate the bread and lentil stew Jacob gave him.
When Isaac was old and could no longer see well, he asked Esau to hunt and prepare a meal so that he could bless him before his death. Rebekah overheard and made food from young goats instead. She dressed Jacob in Esau’s clothes and covered his hands and neck with goatskins. Jacob feared a curse if his father discovered the deception, but followed her instructions.
Jacob claimed to be Esau as he brought Isaac the meal. Isaac questioned the difference between the voice and the hands, but felt the hairy hands, smelled the clothing, and blessed Jacob. When Esau returned with his own meal, Isaac trembled violently. Esau wept and asked for a blessing too.
Esau planned to kill Jacob after their father’s death. Rebekah heard and told Jacob to flee to her brother Laban in Haran. She said she would bring him back when Esau’s anger subsided. Isaac also blessed Jacob as he sent him away and directed him to marry one of Laban’s daughters.
On the journey to Haran, Jacob stopped at sunset and slept with a stone beneath his head. He dreamed of a stairway reaching from earth to heaven and God’s angels moving upon it. God promised him land and descendants, through whom all the families of the earth would be blessed. God also promised to protect him wherever he went and bring him back.
Jacob woke and called the place God’s house and the gate of heaven. In the morning he raised the stone as a pillar, poured oil over it, and named the place Bethel. He vowed that if God stayed with him, provided food and clothing, and brought him safely to his father’s house, the Lord would be his God and he would give a tenth of what he received.
At a well, Jacob met shepherds from Haran and saw Laban’s daughter Rachel arrive with the sheep. He moved the stone from the well’s mouth, watered the flock, kissed Rachel, and wept. He told her that he was Rebekah’s son, and she went to tell her father. Laban welcomed Jacob into his house.
Jacob loved Rachel and worked seven years for Laban to marry her. After the wedding feast, however, he discovered that Laban had brought him Rachel’s older sister Leah. Laban said that local custom did not allow the younger daughter to marry first. Jacob completed Leah’s wedding week, married Rachel too, and worked another seven years in return.
Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah. Genesis says that God enabled the unloved Leah to bear children. She gave birth to Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah. Rachel remained childless and envied her sister. She gave her servant Bilhah to Jacob, and Bilhah bore Dan and Naphtali.
Leah also gave Jacob her servant Zilpah, who bore Gad and Asher. Leah later bore Issachar, Zebulun, and a daughter, Dinah. God heard Rachel, and she gave birth to Joseph. After Joseph’s birth, Jacob asked Laban to let him return to his own country.
Laban said that the Lord had blessed him because of Jacob and asked him to stay. They agreed on wages including marked goats and black sheep. As Jacob’s flocks increased, Laban’s sons complained that he had taken their father’s wealth. Jacob told his wives that Laban had repeatedly changed his wages but God had protected him.
When God told Jacob to return to his ancestral land, he left with his household and livestock without telling Laban. Rachel stole her father’s household gods, called teraphim. Laban pursued them and asked for his gods. Jacob declared that anyone found with them should not live, unaware that Rachel had taken them. Laban did not find the gods Rachel had hidden under a camel’s saddle.
Jacob and Laban raised a pillar and a heap of stones as witnesses to their covenant. Neither would cross the boundary to harm the other. Laban also warned Jacob against mistreating his daughters or taking additional wives. The next morning, Laban kissed and blessed his daughters and grandchildren before leaving.
On his return journey, Jacob sent messengers to Esau. Hearing that his brother was coming with four hundred men, he became deeply afraid. He divided his people and livestock into two camps so that one might escape if the other was attacked. He prayed for rescue, recalling that he had crossed the Jordan with only a staff but now had two camps.
Jacob sent livestock ahead in separate herds as gifts for Esau. That night, he sent his household and possessions across the Jabbok and remained alone. A man wrestled with him until daybreak and touched his hip, injuring the joint. Jacob refused to release him without a blessing.
The man gave Jacob the name Israel because he had struggled with God and with people and prevailed, and blessed him. Jacob called the place Peniel, saying that he had seen God face to face and survived. As the sun rose, he passed the place with a limp.
Jacob approached Esau, bowing to the ground seven times. Esau ran to embrace and kiss him, and they wept together. He initially declined the gifts but accepted them when Jacob insisted. Esau returned to Seir; Jacob stayed at Succoth before pitching his tent near Shechem in Canaan.
At Shechem, Jacob’s daughter Dinah was sexually assaulted by Shechem, the son of the local ruler Hamor. Shechem and Hamor sought a marriage. Jacob’s sons answered deceitfully, requiring every man in the city to be circumcised before the families could intermarry. On the third day, while the men were in pain, Simeon and Levi killed them and brought Dinah out. Other sons plundered the city and took the women and children captive.
Jacob rebuked Simeon and Levi for making the surrounding peoples hostile and endangering the household. When God told him to go to Bethel and build an altar, Jacob told his household to surrender their foreign gods, purify themselves, and change their clothes. He buried the gods and earrings they gave him under the oak near Shechem. At Bethel, God again named him Israel and promised descendants and land.
After they left Bethel, Rachel died in childbirth. She called her son Benoni, but Jacob named him Benjamin. Jacob buried Rachel on the road to Bethlehem and placed a pillar on her grave. He also learned that Reuben had slept with his concubine Bilhah. Genesis 35 records his return to Isaac at Hebron and the burial of Isaac by Jacob and Esau when their father died at one hundred eighty.
Genesis next turns to Joseph’s story within Jacob’s household. Jacob loved Joseph more than his other sons and gave him a tunic of many colors. The brothers hated him and hated him still more after hearing his dreams. After Joseph was sold to merchants and taken to Egypt, they dipped his tunic in a goat’s blood and sent it to their father. Jacob believed that a wild animal had killed Joseph. He tore his clothes and mourned for many days.
When famine struck Canaan, Jacob sent ten sons to Egypt to buy grain. He kept Benjamin at home for fear that harm might befall him. Joseph, now the governor of Egypt, recognized his brothers, though they did not recognize him. He detained Simeon and required the others to return with Benjamin.
Jacob initially refused to send Benjamin. When their grain ran out and Judah pledged responsibility for him, Jacob sent him with gifts and money. Joseph later revealed himself to his brothers and sent for their father. Jacob did not believe their report at first. After seeing the wagons Joseph had sent, he revived and declared that he would see his son before he died.
At Beersheba, God told Jacob not to fear going down to Egypt. God would make a great nation from him there, accompany him, and bring him up again. Jacob traveled with his household, livestock, and possessions. In Goshen, Joseph embraced his father and wept for a long time. Jacob said that he could now die, having seen his son alive.
Jacob met Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, gave his age as one hundred thirty, and blessed him. The family settled in the good land of Goshen and received food through Joseph. Jacob spent seventeen years in Egypt. As death approached, he made Joseph swear to bury him in the ancestral burial place.
When Jacob was ill, he accepted Joseph’s sons Manasseh and Ephraim as his own. Joseph placed the older Manasseh near Jacob’s right hand, but Jacob crossed his hands and laid his right hand on the younger Ephraim. When Joseph tried to correct him, Jacob said he knew. Both would become peoples, but Ephraim would become greater.
Jacob gathered his twelve sons and spoke to each of them, blessing them. His words also rebuked Reuben for defiling his father’s bed and Simeon and Levi for their violent anger. He directed them to bury him in the cave of Machpelah with Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Leah. He finished speaking, drew his feet into the bed, and died at one hundred forty-seven.
Joseph bent over his father, wept, and kissed him. Physicians embalmed Jacob, and the Egyptians mourned him for seventy days. With Pharaoh’s permission, Joseph traveled with his brothers, the household, and Egyptian officials in a great funeral procession. After seven days of mourning at the threshing floor of Atad beyond the Jordan, the sons buried Jacob in Machpelah as he had instructed. Joseph and his brothers then returned to Egypt.