10 Jacob - Genesis

How do I ever make Jacob into a short story, there is so much to tell. I did it for Abraham, so I can do it for Jacob.. cause there is so much more to Abraham, but I want to summarize this for you.

Jacob was a key figure in the Old Testament, at times he was also a schemer, liar, and manipulator. Abraham was his grandfather. Isaac was his father, and when Isaac was old, Jacob and his mother cheated his brother Esau out of his inheritance. Well his birthright and blessing actually. After he did this he had to leave town. Sad for his mother because she never got to see him again. Esau, his brother, was so angry he just wanted to kill him.

When he left town, on his way to another village he had a vision. They call it the stairway to heaven, sound familiar. One of my favorite bands wrote a tune with the same name. Jacob had a vision of a ladder reaching up to the sky. There were angels going up and down the ladder. Jacob saw God standing above the ladder. God repeated the promise of support he had made to Abraham and Isaac. He told Jacob his offspring would be many, blessing all the families of the earth. He told Jacob that he would be with him where ever he went and then promised to bring him back eventually.

Jacob goes on to find a wife, actually two. Leah and Rachel. He worked 7 years on the land and gained one wife (Leah). Then worked another 7 years to gain the love that he really wanted, Rachel. With these women (and two others - their handmaidens Bilhah and Zilpah. ) he had 12 sons and one daughter. So you can see here who was his family. His father was Isaac, and his mother was Rebecca, he had a twin brother called Esau, Wives Rachel and Leah and his 12 sons were: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Gad, Asher, Joseph, Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali and his daughter was called Dinah. Jacob struggled with God his entire life, as many of us do. He worked hard and everything seemed to come together for him, but he thought it was because of himself, not God. As he matured in faith, Jacob depended on God more and more. But the turning point for Jacob came after a dramatic, all-night wrestling match with God. In the end the Lord touched Jacob's hip and he was a broken man, but also a new man. From that day forward, Jacob was called Israel. And for the rest of his life he walked with a limp, demonstrating his dependence on the Lord. Jacob finally learned to give up control to God. He actually teaches us that an imperfect person can be greatly blessed by God, not because of who he is, but because of who God is. This is very brief, for a beautiful story, because Jacob does go back to the land God promised and he sees his brother again, who has forgiven him. It does get confusing here when the bible starts calling him Israel.. or at least I thought it did.

Remember that out of Jacob (who now is called Israel) came the 12 tribes, they all became leaders.. there was one though that was Jacob’s favorite. Jacob's favourite son, Joseph, who was sold into slavery in Egypt by his jealous brothers. Now let me tell you about Joseph. He was the first born to Rachel his wife who he loved dearly, he had a brother Benjamin too. Jacob really showed his favoritism with Joseph. he actually made him this awesome multi coloured coat to wear, and it was amazing, and his brothers saw how he paid attention to him and they didn't like it one bit!