Genesis 25:24-34
The heel and the stew
He comes out second, gripping. Years later his brother comes in starving and Jacob has the price ready before the question is asked.
People of the Bible
Jacob
Took everything by grip and cunning, and was given the only thing that mattered while limping.
Also called Israel
Jacob is born holding his brother’s heel and spends the first half of his life living up to the name. He buys a birthright off a hungry man, steals a blessing from a blind one, and runs. On the road out he sleeps on a stone and sees a stairway with traffic on it, and the promise given to his grandfather is spoken to him. He is then out-manoeuvred for twenty years by an uncle who is better at it than he is. On the road back he wrestles someone in the dark until dawn, refuses to let go without a blessing, and walks away renamed and injured.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Jacob
- 01
- 02
Genesis 27:1-29
Goatskin and a borrowed voice
Dressed as Esau, smelling like the field, lying twice to his father’s face. He receives the blessing and leaves the house with nothing but it.
- 03
Genesis 28:10-22
The stairway at Bethel
Fleeing, with a stone for a pillow, he sees the gap between heaven and earth crossed in both directions and hears the promise made to him by name.
- 04
Genesis 29:15-30
Seven years, and seven more
He works seven years for Rachel and wakes up married to Leah. The deceiver is deceived in the dark by a swapped child, which is exactly what he did to his father.
- 05
Genesis 32:22-32
The wrestling at the Jabbok
Alone the night before facing Esau, he fights until daybreak and will not release his grip. His hip is put out and his name is changed to one about struggling with God.
- 06
Genesis 49:1-28
The blessings on the bed
Old in Egypt, he calls the twelve and tells each of them what he sees. The sceptre is given to Judah, and the nation’s whole future is spoken in poetry.
Why it matters
Jacob is the answer to whether the promise depends on deserving it. He is the least admirable of the three fathers and the one the nation is named after, and the account never tidies him up. He is also the point where the family becomes a people: twelve sons, one of whom is Judah and one of whom is Joseph, and the whole rest of the Old Testament grows out of that household.
15 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
