The example of Jacob is quoted by the first and the last of the minor prophets. Hosea, in the latter days of the kingdom, seeks (xii, 3, 4, 12) to convert the de- scendants of Jacob from their state of alienation from God by recalling to their memory the repeated acts of God's favor shown to their ancestor. Malachi (i, 2) strengthens the desponding hearts of the returned ex- iles by assuring them that the love which God bestow- ed upon Jacob was not withheld from them. Besides the frequent mention of his name in conjunction with those of the other two patriarchs, there are distinct ref- erences to events in the life of Jacob in four books of the N. T. In Kom. ix, 11-13, Paul adduces the history of Jacob's birth to prove that the favor of God is inde- pendent of the order of natural descent. In Heb. xii, 16, and xi, 21, the transfer of the birthright and Jacob's dying benediction are referred to. His vision at Bethel, and his possession of land at Shechem, are cited in John i, 51, and iv, 5, 12. Stephen, in his speech (Acts vii, 12, 16), mentions the famine which was the means (tf re- storing Jacob to his lost son in Egypt, and the burial of the patriarch in Shechem.
In Jacob may be traced a combination of the quiet patience of his father with the acquisitiveness which seems to have marked his mother's family ; and in Esau, as in Ishmael, the migratory and independent character of Abraham was developed into the enterprising habits of a warlike hunter-chief. Jacob, whose history occu- pies a larger space, leaves on the reader's mind a less fa- vorable impression than either of the other patriarchs with whom he is joined in equal honor in the N. T. (Matt, viii, 11). But, in considering his character, we must bear in mind that we know not what limits were set in those days to the knowledge of God and the sanc- tifying inriuence of the Holy Spirit. A timid, thought- ful boy would acquire no self-reliance in a secluded home. There was little scope for the exercise of intel- ligence, wide sympathy, generosit}-, frankness. Growing
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up a stranger to the great joys and great sorrows of natural life — deaths, and wedlock, and births; inured to caution and restraint in the presence of a more vigorous brother; secretly stimulated by a belief that God de- signed for him some superior blessing, Jacob was per- haps in a fair way to become a narrow, selfish, deceitful, disappointed man. But, after dwelling for more than lialf a lifetime in solitude, he is driven from home by the provoked hostility of his more powerful brother. Then, in deep and bitter sorrow, the outcast begins life afresh long after youth has passed, and finds himself brought first of all unexpectedly into that close personal communion with God which elevates the soul, and then into that enlarged intercourse with men which is capa- ble of drawinix <iut all the better feelings of human na- ture. An unseen world was opened. God revived and renewed to him that slumbering promise, over wliich he had l)r<M)(le(l fur threescore years since lie had learned it ill cliildhood from his mother. Angels conversed with him. (iradually he felt more and more the watchful care of an ever-present spiritual Father. Face to face he wTestled with the representative of the Almighty. Ami s(i. i\ en I liiiiiL;h the moral consequences of his early traii-uK-^inii-. liiiiig about him, and saddened him with adeep kii(i\vli(l:j;c of all the evil of treachery and duuies- tic envy, and partial judgment, and filial disobeilienee. yet the increasing revelations of (Jdd eiiligliteiieil the old age of the patriarch; and at last the timid "snii- planter," the man of subtle devices, waiting for the sal- vation of Jehovah, dies the " soldier of (iod," uttering the messages of (iod to his remote posterity. (See Nie- mcyer, Chanikt. ii. 2(;0 sq. ; Stanley, Jeicish Church, i, 58 sq.) For retlections on various incidents in Jacob's hfe, see Rp. Hall's ('oufimplations, bk. iii; Blunt, Hist, nf Ja- cob (Lond. 1H.'}2, 1800).
JIany Kabbinical legends concerning Jacob may be found in Eisenmen<jer's /•.'/(/. Jiidailh.. and in the Jo-iisn- kniTargum. (See also Otho, /.ex. /("uM. p. 280 ; Hambur-