RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Jackson Jacob
while Jacob established himself in Shechem, with whose inhabitants, however, his sons became involved in bloody quarrels. This induced Jacob to depart at first toward Bethel, where he made drinkofferings, according to his vow, where also the Lord appeared to him and gave him the covenant blessings. On their further journey, the last stage of which was Hebron, Rachel bore Benjamin and died in giving him birth. In Hebron Isaac, who died at an advanced age, was buried by Jacob and Esau. After residing for some time in Hebron, while his sons, with their flocks, wandered through the land north of Shechem, Jacob, in his old age, transferred his abode to Egypt, where his son Joseph (q.v.) had attained great honors. In Beersheba the patriarch received a last favorable message from his God (Gen. xlvi. 1 sqq.). In Egypt he was received with favor by the Pharaoh, and lived in Goshen (according to Gen. xlvii. 28, P) for seventeen years, dying at the age of 147. He was embalmed after the Egyptian method, and brought to the family tomb and buried there by his children.
The three sources, J, E, and P, appear in the part
of Genesis which contains the Jacob narratives, to
which P contributed the least. J and
5. Charac- E do not always easily separate, since
teristics they followed practically the same traof the ditions; but in J the cunning of Jacob
Sources, seems the motive of action, while in E miraculous interpositions and appearances in dreams are more common. In JE the hatred of Esau because of his exclusion from his father's blessing is given as the cause of Jacob's emigration to Haran; in P the reason assigned is dissatisfaction on the part of his parents with the Hittite marriages of Esau (xxvii. 46-xxviii. 9). The two blessings, xxvii. 27 sqq. (JE) and xxviii. 3 (P), are independent, as are the accounts of Esau's departure to Seir, xxxvi. 6-7 (P) and xxxii. 3 sqq. (JE), and of the time of the change of name, xxxii. 28 (J) and xxxv. 10 (P). These divergences show that independent traditions were transmitted which are followed by the different sources. The chronology of Jacob's life, derived mostly from P, offers some difficulties. Thus, if from the 130 years of xlvii. 9 (Jacob's age when presented to Pharaoh) be deducted the seven fruitful and two unfruitful years, the thirty years of Joseph when the fruitful years began (xli. 46) and the fourteen years passed by Jacob in Haran before Joseph's birth, it would appear that when he left his father's house he was about seventy-seven years of age, though chaps, xxviii. sqq. evidently regard him as a young man. The three elements of the patriarchal blessing in xlviii.-xlix. combine supplementary details: xlvii. 3-6 is assigned to P, xlviii. 15-16, 20-22 to E, and xlix. to J. The post-Mosaic authorship assigned to xlix. (time of Samson by Bleek and Ewald, time of David by Knobel, much later than this by Stade) does not take account of the way in which the Levites are treated.
Jacob's character is best illustrated by his double name. He is called Jacob because of his dexterity and cunning, which always give him the advantage over the physically stronger Esau and over the shrewd Laban. On account of his weakness and
his subordinate position Jacob accommodates himself to the will of the stronger, yet always succeeds
in attaining his end by courage and 6. Jacob's tenacity. However much dissimulation Character, there was in his conduct, Jacob did
not employ it for sordid gain. As Israel he strives for the blessing of God because he has recognized therein the highest good. He devotes his whole energy to obtaining the blessings of the covenant (Hos. xii. 4-5). It is true that Jacob's character does not show the comparative straightforwardness of Abraham, and therefore he can not be regarded as a model for all time. He is not an ideal, even according to the standard of Israelitic ethics, but a man whose sinful nature struggles against his better self; but he was purified by the suffering which made his life a sadder one than that of his forefathers (xlvii. 9). What raises Jacob above himself is his reverent, indestructible longing for the salvation of his God, which after long struggles attains complete satisfaction.
Whether, and in what sense, Jacob is historical may be a subject of debate. The simplicity and the
unconventional sincerity of these re-
7. Historic- citals speak in favor of genuine tradi-
ity of the tion rather than of heroic poetry.
Narratives. Some of the alleged facts would surely
never have been invented in later times, as, for example, the contemporaneous marriage with two sisters (cf. Rev. xviii. 18), or the distinction awarded to Bethel and the sanctuary there which was such an object of aversion to the prophets of the eighth century. The attempt to derive the history of Jacob from nature-myths has proved a total failure. While, in general, only the episode on the Jabbok (Gen. xxxii.) is looked upon as a possible survival of this nature, Popper has undertaken to show that Jacob-Israel is the Asiatic Herakles- Melcarth Palaemon, i.e., the victoriously striving sun-god, and has vainly endeavored to bring all the details of the Biblical narrative into accord with this myth. More probable is the hypothesis of an eponymous ancestor. In this way Ewald saw in Jacob a vigorous Hebrew people which had emigrated from Mesopotamia (cf . Aram, Ahameans; Deut. xxvi. 5, R.V., margin), coalesced with those of the same race who had settled in Canaan at an earlier period, and then proceeded to dominate them, while elements of common ancestry (Esau), which had entered Canaan at an earlier period, gradually withdrew farther and farther toward the south. With the Aramean neighbors to the north, behind the mountains of Gilead (Laban) , the tribe of Jacob had many clashes, which are described in the history of Laban. Stade considers that Israel was a tribe which lived on the Jabbok, and that their chief city was Mahanaim; Jacob, on the other hand, was a tribe of the country west of the Jordan, which lived in the neighborhood of Bethel. According to him Rachel; Leah, Isaac, Joseph, and his brothers were so many different clans, while the combination of two tribes was represented as a marriage, etc. According to the dominant opinion, later conditions are reflected in the stories of the patriarchs. Wellhausen believes that the popular recitals in regard to Jacob and Esau must have taken form in the
Jacob the Patriarch Jacob of Eltz