This one is for the sisters who are going through Warren W. Wiersbe’s devotional, Becoming New together.

Day 15 of Wiersbe’s book touches on the life of Jacob, but I would encourage each one of you to read the patriarch’s entire story from his birth recorded in Genesis 25 at least through the death of his father Isaac at the end of Genesis 35. You can read it all in less than half an hour, and in this season of focusing on transformation, there’s a lot to be learned about the power of our gracious God from the life of this hesitant father of our faith.

Living up to His Name

At birth, Jacob was holding his brother’s heel and so was named Jacob¹, (Hebrew: יַעֲקֹב ; transliterated Ya’akov). It wasn’t a particularly flattering name to give to a baby. Most Bibles have a note stating the name means “supplanter,” which seems a little odd. However, a brief word study reveals why. The word picture here is of a person seizing another by the heel, literally tripping them up in order to restrain, deceive, outwit, or by other nefarious means take their place.

And indeed, the young man lived up to his name. He tripped up his elder brother Esau twice while they were young men. First, he took advantage of Esau’s exhaustion (and an apparently cavalier attitude toward the traditional birthrights given to the firstborn son) by withholding a bowl of stew until Esau promised to sell his birthright to his younger twin for food².

But Jacob didn’t stop there. At his mother’s urging, he also stole his brother’s blessing from their father by listening to the voice of his mother (not the first time a man fell by obeying the voice of a woman – there’s a lesson in this for us, ladies). This time, Jacob lied to his father, posing as Esau and taking great measures to deceive the blind old man for the sake of taking Esau’s place of prominence in their father’s pronouncement of blessing³.

Skeptics R Us

As if his conniving and scheming to take his brother’s place wasn’t enough, the young Jacob also shows signs of being a skeptic. Rather than associating himself with the Almighty, for years he refers to God as “the Lord your God⁴” (when talking with his father) or “the God of my father.⁵”

Sadly, his skepticism isn’t based on anything but hubris. Jacob continued to avoid associating Himself too closely with God even after the Lord sent him a dream proclaiming Himself to He Who Supplants, even reiterating the covenant He made with Abraham and Isaac to the rascally Jacob⁶.

And did our antihero man up and submit to the Almighty who was promising him such astonishing mercy despite his life of lies? No! Instead, he set up the rock he’d used as a pillow (ouch) and made a provisional promise to the Most High God. “If God will do thus and so for me, then I will deign to call Him my God.⁷”

It’s all quite humorous until we look deeply at our own motives, isn’t it? When have we also laid conditions on our Creator, pledging our fidelity to Him in exchange for prosperity or something else we desire? As if we have anything to offer the One who holds all things together; as if He needed us at all! But I digress… back to Jacob.

Reaping What Was Sown

Jacob travels on and falls head-over-heels for the lovely Rachel, hiring himself out to her father Laban for seven years in exchange for her hand in marriage⁸. But the crafty Laban has other plans – in the dark of the wedding night, he veils his older and plainer daughter Leah and sends her into the marriage tent in place of her sister⁹. Because wine flowed freely at wedding banquets and the only light sources were the stars and fires, it isn’t until morning that Jacob realized he’d been deceived. Oh, what goes around comes around! And it keeps coming.

Jacob promises Laban another seven years of service in exchange for his beloved Rachel. Thus, his household is established on a sisterly rivalry that could not have been pleasant¹⁰.

Let me take an aside to point out a fact: many non-believers will use this example (and others) to say “biblical marriage” includes sister-wives and their maidservants; in short, polygamy. However, if one actually reads the words of the text, what we see is that God used the sin of Jacob for His greater plan while simultaneously meting out the consequences of Jacob’s sin. The rivalry and bitterness of Jacob’s wives did yield a household of peace and joy. God did not bless these choices, but He did redeem them. That’s what He does. Speaking of redemption, let’s go back to Jacob.

Even in this mess of being used and tricked by Laban, God speaks to Jacob and offers him guidance¹¹ – even though we have yet to see Jacob call God anything other than the God of his ancestors or build a single altar to worship the Lord (I don’t think a single stone and a conditional pledge counts as worship). And Laban continues to trick Jacob by attempting to circumvent his request for the speckled and spotted flocks¹².

But God’s plan cannot be circumvented. His purposes are bigger than Jacob and his bickering wives, bigger than the supplanter and his supplanter, and bigger even than all of their sin. God’s plan stretches through this debacle to establish the Nation of Isreal through whom the Messiah would one day come… but that is much later.

Becoming Broken

Jacob spent twenty years reaping the discord he sowed in his childhood home, and finally he was able to break free from Laban. On his journey to return to his homeland, the bald truth of what he did to Esau finally hits him. Fear of reprisal from the brother he tripped up and replaced seizes him, and the man finally shows a little humility.¹³

And Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good,’ I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children (Genesis 32:9-11).

For the first time, we see Jacob in a posture of understanding that the blessings he schemed for are not blessings he deserves. His heart his humbled, even if it is humbled out of mere self-preservation.

And that night, he wrestles with God. It isn’t until after the wrestling match, which resulted in a permanent physical disability, that Jacob finally builds a proper alter and worships the Living God¹⁴. It took time, consequences, suffering, and fear, but Jacob finally worships the God who graciously allows him to become a part of the lineage of His Messiah, through whom God would offer redemption to the whole world.

There’s much more to Jacob’s story than this overview. His wife Rachel stole her father’s household gods, and Jacob doesn’t rid his own household of this abomination until after the rape of his daughter Dinah and his sons’ over-the-top revenge.

My point? Jacob was not a perfect man by any stretch of the imagination. Yet he was a man transformed by God. What we see in Jacob is a solid reminder of the astonishing mercy and renewing power of our Living and Loving God. He uses our own bad choices to humble us, and yet there is no one out of reach of His redeeming grace.  

1. Genesis 25:26 ↩︎
2. Genesis 25:29-34 ↩︎
3. Genesis 27 ↩︎
4. Genesis 27:20 ↩︎
5. Genesis 31:5, et al ↩︎
6. Genesis 28:10-15 ↩︎
7. Genesis 28:20-21 ↩︎
8. Genesis 29:16-19 ↩︎
9. Genesis 29:22-25 ↩︎
10. Genesis 29-30 ↩︎
11. Genesis 31:10-13 ↩︎
12. Genesis 30:34-36 ↩︎
13. Genesis 32:6-12 ↩︎
14. Genesis 33:20 ↩︎