PEN-09 The Patriarch Jacob

Have you ever known people who are so deceitful they seem to be beyond hope? Their deception and dishonesty might benefit them — at least in the short run — often making them even worse. But happily, when God wants to use such people in special ways, they aren’t beyond his reach. God will bring hardships into their lives to humble them and to shape them into the kinds of people who are ready to serve him. And more often than not, those that God reaches in these ways end up becoming models of humility and faith for others.

This lesson is devoted to a portion of the Pentateuch that focuses on one of the most deceitful men in the Bible, “The Patriarch Jacob.” But, as we’ll see, this portion of Genesis from 25:19–37:1, not only reveals how Jacob was deceitful, but also how God humbled and shaped him into one of the most admired patriarchs of Israel.

In other lessons, we’ve seen that the book of Genesis can be divided into three major sections. The first section is the primeval history in 1:1–11:9. Here Moses explained how Israel’s call to the Promised Land was rooted in what happened in the earliest stages of world history. The second section covers the earlier patriarchal history in 11:10–37:1. In this section, Moses clarified how the journey to the Promised Land was to be viewed against the backdrop of the lives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The third section is the later patriarchal history in 37:2–50:26. In these verses, Moses told the story of Joseph and his brothers to address issues that had emerged among the tribes of Israel as they moved toward the Promised Land.

The record of the patriarch Jacob is a part of the second division; the earlier patriarchal history that deals with Israel’s three well-known patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The events of Isaac’s life are woven into both the record of Abraham in 11:10–25:18, and also into the record of Jacob in 25:19–37:1. So, in this lesson, we’ll focus on the second half of this division: the life of Jacob.

Our lesson on the patriarch Jacob will divide into two main parts. First, we’ll examine the structure and content of this portion of Genesis. Then we’ll look at the major themes Moses emphasized for his original audience, and how these themes apply to modern Christians. Let’s begin by looking at the structure and content of Jacob’s story.