Jacob

Jacob in Arabic means “heel” or “leg-puller”, also later known as Israel (Hebrew), meaning “Persevere with God”.

Jacob as described in the Hebrew Bible, The Talmud, the New Testament, the Quran and Baha’I Scripture was the third patriarch of the Hebrew people with whom God made a covenant, and ancestor of the tribes of Israel which were named after his descendants.

In Hebrew Bible, he is the son of Israel and Rebekah, the grandson of Abraham, Sarah and the younger twin brother of Esau.

Jacob had twelve sons and at least one daughter by his two wives, Leah and Rachel, and by their handmaidens Bilhah and Zilpah. The three children named in Genesis were Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, daughter Dinah, Joseph and Benjamin.

Before the birth of Benjamin, Jacob is renamed “Israel” by God (Genesis 32: 28:29 and 35:10).

Etymologically, the name “Israel” comes from the Hebrew words (Iisrot, “wrestle”) and (EL “God”).

As a result of a severe drought in Canaan, Jacob and his sons moved to Egypt at the time when his son Joseph was Viceroy. After Jacob died there 17 years later, Joseph carried Jacob’s remains to the land of Canaan and gave him a stately burial in the same cave of Machpelah as were buried Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah and Jacob’s first wife, Leah (Genesis 4:29-50:14)