God’s paradoxical patriarch.
A look at Jacob’s life of grace and contradiction.
A version of this article originally appeared on 1517.
Jacob is the most enigmatic figure in all of Scripture. There are, to be sure, other frustrating characters in holy writ, but Jacob wears the crown for the most headache-inducing series of chapters in the entire canon. Throughout the biblical record of his life, we are treated to a myriad of scenes that leave us questioning his legacy and even his faith. After reading Genesis 27 through 35, in which Jacob takes center stage, we are compelled to ask, What’s the takeaway? What is the referendum on Jacob’s time here on Earth? What should come to our minds when we think of him? It was the nineteenth-century English writer Charles Caleb Colton who said it best: “Man is an embodied paradox, a bundle of contradictions” (96). This analysis is both fitting and ironic since Charles Colton was “a bundle of contradictions” himself.
The son of a preacher, a graduate of King’s College in Cambridge, and an ordained minister, Charles’s résumé was nothing to slough off. Yet, he isn’t remembered for any of those pursuits or occupations. Rather, he is known for being erratic and eccentric, not least because he abandoned his vicarage under a cloud of questionable circumstances. Charles the pastor, you see, was also Charles the wine enthusiast, art collector, and compulsive gambler. The story goes that he defected from his pastorate because a bevy of creditors were closing in on him. After a stint in the United States, he eventually settled in Paris, where he died at the age of fifty-five having squandered his fortune gambling. Therefore, when Charles noted how human beings are nothing but “bundle[s] of contradictions,” he was, in many ways, speaking self-reflectively. More to the point, though, this is an apt description of God’s most paradoxical patriarch, Jacob.
Much like Charles’s life, Jacob’s life was a kaleidoscope of contradictions. Although there are moments of faith and devotion, more often than not, Jacob is found scrambling to clean up self-made messes. He is, in many ways, the epitome of the father whose son is healed by Jesus in the Gospels, who cries out, “I believe, help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24). Jacob constantly seesaws between confidence in the God of his fathers and doing things his own way. This, to be sure, is what makes him such a frustrating character to study, but it is also what makes him the prototypical disciple of God. Jacob is us. As we witness him struggle and suffer, often due to his own foolish choices, we are given a front-row seat to what it means and what it looks like to follow God. It isn’t pretty, to be sure.
Jacob’s life is anything but “clean and tidy.” It is a mess pretty much from the start and only gets messier and more complicated from there. As the years wore on, a certain clarity seemed to set in, as it often does during those twilight years. After Jacob reunites with his thought-to-be-dead-but-very-much-alive son Joseph, his entire family is offered respite in Egypt from the famine that was devastating the region. When he is asked by Pharaoh to give an account of his life, through no small amount of pain he says, “Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life” (Gen. 47:9). He can only relay his life story through broken window panes; through the lens of hardship. Of course, much of the pain and difficulty Jacob experienced was his own doing; in some way, I think he was cognizant of that. Jacob’s testimony in front of Pharaoh is almost endearing.
Jacob, to be sure, never imagined that at the ripe age of 130, he would be standing in the court of an Egyptian Pharaoh with his second youngest son as the sitting “vice president” of the whole realm. But in a moment of tearful clarity, Jacob’s life seemed to flash before his eyes. All he could see were the lies he told and the mistakes he made. He knew, perhaps better than anyone else, that he was “an embodied paradox, a bundle of contradictions.” Even so, that is not how the Bible remembers him. Jacob’s “epitaph” is given to us in the Book of Hebrews, where the anonymous writer says, “By faith Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, bowing in worship over the head of his staff” (Heb. 11:21). As weak and wobbly as it was, the biblical referendum on Jacob’s life was one of worship and faith.
The moment to which the Hebrew writer alludes appears at the end of Genesis 47. Jacob, knowing he is dying, calls for Joseph so that he might speak a word of blessing over him and his sons. “Let me lie with my fathers,” he says. “Carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their burying place” (Gen. 47:30). Jacob’s petition is a faint suggestion that Yahweh’s covenant with him is what was most true of him — namely, that his final resting place would be in the land of promise, not out of it (Gen. 50:12–13). Even on the brink of death, with Jacob barely able to summon enough strength to “sit up in bed,” the words that fill the patriarch’s mouth are the slender yet substantial syllables of faith. His deathbed discourse is both profound and prophetic, as each word is imbued with divine weight. But amid all the prophetic metaphors, a beam of hope and light pierces the room and, no doubt, the hearts of everyone who had crammed into Jacob’s bed chamber. “I wait for your salvation, O Lord,” Jacob longingly says (Gen. 49:18).
This declaration seems to come out of nowhere, an apparent tangent from the current train of thought. After denouncing his firstborn son Reuben since he slept with his concubine (Gen. 49:3–4; cf. 35:22) and after denouncing Simeon and Levi due to their vengeful actions at Shechem (Gen. 49:5–7; cf. 34:25ff), Jacob proceeds to bless Judah and speak briefly about Zebulun, Issachar, and Dan in rapid succession. All of this comes before his sudden rhapsody of faith and hope in the Lord’s salvation, a sentiment that would be shared by all of his descendants throughout the winding ages of splendor and squalor. From a dauntless king (Ps. 25:5) to a precocious prophet (Micah 7:7) to an elderly priest (Luke 2:25, 30), the people of God have long clung to the faint yet certain Word of Promise given to them by God himself. As Jacob approaches Death’s door, his speech becomes fixated on the one who would set everything right.
Jacob longs for the day when the Lord’s Redeemer — the one who would bring about the blessing — would come to truly deliver on God’s promises to him and to the whole world. We, of course, know that this one is none other than Jesus, the Christ of God, but Jacob only knew him as the one who would come. He, like the rest of the patriarchs, only saw him “from afar” (Heb. 11:13). Consequently, his statement of faith gives us a glimpse at the contradictions and complexities that seemed to give shape to his frustrating existence. Despite his failures and foibles, there was something deeper and truer that defined him — namely, the faithfulness of the God of Bethel who never let him go.
In the middle of Jacob’s newfound concern in the aftermath of the massacre his sons dished out at Shechem, the Word of the Lord once again echoes in Jacob’s ears. “Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there,” God tells him. “Make an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau” (Gen. 35:1). Jacob’s fear of retaliation from the surrounding tribes is quickly subdued by the presence and promise of God rehearsed for him. Much had changed since that first divine encounter; a lot of water had passed under the proverbial bridge of Jacob’s life. But, of course, God hadn’t changed. Despite all the contradictions, complications, and catastrophes that peppered Jacob’s past, God’s word to him was, “I am still your God.” The Lord’s promise that he would be with him wherever he went and that he wouldn’t leave him until he had accomplished what he promised was still true (Gen. 28:15). In other words, Jacob is given the gospel afresh right when he needed it and it is because of this gospel that his faith is stirred up anew.
Inspired by God’s Word of Promise, Jacob summons a family meeting where he leads them all to renounce their idolatry and clean up their act (Gen. 35:2–4). Interestingly enough, the “terebinth tree” or oak tree that serves as the burial ground for Jacob’s idols is believed to be the same oak under which Abraham sat with the Lord decades before (Gen. 12:6–7). Jacob’s grandfather, therefore, was given a Word of Promise from God himself, which prompted him to leave his pagan heritage and trust in him alone. In many ways, a repeat of this same event occurs under the very same tree, as God’s paradoxical patriarch is given God’s sure and everlasting word. (If the scholars are right, this oak tree would witness yet another moment of re-commitment centuries later, as the Israelites are compelled by Joshua to respond in faith to the faithfulness of the Lord, Josh. 24:1–23.)
This is indicative of God’s pattern and prerogative. “It seems,” as Dale Ralph Davis puts it, “He never tires of putting fresh heart and certainty into the souls of His servants” (125). His promises aren’t uttered in exasperated tones. Rather, he delights in giving and re-giving his Word of Promise to the desperate, dazed, and perpetually needy. Even his problematic and paradoxical followers are given a unilateral word of assurance that isn’t dependent upon their integrity or excellence, nor their resolve. God’s promises not only precede but also outlast our commitment to him. They are buttressed by his everlasting grace and faithfulness, not our grit or fortitude. Therefore, even as Jacob and his family commit their ways to the Lord, it is not as if they never had any difficulties or “commitment issues” going forward. Instead, this moment would be one that Jacob would no doubt revisit, over and over again.
The point is that there were still many instances yet to come in the future where Jacob’s commitment to God would be severely tested. From losing his (favorite) wife during childbirth (Gen. 35:16–19) to losing his beloved father (Gen. 35:27–29) to hearing that his favorite son had been mauled by a wild animal (Gen. 37:29–34) to having another of sons held hostage in an Egyptian jail cell after he sent them to secure rations from the Egyptian storehouses. Little did he know, of course, that the magistrate in charge of food and supplies was none other than the very son whom he thought was dead. No wonder, then, that he described his days as “few and evil.” Jacob’s life was hard; his days were difficult, ushering him through the full gambit of human emotion. But notwithstanding the changes and contradictions he endured, God’s Word of Promise was always the same. It withstands our contradictions and even outlasts our commitment. Indeed, when “we are faithless, he remains faithful” (2 Tim. 2:13).
What occupied Jacob’s ailing mind was precisely the moment in his life to which he constantly returned — namely, that night at Bethel where the Lord showed up to demonstrate his commitment to him. “God Almighty appeared to me at Luz,” Jacob recalls, “in the land of Canaan and blessed me” (Gen. 48:3). Before Jacob breathed his last, therefore, he also breathed words of faith into the hearts of his successors. He was, to be sure, a “bundle of contradictions,” but the language of faith is often best heard on the lips of incongruous sinners. “Faith,” Jonathan Linebaugh attests, “is created by and clings to a promise that is, at once, beyond the possible and yet — as the word of God — the definition of what can and will be, of what, by being spoken by the creator, is” (30).
Accordingly, what Jacob and his descendants looked forward to, what they saw “from afar,” we have received. The recapitulation of God’s Word to Jacob (Gen. 35:9–12) is realized when the Word becomes flesh and dwells among us (John 1:14). The longing of faith has been realized in the Christ of God. In a true and better way than a dreamy encounter with the divine, God shows up in the person of Jesus to demonstrate his commitment to and faithfulness for you by taking your place on the cross, where he dies in the stead of every Jacob, every Charles Colton, and every other contradictory sinner. His Word of Promise stands firm. The same God who committed to redeem you by sending his Son to die for you is still committed to you, contradictions and all.
Works cited:
Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon: or, Many Things in Few Words (London: W. S. Trounce, 1865).
Dale Ralph Davis, God’s Rascal: The Jacob Narrative in Genesis 12–25 (Ross-shire, England: Christian Focus, 2022).
Jonathan A. Linebaugh, The Word of the Cross: Reading Paul (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2022).
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