Journey
Jacob the wrestler
Follow Jacob from the twin born holding his brother's heel to a night of wrestling at Peniel, a new name, and a meeting with Esau.
People in this journey
Opening stop: Twins in the womb, Genesis 25:21
Isaac married at forty and was sixty when the twins came (Genesis 25:20, 26), so this couple waited twenty years for children, as Abraham and Sarah had waited before them. Rebekah takes her question to God herself. Genesis ties the name to the hand on Esau's heel, and Esau later says he is rightly named Jacob, for he hath supplanted him twice (Genesis 27:36). Paul quotes the word given to Rebekah in Romans 9:11-12, noting it came before either boy had done good or evil.
And Isaac intreated the Lord for his wife, because she was barren: and the Lord was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived.
King James Version
The chapter names Abraham's children through Keturah, reports his gifts to the sons of his concubines, and says he gives all he has to Isaac. Abraham dies at one hundred and seventy-five, and Isaac and Ishmael bury him beside Sarah. Ishmael's descendants and death are then recorded. The account turns to Isaac and Rebekah. Isaac prays because she has no children, and she conceives twins who struggle within her. The Lord tells her that two nations are in her womb, one will be stronger, and the older will serve the younger. Esau is born first, followed by Jacob holding his heel. As they grow, their ways of life and their parents' preferences differ. Returning faint from the field, Esau asks for Jacob's stew and swears to sell him the birthright. He eats and leaves, and the narrator concludes that he despised his birthright.
Continue the journey
This journey has 11 stops. The opening stop is free. Premium opens the rest of the guided path, and every Scripture chapter stays free to read.