Jacob

JACOB (Heb. Ja'āqābh). - Patriarch (v.), also called Israel (v.), from whom the Hebrew people was formed, through his 12 sons, the ancestors of the 12 tribes. In the Egyptian scarabs of the Hyksos period (1680-1580 B.C.) the name occurs: j'āqābh, which probably corresponds to Ja'āqābh-'el, which some wish to consider a geographical name.

The name would originally have been theophoric; as such it occurs in the list of Palestinian cities conquered by the pharaoh Thutmosis III (1501-1447). E. Meyer considers this name to be that of a tribe and explains it as "God follows." Others, such as P. Jensen, deny that there can be a connection between the supposed theophoric name and the patriarch J. Still others explain this name as: "God compensates"; M. Noth: "God has protected." G. Jacob, preceded by Lagarde and Horowitz, thinks of the Arabic name of a bird: ja'āqāb, the male of the ḥaḡal, a name that the Bedouins of the Sinaitic heights give to the mountain cock (Ammoperdix Heyi); the name means "he follows"; since it is a graceful animal, the Arabs would have given this name to children as well.

The Bible explains the name J. as derived from 'āqābh "heel," and its meaning as: supplantator. Supporting this explanation is the biblical account according to which the child (the future J.) grasps "the heel" of his twin brother (Gen. 25, 26); and the other concerning the "deceits" devised by J. to obtain the birthright (Gen. 27, 36; cf. Hos. 12, 4; Jer. 9, 3). B. Jacob (Genesis, Berlin 1934, p. 544), referring to the Thesaurus of Gesenius: "imitatur formas adiectivorum, quae colores similesque species designant," to Hos. 6, 8, and to the fact that in the accounts of Genesis J. finds himself between Edom (red) and Laban (white) and that later he blends the various colors in the sticks that he places in the watering troughs where the sheep go to drink, thinks that the name J. may mean approximately "spotted"; according to Horst "containing traces"; v. W. Gesenius, Handwörterbuch, 17th ed., p. 613: "full of traces of blood."

The name J. (in the manuscripts of 'Ajn Feshah discovered in 1947, in which the "plena" spelling Ja'āqābh is constant) indicates, especially in the prophetic and poetic literature, the entire people (Gen. 49, 7), in parallelism with "Israel" (cf. Num. 23, 10, 21; 24, 5; Is. 2, 5; 40, 27; Jer. 2, 4, etc.). In the prophets, J. sometimes indicates only the northern kingdom (Is. 9, 7; Mic. 1, 5), or Judah only (Mic. 3, 1, 8).

J. was born of Isaac and Rebecca (Gen. 25, 26; 29, 23 ff.). Gen. 25, 19-50, 25 recounts the story of J.'s youth and years of migration: the struggle with his twin brother, Esau, for the birthright; the flight; the dream at Bethel; the service with Laban and the marriage to his daughters, Leah and Rachel; the return and the struggle with the angel and the change of his name to Israel (v.); the reconciliation with Esau. Various episodes of J.'s life are contained in the pages that deal with Joseph (v.): the move to Egypt and the meeting with Joseph. In Egypt J. dies 17 years after the immigration, at the age of 137, and is later buried in the cave of Makhpēlāh, in the tomb of the patriarchal family.

With regard to the so-called "cunning" of J., it must be borne in mind that the blessing so rich in consequences on the part of Isaac must flow to the future patriarch and not to Esau, a dull and crude hunter; the firstborn is the bearer of the divine promise and the responsible minister of Abraham's religious inheritance. J., as patriarch of the chosen people, must overcome obstacles by whatever means, in order to prepare the future of the people, which could have remained compromised in the event that Esau had exercised the right of the firstborn. In the face of Laban's unjust attitude, J., the weaker party, seeks to defend himself with the only means at his disposal, namely cunning; nor should it be forgotten that the narratives of cunning used in the struggle against the unjust and the wicked (the saints in the struggle against the devil) teach that in the end the wicked must succumb and give way to the righteous.

Eugenio Zolli

ARCHAEOLOGY

The patriarch J. does not appear in the catacomb frescoes; Wilpert recognized J. blessed by Isaac on a sarcophagus now in Paris in the Louvre Museum (Sarcofagi, pl. 116, 1), a scene which he believes to be inspired by St. Paul (Hebr. 10, 20), and he identified the dream of J. in another sarcophagus

(Wilpert, Sarcofagi, pl. 186,1) in which the patriarch is bearded and in sacred vestments; finally the same author saw the scene of J.'s meeting with Rachel at the well on a third sarcophagus (id., ibid., pl. 194,3).

The scene of J. blessed by Isaac was represented in St. Ambrose in Milan, as is known from the distich that illustrated it, and in the basilica of St. Felix in Nola (Paulinus of Nola, Carmen, 27, 62); an entire cycle was in the basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome (Wilpert, Mosaiken, pl. 11 ff.). J. and the angel were represented in the Genesis of Vienna (W. von Hartel - F. Wickhoff, Die Wiener Genesis, Vienna 1895, pls. 23-24). Bishop Arculf, who visited Palestine around 670, describes an oratory that arose at Shechem at the well of J. Thus the dream of J. is in a fresco of the 9th century in the ancient basilica of St. Clement in Rome (Wilpert, Mosaiken, p. 526); blessed by Isaac in the biblical cycle of St. Paul Outside the Walls. Scenes from the life of J. are found subsequently in the biblical cycles of St. John before the Latin Gate, in the abbey of St. Peter in Valle near Ferentillo, in the basilica of Monreale, etc.

Enrico Josi

ICONOGRAPHY - Although the painting of the catacombs knows no representations, already in the Vienna Genesis (5th century), alongside other stories of events of the Old Testament, there is found a complete illustrative cycle of the most important events of the life of J., derived from the biblical account, namely: Esau sells the birthright to J., the father of J. goes to Abimelech, J. and Rachel, the flight of J. and the struggle with the angel, the destruction of the idols, the birth of Benjamin, the burial of Rachel and the death of Isaac. The cycle thus constituted meets with notable success in Christian art; it suffices to recall the panels of S. Maria Maggiore (5th century), probably derived from Hellenistic models, and the mosaic complexes of Monreale, of the Palatine Chapel of Palermo and of the baptistery of Florence (12th and 13th centuries). It is still found repeated in the decoration of the Logge of Raphael in the Vatican.

But two scenes of the life of J., the dream and the struggle with the angel and the meeting with Rachel, can be considered independent of the figurative cycles of the life of the patriarch. In the lipsanotheca of Brescia (4th century) J. fights with a man, represented as Yahweh. In the frescoes of S. Maria Antiqua the adversary, on the other hand, is already specified as the angel. The scene also appears in Romanesque sculpture of the 11th century, as in the capitals of the collegiate church of S. Orso at Aosta. The scene of the struggle is mostly accompanied by that of the dream. J. is represented lying down, and before him rises a great ladder on which one or two angels ascend or descend per step, and sometimes it is supported by Yahweh depicted as Christ. Sometimes, as in a strange miniature of the Bible of Charles V (1571), J. is represented as old and stretched out in the center, with two ladders rising diagonally. The painting of the Renaissance also holds this theme dear, which it transmits to Baroque painting, as is seen in a painting by Ribera now in Madrid, at the Prado, and in a fresco by Tiepolo, in the archiepiscopal Palace of Udine.

The meeting of J. with Rachel, precisely because of its bucolic character, is particularly loved by courtly

Gothic painting, as is seen, e.g., in the Bible moralisée of the Oxford Library, of the 13th century, where the two young people shake hands, and in some Tuscan quattrocentists, such as Benozzo Gozzoli and Filippo Lippi.

Eugenio Battisti