maintained friendly relations. After a brief sojourn at Succoth, Jacob
moved forward and pitched his tent near Shechem (q.v.), 33:18; but at
length, under divine directions, he moved to Bethel, where he made an altar
unto God (35:6,7), and where God appeared to him and renewed the
Abrahamic covenant. While journeying from Bethel to Ephrath (the
Canaanitish name of Bethlehem), Rachel died in giving birth to her second
son Benjamin (35:16-20), fifteen or sixteen years after the birth of Joseph.
He then reached the old family residence at Mamre, to wait on the dying
bed of his father Isaac. The complete reconciliation between Esau and
Jacob was shown by their uniting in the burial of the patriarch (35:27-29).
Jacob was soon after this deeply grieved by the loss of his beloved son
Joseph through the jealousy of his brothers (37:33). Then follows the
story of the famine, and the successive goings down into Egypt to buy
corn (42), which led to the discovery of the long-lost Joseph, and the
patriarch’s going down with all his household, numbering about seventy
souls (Exodus 1:5; Deuteronomy 10:22; Acts 7:14), to sojourn in the land
of Goshen. Here Jacob, “after being strangely tossed about on a very rough
ocean, found at last a tranquil harbour, where all the best affections of his
nature were gently exercised and largely unfolded” (Genesis 48). At length
the end of his checkered course draws nigh, and he summons his sons to
his bedside that he may bless them. Among his last words he repeats the
story of Rachel’s death, although forty years had passed away since that
event took place, as tenderly as if it had happened only yesterday; and
when “he had made an end of charging his sons, he gathered up his feet
into the bed, and yielded up the ghost” (49:33). His body was embalmed
and carried with great pomp into the land of Canaan, and buried beside his
wife Leah in the cave of Machpelah, according to his dying charge. There,
probably, his embalmed body remains to this day (50:1-13). (See
HEBRON.)
The history of Jacob is referred to by the prophets Hosea (12:3, 4, 12) and
Malachi (1:2). In Micah 1:5 the name is a poetic synonym for Israel, the
kingdom of the ten tribes. There are, besides the mention of his name along
with those of the other patriarchs, distinct references to events of his life
in Paul’s epistles (Romans 9:11-13; Hebrews 12:16; 11:21). See references
to his vision at Bethel and his possession of land at Shechem in John 1:51;
4:5, 12; also to the famine which was the occasion of his going down into
Egypt in Acts 7:12 (See LUZ; BETHEL.)