Genesis 25:26

had hold … heel As if, from the first, desirous to pull his brother, back, and get in front of him. See the reference to this passage in Hosea 12:3. The character of the man was thus prefigured at birth. The idea of overreaching, or outwitting, by cunning and strategy, inspired the early Israelite with admiration and amusement rather than with repulsion.

Jacob That is, One that takes by the heelor supplants. The Heb. for "heel" is -âḳêb, and the name "Jacob" was popularly regarded as having been derived from the same root, with the meaning of "one who seeks to trip up or supplant"; compare the use of the word; "supplant" in Jeremiah 9:4. It appears as a place name = Y"ḳb'r, in Palestine, on the list of Thothmes III (c. 1450 b.c.), and as a personal name, Ya"ḳub-ilu, in a Babylonian tablet of Hammurabi's period (c. 2100 b.c.).

threescore years old See note on Genesis 25:20 (P).

SPECIAL NOTE ON Genesis 25:26

On the name" Jacob."

The popular Israelite derivation of the name "Jacob" from the Heb. word -âḳêb, "a heel," like so many other popular derivations, is simply based upon the resemblance in the sound of the proper name to a word in common use.

"It is another question," says Driver, "whether this explanation expresses the actual meaning of the name. It has been supposed, for instance, that Jacobis really an elliptical form of Jaḳob"çl: in this case El, -God," would be the subject of the verb (like Ishmâ"çl, -God heareth," Isrâ"el, -God persisteth," Yeraḥme"çl, -God is compassionate"), and the word might be explained from the Arab., -God follows," or … -God rewards." In fact there is now evidence that the name is much older than the date at which, according to the Biblical narrative, Jacob must have lived. Mr Pinches has found on contract tables of the age of Khammurabi (c. 2300 b.c.) the personal name Ya-ḳub-ilu(analogous to Yashup-ilu, Yarbi-ilu, Yamlik-ilu, Yakbar-ilu, etc., of the same age); and, according to Hommel (AHT.203), the contracted form Yaḳubuoccurs likewise. Further, in the lists of 118 places in Palestine conquered by Thothmes III (b.c. 1503 1449, Sayce and Petrie), which are inscribed on the pylons of the temple at Karnak, there occur (Nos. 78 and 102) the names Y-ša-p-"a-rḁand Y---ḳ-b-"â-rḁ. These names (the Egyp. rstanding, as is well known, also for l) can be only יספאל Joseph-"çland יעקבאל Jaḳob-"çl; and we learn consequently that places bearing these names (cf. for the form the place-names Jezre"çl, Jabne"çl, Joshua 15:11 [= Jabneh, 2 Chronicles 26:6]; Yiphtaḥ"çl, Joshua 19:14; Joshua 19:27; Yeḳabze"çl, Nehemiah 11:25; Yirpe"çl, Joshua 18:27) existed in Palestine, apparently in the central part, in the 15th cent. b.c. What connexion, if any, exists between these names and those of the patriarchs, may never perhaps be ascertained; but their existence at such a date in Palestine is remarkable. These facts, however, make it not improbable that (as had indeed been supposed even before their discovery) names of the type of Jacob, Joseph, Jephthah, etc., are elliptical forms of a more original Jaḳob"çl, Joseph"çl, etc. But, however that may be, to the Hebrews, as we know them, the idea which Jacobsuggested, and in which it was supposed to have originated, was that of supplanter." Driver in Art. Jacobin Hastings" Dict. of the Bible, ii. 526.