How did this trickster become Israel?

JACOB

Painting of an aged patriarch leaning on a staff

ISRAEL

At the end of Genesis, Jacob leads a family that will become a nation. At the beginning, he is a grasping younger twin who deceives his blind father. So how did this trickster become Israel, the great father of God's chosen nation?

001: Named Jacob

Before the twins are born, God tells Rebekah how the story will go:

“Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger.”GENESIS 25:23

The promise is already given. Jacob comes out of the womb gripping his brother's heel, “so he was named Jacob” (Genesis 25:26), a name that sounds like heel and supplanter. From his first breath he grabs for what God has already promised him.

Jacob will keep trying to secure God's promises through his own self-reliance.

002: Self Reliance

Painting of Jacob presenting a dish to Isaac while Rebekah watches — Jacob deceives Isaac while Rebekah looks on.

With his mother's help, Jacob puts on his brother's clothes and covers his hands in goatskin.

So Jacob went near to Isaac his father, who felt him and said, “The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” And he did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau's hands; so he blessed him. He said, “Are you really my son Esau?” He answered, “I am.”GENESIS 27:22–24

Jacob gets the blessing, but he gets it by lying, and it costs him his home, his brother and twenty years in exile. He took by his own hand what God had already promised to give him.

Self-reliance, waiting, Israel

Jacob's life follows a pattern many of us know: first self-reliance, then a long season of waiting, and only then Israel. This is the lesson of the whole Period of the Patriarchs: trust is forged in the waiting. God does not cancel His promise because Jacob grabbed at it. He patiently remakes the man until Jacob can receive it as a gift.

Jacob Renamed As IsraelWatch the full lesson · Period of the Patriarchs, Part 2

Foundations

What is trust?

People often confuse the virtue of trust with the virtue of faith. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that they are not the same. Trust is not simply believing that God exists, or even that He is powerful. The devil acknowledges that much.

To be saved we need faith, hope and charity. Faith looks to God as the ultimate teacher and believes what He has revealed. Charity looks to God as the supreme good and loves Him for His own sake. Hope looks to God as ultimately desirable and seeks union with Him. For Aquinas, to trust is simply to hope in God.

Three notions of hope

Hope desires God. We only hope for what we desire, and God is goodness itself.

Hope acknowledges difficulty. Union with God means struggle: resisting temptation, growing in virtue and persevering to the end. Hope faces this honestly.

Hope affirms possibility despite difficulty. Salvation depends first on God as the principal cause, through His omnipotence, mercy and grace. It depends second on us, as we desire it, seek Him and practice the virtues He gives. In the parable of the talents, those who used what they were given were rewarded.

“Man should not trust in himself, but in God alone, who gives success to human acts.”ST II–II, Q. 129, A. 6

What trust is not

Presumption desires salvation but refuses its difficulty. It says, “God will forgive me, I am a good person, I will repent later.” Despair sees the difficulty but denies the possibility. It looks at sin and weakness and gives up.

“Hope avoids presumption by humility, and despair by confidence in divine mercy.”ST II–II, Q. 20

Trust is therefore humble confidence: the act of hope by which the soul relies on God's mercy and power to be saved, and to receive every help it needs to repent, persevere and reach heaven, while humbly using the means God provides. Faith tells us who God is. Hope relies on Him to bring us to His promise. Charity makes that trust filial, like a child with a father.

Bible Timeline Overview | 8 MinutesThe School of Trust · Start here