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Jacob

in Genesis, a son of Isaac, also known as Israel; the patriarch of the Israelites

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 21, 2026
Entity authorityQ289957
Source-derived summary

Jacob, later given the name Israel, is the third Hebrew patriarch in Judaism and an important figure in the Abrahamic religions. He first appears in the Torah, where he is described in the Book of Genesis as a son of Isaac and Rebecca. Accordingly, alongside his older fraternal twin brother Esau, Jacob's paternal grandparents are Abraham and Sarah and his maternal grandfather is Bethuel, whose wife is not mentioned. He is said to have bought Esau's birthright and, with his mother's help, deceived his aging father to bless him instead of Esau. Then, following a severe drought in his homeland Canaan, Jacob and his descendants migrated to neighbouring Egypt through the efforts of his son Joseph, who had become a confidant of the pharaoh. After dying in Egypt at the age of 147, he is supposed to have been buried in the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron.

In the narrative of the Hebrew Bible, Jacob's progeny were begotten by four women: his wives (and maternal cousins) Leah and Rachel; and his concubines Bilhah and Zilpah. His sons were, in order of their birth: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin. He also had a daughter named Dinah, born to his first wife Leah. The descendants of Jacob's sons were collectively known as the Israelites, with each son being the forefather of one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, of whom all but the Tribe of Levi were allotted territory in the Land of Israel.

Editorial summary

“Jacob” enters the record as in Genesis, a son of Isaac, also known as Israel; the patriarch of the Israelites. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Jacob, Genesis and Isaac can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current 250-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Jacob, Genesis and Isaac.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Jacob” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Jacob, Genesis and Isaac provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q289957. VIAF identifies the subject as 202148389276110710871. The Library of Congress control number is n82025275. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Jacob”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Jacob primary sources, Jacob archive and Jacob research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Jacob”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Jacob” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.