“Jacob, Prayer of”

Your trust is in Jacob and the proof is Israel. One who sees the image of Jacob will sanctify the holy one of Israel. And those who make mention of the name Jacob will venerate you God of Israel.

1998

Conservative Judaism 54:4, 2002

This essay explores the rabbinic tradition that there are 147 psalms in the Psalter, a number specifically said to have been chosen to match the age at which Jacob died.

This article examins the biblical text (cited in Hebrew and English), suggesting a less common interpretation of the concept of "angel" and Jacob's strugle with this entity. In light of the suggested interpretation, the article discusses Epstein's sculpture while examins if it responds to it.

The Cambridge Edition of Early Christian Writings Volume 4. Christ: Chalcedon and Beyond, Edited by Mark DelCogliano, 2022

Jacob of Serugh (ca. 451–521) was a miaphysite (Syrian Orthodox) bishop of Serugh in Turkey, southwest of Edessa. In the West Syriac tradition, Jacob is the most celebrated poet-theologian after Ephrem the Syrian and is called the “Flute of the Holy Spirit and the Harp of the Church.” In the first poem translated below, the Metrical Homily on the Name “Emmanuel,” Jacob, following Matthew 1:23, interprets the prophet Isaiah’s reference to an “Emmanuel” as foreshadowing the coming of Christ. For Jacob the meaning of the name Emmanuel – “God is with us” – demonstrates the prophet’s recognition of Christ’s divinity. Jacob analyzes the name of the Lord as “Emmanuel” to show how this title predicted and declared the reality of the incarnation. His homily is meant to instruct the faithful on how God’s entrance into time and creation as the incarnate Christ was a gift of love meant to restore humanity. In the second homily, the Metrical Homily on How the Lord is Known in Scripture as Food and Drink, Jacob teaches his congregation how scripture and the church’s Eucharistic feast sustain the faithful. For Jacob the Old and New Testaments contain narrative exempla of how God nourishes his people with food and drink (1). The Eucharist is the climactic event in a series of examples throughout sacred history that show how God feeds his people. In much of this homily Jacob guides his congregation on interpreting scripture and the liturgy's symbols (33). Jacob, like most ancient Christians, did not read the Bible literally. Rather, he searched for the symbolic and typological significance of scripture. Christology, for Jacob, is present in hidden ways in biblical narrative, and it is the job of the poet-exegete, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to uncover its meaning.

The Jacob Story: Between Oral and Written Modes, 2019

In this article I examine the relations between Jacobʼs putative oral story and the pre-Priestly narrative. I argue that Hosea’s prophecy presents the version of Jacobʼs oral story related in his time and antedated by many years the composition of the story-cycle in its written form. Comparison of Hoseaʼs prophecy and Jacobʼs narrative indicates the thorough way in which the exilic author worked the oral story he received in order to fit it to his ideological messages and religious concepts. To further examine the relations between the oral and written modes, I discuss the episode of the treaty between Laban and Jacob (Gen 31,45‒54) in light of a Mari letter (A.3592). Comparison of the two episodes indicates that part of the biblical narrative rests on the oral story and other part was written by the late author. Evidently, the long process of oral transmission, the growth of the narratives in its course, and the creative reworking of the author make it impossible to either isolate the early oral layer within the present story-cycle or to date the stages of its growth in the oral process of transmission. Keywords: Jacobʼs story, Hoseaʼs prophecy, oral story, Haran, Idrimi, Mari, Synchronistic History, exilic author

The History of the Jacob Cycle (Genesis 25-35): Recent Research on the Compilation, the Redaction and the Reception of the Biblical Narrative and Its Historical and Cultural Contexts (ed. B. Hensel; Archaeology and Bible 4; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck), 2021

Despite the general consensus among scholars as to the distinction of the Priestly layer in the Pentateuch, several texts still remain disputed, and few others might have not yet been identified as part of the Priestly stratum. The disagreement about the identification of several Priestly passages extends to the final chapters of Genesis, especially regarding chs. 47–50. This paper seeks to demonstrate the importance of textual criticism to the identification of the different strata in these chapters, and to suggest a new explanation for the original literary form and purpose of the Priestly layer in these chapters.