Jacob is not the hero you would pick. He tricked his brother out of a birthright, fooled his blind father into blessing him, and had to leave home because Esau planned to kill him. And God still came to him with promises.
That is the first thing God's promises to Jacob teach. God did not wait for Jacob to become a better man before speaking to him. He spoke first, on one of the worst nights of Jacob's life, and the promises themselves slowly made him a different man.
On this page we gather what God promised Jacob by subject rather than by date, look closely at one prayer where Jacob quoted God's words back to Him, and then check how each promise turned out. Jacob is the third name in the famous line about the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, so we also look at how one promise passed from grandfather to father to son.
I am with thee: the promise underneath the others
At Bethel, Jacob fell asleep in the open and saw a ladder set up on the earth with its top reaching to heaven. Angels moved on it in both directions, and the LORD stood over it all. God spoke about land and children, but the words that must have hit hardest were about company. Jacob was alone in the dark, heading for a country he had never seen.
And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.
Genesis 28:15 (KJV)
Look how many things are packed into one sentence. God would be with him. God would keep him everywhere he went. God would bring him back. And God would not leave until every word was done. That last line is a promise about the promises.
God said the same thing again twenty years later, when it was time to go home: Return unto the land of thy fathers, and to thy kindred; and I will be with thee. And He said it a third time when Jacob was old and afraid to move his family to Egypt. Whatever else changed in Jacob's life, this promise stayed the same.
What God promised Jacob, sorted by subject
A place
At Bethel God promised him the land whereon thou liest. Jacob was sleeping on the ground God was giving him. Years later God repeated it: the land He gave to Abraham and Isaac would pass to Jacob and his seed.
A people
His children would be like the dust of the earth and spread in every direction. In Genesis 35:11 God went further. More than one people would trace their line back to him, and some of his descendants would sit on thrones.
A new name
Jacob got his name from the heel he took hold of at birth (Genesis 25:26), and Esau later said the name fit a man who supplanted him (Genesis 27:36). God gave him the name Israel, and later the nation took it. A new name in the Bible means a new identity. God was telling him he would not be defined by his tricks any longer.
A way home, twice
God promised to bring him back from Haran. Then, at Beersheba, He promised to go down to Egypt with him and surely bring thee up again. Both came true, the second in a way Jacob did not live to see.
The night Jacob prayed the promise back
Jacob was about to meet Esau for the first time in twenty years, and Esau was coming with four hundred men. Jacob split his family into two camps, and then he prayed.
And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the LORD which saidst unto me, Return unto thy country, and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee: I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast shewed unto thy servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan; and now I am become two bands. Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau: for I fear him, lest he will come and smite me, and the mother with the children. And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.
Genesis 32:9-12 (KJV)
This is one of the first long prayers in the Bible, and it is a model worth copying. Jacob opens with the God of his father Abraham and his father Isaac. He reminds God of what He told him to do, return to his country and kindred, and of the promise that came with it: I will deal well with thee. He admits he is not worthy of the least of all the mercies. He names his fear out loud. And he finishes by repeating God's own promise one more time: And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good.
Jacob was not trying to talk God into anything new. He was holding God to what God had already said. That is still the safest kind of prayer.
A limp and a new name
That same night, Jacob was left alone by the brook Jabbok, and a man wrestled with him until morning. The man touched his hip and put it out of joint, but Jacob would not let go until he was blessed. Hosea 12:4 later remembered that he wept, and made supplication unto him.
Jacob had spent his life grabbing blessings by trickery. Here he finally held on to God and asked. He walked away with the name Israel and a limp (Genesis 32:31). He named the place Peniel, because he had seen God face to face and lived.
The next morning, Esau ran to meet him, threw his arms around his neck and kissed him, and they both wept. The prayer was answered in a way better than Jacob had dared to hope.
One promise, three generations
People often ask about the promises of God to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as a group. That is right, because it is really one promise passed down. But God gave it to each man in person.
| Who heard it | Where | Key words | Read it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abraham | Haran, then Canaan | A great nation; in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed | Genesis 12:2 to 3 |
| Isaac | Gerar, during a famine | I will be with thee; I will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham | Genesis 26:3 to 4 |
| Jacob | Bethel, running from Esau | The God of Abraham and Isaac; I will not leave thee | Genesis 28:13 to 15 |
After that, God is often called the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob. He used that name for Himself at the burning bush in Exodus 3:6. Jesus used it in Matthew 22:32 to show that these men are alive to God. And in Psalm 46, a psalm about God being our refuge in trouble, the writer calls Him the God of Jacob. Not the God of the perfect man. The God of the one who limped.
How each promise turned out
- Kept in all places.Laban cheated Jacob and changed his wages ten times, yet Jacob left with large flocks and a big family (Genesis 31:41).
- Brought back home.He made peace with Esau, came back into Canaan and returned to Bethel to build an altar (Genesis 33:4, 33:18, 35:1 to 7).
- A nation from his loins.His household in Egypt counted seventy souls (Genesis 46:27). By the opening of Exodus, the land was full of his descendants.
- Brought up again.Jacob died in Egypt at 147, but his sons buried him at Machpelah in Canaan, and the nation came out under Moses.
Jacob did not see everything in his lifetime. Near the end he told Joseph, Behold, I die: but God shall be with you. He passed the promise on with his last strength. That is a good picture of how God's promises work across a family.
What Jacob's story means if you feel unworthy
Many people hold back from God's promises because they know their own record. Jacob's record was worse than most. He also made a deal at Bethel that sounds a lot like bargaining: if God will be with me and feed me and clothe me, then the LORD will be my God. God did not scold him for it. He just kept His word until Jacob learned to trust.
The specific promises to Jacob, the land and the nation, belonged to Jacob and his family. But the God who made them has not changed, and the New Testament repeats that He will not leave His people. Hebrews 13:5 says it to every believer. If you want to know which promises are yours to claim, our guide to the promises of God to us walks through how to tell. To see where Jacob's grandfather started, read God's promises to Abraham.
Read them one at a time
Book One gives the promises God spoke to Jacob their own pages, from Bethel to the visions of the night at Beersheba, along with the rest of Genesis, Exodus and Leviticus. Each page has the King James verse, who it was made to, the condition, what it meant then, what it means for you and a prayer.