In Genesis 25- 35, the biblical narrative focuses on Jacob’s life, and, if you have spent any amount of time in church, I’m sure you have heard some of these stories. You’ve probably heard that Jacob and Esau were twins and at the time of their birth, Esau was born first, but Jacob was grasping Esau’s heel as he was born, thus he was given the name Jacob which comes from a root word that means to seize the heel, circumvent, supplant. The suggestion is that this is a person who will trip someone by the heel, undermine or usurp someone, or deal craftily with them. In Jewish culture, names were very important because a person’s name was a reflection of their character. And, in this case, Jacob definitely lived up to his name.
It was not long after the story of their birth that we are told how, when Esau returns tired and hungry from a trip, Jacob deceives Esau into selling his birthright for a bowl of stew. Later, we also learn how Jacob tricks his aging father, Isaac, into giving him the blessing of the firstborn instead of giving it to Esau, the rightful recipient of the blessing. We know that Esau then becomes so angry that he threatens to kill his brother when their father dies forcing Jacob to flee to his mother’s homeland.
As the story continues, we learn that Jacob meets and falls in love with Rachel, but he must work for her father, Laban, for seven years before he can marry her. When the time comes for them to be married, Laban deceives Jacob and gives Rachel’s older sister, Leah, to him as his wife instead of Rachel. Jacob now must work another seven years for Laban so he can marry Rachel, the one he loves. Jacob is now on the receiving end of lies and deception from his father-in-law, Laban, and ends up working for him for twenty years.
In the end, we read that God blesses Jacob with twelve sons and a daughter, many male and female servants, large flocks of sheep, and many camels and donkeys. Jacob was a very rich man when God told him to return to his homeland. Of course, going back meant he had to meet Esau and he was afraid of what Esau might do. On the way home, one evening Jacob has his famous encounter with a “man” (a messenger from God). He wrestles with him all night until the man blesses him and changes his name from Jacob to Israel. Following this, Jacob meets Esau, and the two brothers are reconciled.
This is a very short synopsis of the events covering these ten chapters, but I wanted to present this overview to share an important point from Jacob’s life. From his birth, Jacob was labeled a heel-grabber, a cheat, a deceiver, or a usurper. In fact, every time someone called his name, he was reminded of this label. Is it possible that having heard it so much as he was growing up, he eventually took on the character of the label he was given? I don’t believe he was called Jacob because he was a deceiver. Instead, I believe he became a deceiver because that is what he was called.
I also believe that having been on the receiving end of deception from Laban, Jacob realized that he needed to change. He no longer wanted to be the old Jacob. But when the time came to make restitution from his past regarding Esau, he struggled with fear and the old manipulator started to rise up (Gen. 32:1-21). It wasn’t until he wrestled with the messenger from God that the old Jacob was finally broken, and his name was changed. When he left, he was no longer Jacob, the deceiver, but he was now Israel, the overcomer (Gen. 32:28).
What about you? Is there a name that you were labeled with? Did you grow up hearing that you were ugly? Worthless? No good? A troublemaker? Have you struggled with fears, anger, addictions, or sins that you could never seem to overcome so you gave up thinking that that is who you are, and you will never change? Have you allowed these labels or thoughts to keep you in bondage to insecurities, feelings of inadequacy, helplessness, and hopelessness? Have you even begun to doubt if God can really love you or if you have any value to the Body of Christ?
Like Jacob, if we hear these labels often enough, we begin to believe them. We believe that is who we are, and that belief affects our behavior—we do what we believe. Therefore, if we have been told that we are worthless, then that is how we will see ourselves, and that is how we will behave. Our lives reflect who we believe we are. We behave like “Jacob” because that is the name we have been given: that is our identity.
However, also like Jacob, that label can change! The Bible tells us that if we surrender our life to Jesus Christ, we are a new creation. Our old life with its names and labels is gone, and we are a totally different person (2 Cor. 5:17). Paul even addresses this in one of his letters to the church at Corinth. After listing several sins such as immorality, greed, idolatry, drunkenness, etc., he adds “And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11). What Paul is saying in these letters to the church is that no matter what you were in the past, that is not who you are now. We may have to wrestle in prayer over the old self, fears, sins, or addictions, but once we have surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and been touched by the Spirit of God, we are changed. We are no longer a sinner, but we are now a saint and an overcomer. And if anyone tries to put that old label on us, we can simply tell them, “My name is not Jacob anymore. My name is now Israel!”