Jacob

Jacob (Heb. Ya'aqōb), one of the three chief Hebrew patriarchs, second son of Isaac and Rebekah, whose history and character are graphically described in the Book of Genesis. He and his family followed Joseph to Egypt, where he lived for seventeen years; and, dying there, he was carried to Hebron for burial. Many see in the history of Jacob (on whom Israel, the name of the nation, was also conferred) an ethnological record rather than a personal one. Mention is frequently made of Jacob both in the Old and New Testaments, and there are also many legends about him in Rabbinical and Patristic, as well as in the Mohammedan literature. The names James, Jacques, Giacomo are all, as well as Jacob and Yakob, various modern derivatives from the Hebrew patriarch's name. See JEWS.