The name given to the second-born twin of Isaac and Rebekah (Genesis 25:26). Derived from aqab ("to seize the heel, to supplant"), it described Jacob's birth — grasping Esau's heel — and later his character as one who obtained by cunning what should have come by faith. Jacob was renamed Israel (H3478) after wrestling with God at Peniel (Genesis 32:28), becoming the father of the twelve tribes and an archetype of God's grace working through flawed humanity.
Jacob's story is one of Scripture's most instructive portraits of sovereign grace. God loved Jacob before he was born and before he had done good or evil (Romans 9:11–13). His life arc — from deceiver to prince with God — demonstrates that divine election is not based on human merit but on God's redemptive purpose. Every believer shares Jacob's biography: chosen while crooked, transformed through wrestling, renamed by grace.