Bible Verses About Jacob

When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.

Then Joseph had another dream and told it to his brothers. “Look,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”

He told his father and brothers, but his father rebuked him and said, “What is this dream that you have had? Will your mother and brothers and I actually come and bow down to the ground before you?”

And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept in mind what he had said.

Then Jacob tore his clothes, put sackcloth around his waist, and mourned for his son many days.

All his sons and daughters tried to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. “No,” he said. “I will go down to Sheol mourning for my son.” So his father wept for him.

When Jacob learned that there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons, “Why are you staring at one another?”

“Look,” he added, “I have heard that there is grain in Egypt. Go down there and buy some for us, so that we may live and not die.”

Now the famine was still severe in the land.

So when Jacob’s sons had eaten all the grain they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, “Go back and buy us a little more food.”

But Judah replied, “The man solemnly warned us, ‘You will not see my face again unless your brother is with you.’

If you will send our brother with us, we will go down and buy food for you.

But if you will not send him, we will not go; for the man told us, ‘You will not see my face again unless your brother is with you.’”

“Why did you bring this trouble upon me?” Israel asked. “Why did you tell the man you had another brother?”

They replied, “The man questioned us in detail about ourselves and our family: ‘Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother?’ And we answered him accordingly. How could we possibly know that he would say, ‘Bring your brother here’?”

And Judah said to his father Israel, “Send the boy with me, and we will go at once, so that we may live and not die—neither we, nor you, nor our children.

I will guarantee his safety. You may hold me personally responsible. If I do not bring him back and set him before you, then may I bear the guilt before you all my life.

If we had not delayed, we could have come and gone twice by now.”

Then their father Israel said to them, “If it must be so, then do this: Put some of the best products of the land in your packs and carry them down as a gift for the man—a little balm and a little honey, spices and myrrh, pistachios and almonds.

Take double the silver with you so that you may return the silver that was put back into the mouths of your sacks. Perhaps it was a mistake.

Take your brother as well, and return to the man at once.

May God Almighty grant you mercy before the man, that he may release your other brother along with Benjamin. As for me, if I am bereaved, I am bereaved.”

“Joseph is still alive,” they said, “and he is ruler over all the land of Egypt!” But Jacob was stunned, for he did not believe them.

However, when they relayed all that Joseph had told them, and when he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him back, the spirit of their father Jacob was revived.

“Enough!” declared Israel. “My son Joseph is still alive! I will go to see him before I die.”