Jacob, the third and last of the Hebrew patriarchs, son of Isaac and Rebekah, and younger twin brother of Esau. Even in his mother's womb he and Esau struggled together, and he was called Jacob (Ya'akob, heel-holder) because his hand took hold on his brother's heel at their birth. Esau was a hunter and the favorite of Isaac, but Rebekah loved the gentler Jacob. In his youth Jacob purchased his elder brother's birthright for some bread and pottage of lentiles, which he gave to Esau when he was famishing. At the instigation of his mother he obtained by fraud from his blind father the blessing of the first born. Obliged to flee from his brother's wrath, he went at the command of his father to take a wife from the daughters of Laban, his mother's brother. On his way he saw in a dream the vision of a ladder reaching to heaven, which established him in the belief that he was the heir of the promise made to Abraham. He served seven years for the love of Laban's daughter Rachel, and was then disappointed by finding in his veiled bride her elder sister Leah. He served another seven years for Rachel, and six years longer for a herd, which he greatly increased by an artifice, and then departed with his wives, children, and possessions for the land of Canaan. On his way he met and was reconciled with Esau, immediately preceding which "there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.

And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh, and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. . . . And he said, Thy name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel; for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed." He tarried successively at Succoth, Shechem, and Bethel, where the Abrahamic covenant was renewed to him. While journeying toward the residence of his father at Mamre, Rachel died in giving birth to Benjamin. Among his domestic troubles was the loss of his favorite son Joseph, sold by his brethren and carried to Egypt, where he became the highest officer at court. In a famine which followed, Joseph established his father and brethren in Egypt under his protection, and Israel lived 17 years in the land of Goshen, where he died at the age of 147. At his own command he was buried with Abraham and Isaac near Mamre. He was the father of Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun by Leah; of Joseph and Benjamin by Rachel; of Dan and Naphthali by Bilhah, Rachel's handmaid; and of Gad and Asher by Zilpah, Leah's handmaid; also of a daughter, Dinah, by Leah. These 12 sons became the heads of the 12 tribes of Israel, and before his death he assembled them and gave them his parting words.

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I. Christian Friedrich Wilhelm, a German author, born in Gotha, Oct. 6, 1764, died there, March 30,1847. He was for many years in charge of the library and numismatic cabinet at Gotha, and from 1831 to 1842 of all the art collections in that town. He published over 50 volumes, the principal of which are his editions and translations of the classics and his Elementarbuch der griechischen Sprache (4 vols., Jena, 1805). II. Paul Emil, a German painter, son of the preceding, born in Gotha in 1802, died Jan. 6,1866. From 1818 to 1825 he studied in the academy at Munich, where he acquired reputation by his paintings of " The Flight into the Wilderness " and "Adam and Eve finding the Dead Body of Abel." He went to Rome in 1825, where he produced several pictures in the manner of Raphael, among which are the "Resurrection of Lazarus" and the "Rape of Proserpine." In 1828 he returned to Germany, and in 1830 went to St. Petersburg, where he remained till 1834, painting "General Diebitsch in the Camp at Adrianople," and an altarpiece.

Returning to Germany, he decorated in fresco a hall in the royal castle at Hanover. In 1840 he went to Gotha, where he became court painter to the grand duke, and produced several successful paintings, among the best of which is " The Sultan and Scheherazade." His "Judith and Holofernes" and "Samson and Delilah" received prizes in Philadelphia in 1850.