New Moon Notes #8: Jacob the Patriarch

We’ll be coming back to the alchemy, believe me, but before we get too far into the “Black” of the Saga’s nigredo, we need to open the meaning of Jacob’s first name. The best place to start for that is in Genesis with the Patriarch Jacob.

If the Twilight Saga were an X-Man comic book (and the author has said their super hero teevee cartoons were influential), Jacob Black would be Wolverine to Edward Cullen’s Cyclops, both in love with Bella’s Marvel Girl. But, because Twilight is an Everyman morality play and God-Man love story (remember the apple on the Twilight cover and Genesis epigraph?), we have to think “Old Testament” when we hear the name “Jacob.”

It doesn’t hurt that his sisters are named Rachel and Rebecca, that he has a problematic relationship with Leah in future books, that he is “Ephraim’s heir” (Ephraim is one of the Bible Jacob’s descendants through Rachel), and that he plays the frustrated but heroically patient lover, waiting for Bella-Rachel (‘Rachel’ means “lamb” in Hebrew and you remember that Edward and Bella are the “lion and the lamb,” right? See Twilight, chapter 13).

“Jacob” in Hebrew means “the supplanter” and the Patriarch is remembered because he was equal to wrestling with an Angel-God; as he is New Moon’s Paris hoping to supplant Edward’s absent Romeo in Bella’s heart and Edward is often described as an Angel or god-like, Jacob Black is well named. When we first meet him, his name tells us he is a supplanter or rival, that he will wrestle with an angel, and that he wil be frustrated in love but will eventually win his heart’s desire through patient service.

But there is another set of Scriptures featuring a Jacob, believe it or not…