Commentaire sur La Genèse 46:2

יעקב יעקב JACOB, JACOB — The repetition of the name is a mark of affection (Sifra, Vayikra Dibbura d'Nedavah, Chapter 1 12).

AND HE SAID, JACOB, JACOB. After G-d had told him, Thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name,¹⁷²Above, 35:10. it would be proper that He call him by this glorious name, and so he is indeed mentioned three times in this section.¹⁷³In Verses 1, 2 and 5. However, He called him Jacob in order to hint that now he will not contend with G-d and men and prevail, [as the name Israel indicates],¹⁷⁴Above, 32:29. but he will be in a house of bondage until He will also bring him up again, since the exile now begins with him. This is the meaning of the verse, And these are the names of the children of Israel who came into Egypt, Jacob and his sons,¹⁷⁵Verse 8 here. for they would come there with the appellation, “children of Israel,” since the children would multiply and increase there and their name and glory would extend. However, he is “Jacob” when descending thereto.
The reason why Scripture mentions Er and Onan¹⁷⁶Verse 12 here. together with the children of Israel who came into Egypt,¹⁷⁷See Ramban above, 38:8. [although they had already died, as clearly stated in Verse 12]; is due to a secret which can be known from the words we have already written.¹⁷⁷See Ramban above, 38:8. The learned student [of the mystic lore of the Cabala] will understand this, as well as the meaning of the entire Verse [12]. Scripture likewise mentioned them among those numbered¹⁷⁸The intent of the Hebrew text may also be that Scripture likewise mentions them “in the book of Numbers,” thus giving this sentence the same format as Ramban’s next sentence, “And in the book of Chronicles….” in the desert: The sons of Judah: Er and Onan; and Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan. And the sons of Judah after their families were, etc.¹⁷⁹Numbers 26:19-20. And there, in the book of Chronicles, Scripture enumerates them in another count: The sons of Judah: Er, and Onan and Shelah; which were born unto him of Bath-shua the Canaanitess…And Tamar his daughter-in-law bore him Perez and Zerah. All the sons of Judah were five.¹⁸⁰I Chronicles 2:3-4. This is difficult to understand. Since two of his sons died prior to the birth of the youngest two, how does Scripture conclude that they totalled five? Thus there is here also an allusion to that which was referred to above.

ויאמר אלוקים לישראל, what He said to him at this time was due to Yaakov having become Yisrael. He would have to display qualities of leadership as his sons would have to deal with people who would challenge them

!ויאמר: יעקב! יעקב; the reason this call to Yaakov is repeated is to illustrate that for how many years Yaakov had not been favoured with a communication from G’d. By repeating his name at this point, Yaakov was alerted to the fact that he would receive a prophetic insight.

ויאמר יעקב, “Yaakov said, etc.” even though G’d had told him that in the future he would no longer be called Yaakov but Israel, this change of name was not the same as that of Avram’s name being changed to Avraham. Avraham had undergone a name change in honour of changing his religion, becoming circumcised and simultaneously becoming JEWISH. This was not the case with Yaakov who had been born Jewish. While it would have been inappropriate to continue to refer to Avraham by his former name, in fact it would have been insulting, this consideration did not apply to the name Yaakov. Furthermore, if Yisrael had never again been called Yaakov, people would have thought that the stigma attached to the name Yaakov, i.e. the crooked one, had been justified at the time he had been known as such. Nachmanides writes that the reason the Torah reverted to calling him Yaakov at this stage, was to hint that once in Egypt, his task would no longer be to contend with the heavenly representatives of the spiritually negative forces, such as the angel representing Esau in heaven. From now on he would be basically in the house of slavery, as effective from now the years of exile G’d had predicted at the covenant of the pieces to Avraham had begun. This condition would continue until G’d would redeem the Jewish people from there and lead them to the Holy Land. If, nonetheless, the Torah in verse 5 begins to list the names of בני ישראל, “the children of Israel,” and not as we might have expected “the children of Yaakov,” even though it was these who traveled to their exile, it was to assure them that paradoxically, the Jewish people’s developing into a numerically strong nation was a process that would take place in the very land where they would be cruelly suppressed and tormented. Verse 5 was a look into the future, whereas our verse deals with the present, i.e. a period when Yaakov, their patriarch, would in a manner of speaking become a symbol and would inspire them by what he had already accomplished on earth, not by what he still had to accomplish. [Here I have sermonized a little, expanding on Nachmanides. Ed.]