Jacob was the younger twin son of Isaac and Rebekah, who acquired his brother Esau’s birthright and his father’s covenant blessings and became the patriarch of the tribes of Israel through his twelve sons. The Lord changed his name to Israel (Genesis 32:28).
In the Nephite record Jacob appears mainly through the covenant God made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, recalled when the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt (1 Nephi 17:40) and when he promised to remember Abraham’s seed forever (2 Nephi 29:14). Lehi found on the plates of brass that he was a descendant of Joseph, the son of Jacob who was sold into Egypt (1 Nephi 5:14), and Nephite writers invoked “the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (1 Nephi 19:10; Alma 36:2).
Moroni¹ quoted “the words of Jacob” when he raised the title of liberty, citing a prophecy Jacob gave before his death: as a part of Joseph’s coat had been preserved, so a remnant of Joseph’s seed would be preserved by God while the rest perished (Alma 46:24-26). This prophecy does not appear in the Bible; the resurrected Christ later referred to it, calling Jacob “our father” who testified concerning the remnant of the seed of Joseph (3 Nephi 10:17).
Prophecies of the last days promised that the faithful would “sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and with Jacob” in the kingdom of heaven (Helaman 3:30), and that the Lord would gather the scattered remnant of the seed of Jacob and fulfill his covenant with the house of Jacob, restoring them to the knowledge of that covenant and to their lands under Jesus Christ their Redeemer (3 Nephi 5:24–26).