Sunday School Lesson 16 | A New Name For Jacob

We started off reviewing Lesson 15 using last week’s lesson aids and asking the little ones what they remembered. We talked about Isaac and Rebekah’s twin boys, Esau and Jacob, and how they were so different despite being twins. We asked them what the two brothers liked to do, about the special privileges Esau had for being born first and what he gave Jacob for a bowl of soup. We asked the class how Esau felt about Jacob taking his special blessing too, by tricking their father and what Jacob had to do! We ended the recap with how Jacob had to run away and was all alone but God told him that He will take care of Jacob and be with him, and Jacob trusted God because…. God always keeps His promises!

This brought us to Lesson 16! We began with Jacob arriving at his uncle Laban’s house where his mother sent him. We used the lesson aids to keep the little ones captivated while telling the story. We talked about Laban’s two daughters called Leah and Rachel and how Jacob wanted to marry Rachel but he was tricked into marrying Leah first. Jacob had to work a total of 14 years so he could marry Rachel! We asked the children how Jacob might have felt for being tricked and if they remembered someone else being tricked from last week’s lesson! Of course, they remembered how Jacob tricked his father in getting the special blessing that belonged to Esau.

We discussed how sometimes God might take us through an experience to help us understand how someone might feel so it can help us not to do it again. We gave an example of maybe them not sharing their new birthday toy with their sibling only to have a friend or cousin not wanting to share something with them. We talked about those feeling and if you know how someone else is feeling you might think twice about being mean because you know how it feels when someone else is being mean to you.

We continued the story by talking about Jacob having 12 sons while living at his uncle’s house. We put a finished craft of the 12 brothers on the board and counted them with the class.

(If anyone knows the original publisher of this craft, please let me know who they are so I can link back to them. I know that you will probably want to use this craft, so until I can find a link, you can download the craft here or by clicking the image below.)

Then one day God told Jacob that it was time for him to go back home. That meant that he had to see Esau again! “Did you ever have to go back to school/preschool/sports club knowing that there was a mean boy/girl there?” we asked the kiddies. We had some interesting responses! We asked them what they did and how they felt. We then explained that Jacob would have been scared and worried too and that he didn’t really want to go, but then he remembered something!! God promised that He would take care of him and knowing that God asked him to go, Jacob trusted God, because God always keeps His promises.

Using the lesson aids, we put the suitcase next to Jacob showing that he packed all his belongings, took his wives, children, servants and lots of gifts, to give to Esau, and was ready to return home (we arranged them all on the board). 

Jacob sent his servants ahead to give the gifts to Esau. Jacob was getting worried about having to meet Esau again so he sent his wives and children to cross the river and go ahead of him.

We placed the moon and stars on the board and spoke about how Jacob was alone in the night and how he wrestled with a man from heaven. As morning came, we discussed how Jacob came to have a new name: Israel and what that meant.

We ended the story with Jacob, now Israel, crossing the river and finally meeting Esau. Esau was glad to see his brother and Jacob/Israel remembered that God kept His promises!

For this lesson we had 2 crafts. One was Jacob and Israel’s names back-to-back reminding the little ones that Jacob’s name has been changed to Israel. We folded the page in half and glued it, then used coloured pencils and glued sequence on to decorate them.

While the glue dried on those (trust me some had way too much) we went on to craft number of Jacob’s 12 sons.

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Blessings!