kingdom Jesus was drawing upon the great story of Israel’s election, apostasy, and restoration, as told in Israel’s sacred writings.81 As the Book of Genesis inculcates, the beginning of Israel’s history lay in the choice Yahweh made among all the peoples of the earth, when he selected Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as the forebears of a special nation. Through Jacob in particular, Yahweh formed for himself a people made up of twelve tribes, sprung from twelve patriarchs (Genesis 29–49), the sons of Jacob-renamed-Israel