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Main Article Theories about
Jacob
Main Discussion
 Theories may be removed if ... 
  1. Stated as questions or possibilities (avoid question marks, "Maybe", "I think", etc).
  2. More appropriate for another article.
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  4. Proven by canon source, and moved to main article.
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  • This does not include responses that can stand alone as its own theory.
  • Usage of an indented bullet does not imply the statement is a response.

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Contents

Powers/Abilities

  • Jacob has the power to raise the bodies of the people who come to the island dead, or die on the island. He is using Christian Shephard's body to manipulate those on the island.
  • Jacob has the power to heal people. There are numerous instances of people on the island being healed of off-island problems (ex: Locke's paralysis, Rose's cancer, Jin's low sperm count) and even on-island problems (ex: Locke being shot by Ben). Jacob is the one healing them. This is also supported by his ability to make Richard not age.
    • He is selective about who he heals. He didn't heal Ben of his tumor, or Jack of his appendicitis.
    • He not only has the power to heal people, but he also has the power to make people sick. When Ben and Jack got sick, they were starting to do things that were against the island and what Jacob wanted.
    • Off island, he healed Juliet's sister's cancer
  • He can view the future e travel to past to alter the continum of events

Personality

  • When talking to Nemesis, it was Jacob who did not care about what happened to "people". He calls everything before the end "progress". He does not care what happens during the progress. He is trying bring about "the end" by playing a game using humans as pawns, not Nemesis.
    • We are being led to believe that Jacob represents good, but we have no real indication of this. There has been a lot of pain, suffering and death, which Jacob may have been able to stop or even influenced, all in the name of "progress".
  • Jacob is actually Julius Caesar, thats why the others all learn to speak Latin.
  • Jacob is a "god" of sorts who sets the course in motion, but then steps back, because he believes in the free will of people. The greatest influence he has is luring people to the island, but once they arrive, he lets them act as they choose to. They can choose to blindly follow Jacob, as Ben did, or they can act on their own will, as Jack does. He's not actually causing the pain and suffering of the people on the island, that is their own doing. Jacob's nemesis tries to convince him that it's useless, that people will always destroy themselves, but Jacob has greater faith in the free will of man.
    • Isn’t it possible he is talking about the losties and the possible time loop they have created, as opposed to the attributes of all man kind? What if it is the losties that continue destroying themselves every time and Jacob is just waiting for the last time and the end of the loop?
    • Jacob and his Nemesis represent a duality divided against itself. Jacob can see peoples' destinies (consider his comments about the way it ends, and about someone coming); Nemesis can access their memories (cf. his apparitions' repeated references to past recollection). Jacob's knowledge of the eventual future outcome makes him rather aloof (witness his lack of regard for Ben's feeling of injury, or for the effect of Nadia's death on Sayid, etc.); Nemesis, by contrast, is motivated by peoples' experiences and appears to really care about them, but uses them as means (perhaps the man-in-black was also a ghost, someone who knew Jacob and whose living will was to kill him). In Jacob's absence, Nemesis was able to co-opt his followers -- the Others, whose shepherd, obedient to the rules but wedded to the present and essentially clueless, doesn't realize he's been serving the will of an interloper.
  • Jacob is God. He seems to be kind off omnipotent (at least very powerful), be able to predict the future (he seemed to be aware that Locke would be pushed from the building, that Sawyer would need a pen etc) and know very much.
    • Ben said to Jack that God couldn't see the Island any better than the rest of the world.
      • Ben lied (Ben often lies and Jacob seems to want to be mysterious).
      • Ben didn't know that Ben is God.
  • He is a man obsessed by some greater event that he don’t wanna to occur, and with this he ignore other peoples wills, like the Nemesis.

Actions

See also Jacob's cabin/Theories
  • When Jacob asks Ilana for help in "The Incident, Parts 1 & 2", he is asking her to insure Sayid is on Ajira 316.
  • According to Ben, Jacob makes lists of "good" and "bad" people, but to date, we have only seen Ben collect information about who is good and bad through Mikhail. Furthermore, Locke described a more democratic process to Kate that the Others had carried out to decide if a person is good and deserves to be on the Island or not. This process is apparently not limited to the survivors of Oecanic 815, since Ben infers to consensus having been reached about Goodwin being a "good man" and reliable enough to judge Ana Lucia's character and vouch for her. This theory indicates that Jacob may not have the final say.

"They are coming"

  • In "The Incident, Parts 1 & 2", Jacob's last words were "They are coming." He said this to the false Locke who his is the man in black from the opening. Jacob knew of the loophole and "touched" the lives of the Oceanic survivors and specific others for them to play a key part in the coming war over the island. This war has been alluded to by Bram, "Jeremy Bentham" and Charles Widmore.
    • When Jacob is talking with Nemesis, he states that "it only ends once". The coming war will be very big, something we haven't experienced in the series so far, and it will be a fateful battle. Every single conflict, death, suffer, choice was just a progress for this war to happen, and this big conflict will deside the fate of the Island forever.
  • When Jacob says these words, he is speaking in reference to the Time Travelling Losties, i.e Sawyer, Juliet, Miles, Jin, Jack, Kate, Hurley and Sayid that they are coming back to 2008 from 1977 because he knows that at the exact same moment but 30 years earlier they are performing the tasks they did in The Incident, 1 & 2. This would mean that when Juliet "detonated" jughead, the white flash we all saw isn't a bomb but is going to shove them all back to the future where they belong on The Island.
  • Jacob is the keeper of time. His rule that "you cannot change the past" has been explained by many of his followers, particularly Eloise Hawking and then her son Daniel Faraday. However, by dying, he knows that the castaways can change the course of time. Jughead didn't detonate when Jack initially dropped it because Jacob didn't allow it to happen. However, in his death, he can no longer control time. He knows what is happening, and warns that "they're coming", as in Juliet is changing the space-time continuum by hitting Jughead and detonating it.

The Loophole

  • In "The Incident, Parts 1 & 2", Richard stated that only the leader was supposed to see Jacob. The Loophole is that Jacob can only be killed by the Leader of his people. With the real Locke dead, Ben unknowingly regained his title as Leader, which is why the Nemesis, posing as Locke and Alex, manipulated Ben into killing Jacob rather than doing it himself.
    • Nemesis cannot kill Jacob for reasons unknown, but only the leader of the Others may see Jacob. Therefore his enemy needed a leader of the Others to kill Jacob on his behalf. Ben was asked to be patient if he wanted to see Jacob. He was patient, and this was it. He was brought to Jacob as the unknowing leader of the Others but was manipulated by "Locke" into killing Jacob.
  • The loophole has to do with there being more than one leader at a time. This is because FLocke tells Richard he is bringing Ben to see Jacob, and Richard objects saying that only the leader can meet with Jacob, and there can only be one leader at a time. At this point FLocke becomes aggressive and dismisses Richard's objection. This could be because "the rules" that are protecting Jacob were made assuming the others only had one leader, and the presence of two leaders would nullify most of them.
  • The loophole isn't that complex. Nemesis can not kill Jacob so he has to get someone else to kill Jacob. The rules about only the leader being able to visit Jacob may only be a rule that Jacob has invented so that he doesn't get bothered all the time by their petty squables. Anyone can go see him at any time but that he would be annoyed and banish/kill them. All the plotting done by Nemesis could simply have been done to make Ben hate Jacob so much that he wants to kill him.
    • The loophole is simply that Nemesis isn't allowed to kill Jacob. His first plan to get around this is to sort of "borrow" Locke. He takes on Locke's form and memories. This explains how he remembered Locke's death. The reason this plan didn't work was that while he is borrowing Locke's form and has in a sense become Locke, he is still Nemesis and still isn't allowed to kill Jacob. It is at this point that he uses the Monster to probe Ben and discovers some resentment of Jacob, and then proceeds to maneuver Ben into killing Jacob.
  • A "loophole" is required due to time travel. If Jacob and his enemy have travelled through time then certain rules have to be observed to avoid a paradox. The two of them have experienced the same "time loop" several times, because they are trying to influence events to bring about a certain conclusion that is beneficial to one or both of them. Jacob says: "it only ends once, anything else is progress," which implies that they have already attempted this many times before. Jacob's enemy sees this as failure, so he wants to rid himself of Jacob. But due to their time travelling he is unable to without causing a logic paradox, or else this changes events to such an extent it leads to his own demise as well.

Identity

Extra-Terrestrial Life

  • Jacob, along with his nemesis, are groups of highly evolved superior beings, manifesting themselves in human or non-human entities to help advance humanity. They could have appeared as gods to Egyptian people as well as memories of the Island people's past, or basically anything supernatural that has appeared concerning the Island. Determining whether people are "special" or not determines if they can be a suitable vessel for a being to spread knowledge to humankind - those who have died but continue to appear in conscious forms are vessels used either by other beings or by Jacob/his nemesis. Jacob's nemesis (and possibly others) do not necessarily believe that humanity should be blessed with their intelligence or knowledge of the universe. When Jacob declares "They're coming" before dying, he speaks of the rest of their race to see how their activity with humankind has gone, and to determine their fate as well as mankind's.


A man like Desmond

  • He is just a man, obsessed by the power of travel time by mind, like the power of Desmond, but very trained. His obsession by the responsibility over some greater event that he don’t wanna to occur has made him alter time many, many times, traveling to past and creating adjusts, but he fails ever and his Nemesis knows his plans and hate to do not have free will and to repeat his steps all over again.

Anubis

  • Jacob is the eqyptian Anubis. There has been a lot of evidence to show egyptian influence on the island. Jacob's nemesis appears as other people, as the Monster has been confirmed to do. Nemesis is the Monster, and the hieroglyphs in the Cerberus chamber show Anubis facing the Monster. "The Incident, Parts 1 & 2" shows that Jacob and Nemesis are opposing forces.
  • The mural in the Tunnels, from "Dead Is Dead" is of the Smoke Monster versus Anubis. Jacob's nemesis is the Smoke Monster, and Jacob is Anubis. This explains his connection to Egypt and his 'immortality'.

The Shepard Family Patriarch

  • Four equivalent generations of the Shepard family have now been introduced: Ray, Christian, Claire, and Aaron. The same lineage would be established by Jacob being Ray's father.
    • Christian has stated he speaks for Jacob.
    • After her disappearance, Claire was found to be comfortably staying in Jacob's cabin with Christian.
      • (Secondary evidence) In the Bible, Jacob is the great-great-grandfather of Aaron. This alone isn't evidence for anything, but just supports the theory. LOST has Biblical reference intertwined with others. This is an illusion to where the show is going.
        • I keep seeing this, but it is in error. Jacob (later Israel) was the patriarch of the Israelite nation, and led his family to Egypt because of a famine. Aaron was the brother of Moses when the Israelites left Egypt over 400 years later. If a generation is on average 20 years, then there are 20 generations separating the two. It doesn't eliminate the possibility that Jacob could be an ancestor of Aaron on the show, however.

Aaron is Jacob

  • A RED HERRING was given in the season finale of LOST season 5 to reveal who Jacob really is. At the very beginning of the Incident pt.1 episode, we see Jacob in his chamber "wielding a thread" and as the camera looks at certain aspects of the chamber it suddenly flashes to a FIRE in the middle of the room; only a second or two later, the camera then flashes right to a scene of the ocean(WATER)where Jacob has come to collect a fish(Red Herring). Therefore, by the work of the camera, the writers created a FIRE+WATER sequence.
    • If we remember episode 12 in season two named FIRE+WATER, which was titled in allusion to the baptismal experience described by John the Baptist in Matthew 3:11-17, Charlie frantically attempts to persuade Claire to allow her baby Aaron to be baptized so he will be saved. At the end of the episode we see Aaron is indeed baptized by Eko who has appointed himself a priest. Therein lies the connection between Aaron and Jacob, and the relevance of the FIRE+WATER episode is revealed.
    • There are also the facts that Aaron and Jacob have the striking resemblances of blonde hair and blue eyes, the DS(Dexter-Stratton) ring given to Aaron by Charlie before his death is for some reason found by Sun at the 815 survivor's old camp on the beach in the Incident season 5 finale episode, and the all important significance of Aaron has not yet been revealed. Therefore, there is a time loop or change that is to be shown at the beginning of season 6 that will reveal this connection.
    • A red herring, however, isn't a hidden clue, it is something that is meant to mislead you...
  • One allusion to the fact that Aaron is Jacob is in S5E1 Because you left, Kate touches Aaron on the nose and tells him that choo choo won't be in trouble, when in The Incident Jacob touches a young Kate on the nose and tells her to stay out of trouble.
  • The body that Jacob inhabits at the beginning of The Incident is a grown up version of Aaron, but Jacob stole this body from his nemesis. This is why Jacob's nemesis wants to kill Jacob so badly, because he is inhabiting his original body, leaving him a formless entity, the smoke monster. Fun fact: "Jacob" means "the supplanter."

One Entity of the Smoke Monster

  • the smoke monster is indeed connected to the mythological Cerberus (the three headed guard dog of Hades), then the three heads/entities of Cerberus on the island are Jacob, Jacob's nemesis and the Monster.
    • It has been confirmed that the Monster can take other forms (Yemi, Kate's horse, etc), and this would explain why both Jacob and Jacob's Enemy can also (Jacob into Christian, Nemesis into Locke).
Locke gazes up at the Monster, which could actually be Jacob.
Mr Eko confronting the Monster, which could be Jacob's nemesis.
  • When Locke first encountered the monster he said to Jack "I've looked into the eye of this Island... and what I saw was beautiful." At this point he could have infact seen a manifestation of Jacob. When everybody else has seen the Monster (the black smoke), they have seen the manifestation of Jacob's nemesis. As only the Leaders can see Jacob. However, before getting dragged through the Jungle by the monster, Locke appeared afraid of it's approach, suggesting a different entity.

Jacob's nemesis

Up until the Season 5 finale, "The Incident, Parts 1 & 2", we have only been told about Jacob from characters such as Ben, Mikhail, and other Others. We finally meet him in the Season 5 finale. It is obvious that Jacob's nemesis has fooled at least Ben and Richard (and us as viewers) into thinking he was Locke. Theory: He also fooled Locke into thinking he was speaking for Jacob in "Cabin Fever." He has also fooled everyone else into thinking he was Jacob. The character we have been lead to believe is Jacob, was actually Nemesis all the time. Consider how benevolent Jacob is portrayed in the season finale. This seems in stark contrast to how he has been depicted previously. Also keep in mind, all of the events leading up to the point when Ben kills Jacob has been orchestrated by the man in the cabin (Nemesis), who was simply claiming to be Jacob the whole time.

  • Nemesis, from the very beginning, understood Ben's desire to be special and manipulated him in this way.
  • Nemesis says something to the affect of "You have no idea what I've gone through to be here" when he confronts Jacob, suggesting he has been working on this plan for years, possibly decades.
  • The "loophole" has something to do with Nemesis not being able to kill Jacob by his own hand, and manipulating that process would take years of manipulation to get someone to kill another man for you.
  • When Ben confronts Jacob, Jacob says "I don't know what he's told you... but you have a choice" suggesting that Jacob would never give commands or orders, again contradicting what we've seen or heard of Jacob up until that point.
  • Richard tells John (who we learn later is Nemesis) that "Jacob" keeps him young, and "Jacob" helped John walk. In both cases, Nemesis benefited which would lead one to believe that it was actually Nemesis who granted these powers.
  • Richard might be seen as merely a custodian, put in place by Nemesis to identify a leader worthy enough of killing Jacob. To clarify, Jacob (Nemesis) was playing Richard as well.
  • Ben actually got his commands written down from Jacob and delivered by Richard. Richard obviously knew the true location of Jacob. The Jacob shown to us was caring and good. Ben might have taken Locke to a cabin where he thought Jacob was or just a cabin that he knew about that happened to be inhabited by Nemesis. Because Ben has never met Jacob until the Season 5 finale. Richard also seems to be good. He is disturbed by the new Locke's actions and if he was helping Nemesis, then he would be aware of his intentions somehow. Therefore it is doubtful he would be looking for a leader to kill Jacob, Jacob gave him a gift.

The Grey Substance

Death

  • Jacob is not dead because of the actions of the losties in the 1970s. The bomb goes off in 1977 doing everything that Jack and Daniel predicted, in which Oceanic 815 never crashes. Even though Locke could still be on Ajira 316 and make it to the island, he would not have been the Other's leader and therefore would have had no power over Richard, the Others or anyone else.
    • Jacob planned the events in 1977 so that he could prevent his own death in 2007. He's known about his enemy's plan to kill him, and has been trying to change the events in the past by manipulating the "Variables" (Jack, Locke, etc) into stopping their own plane crash, thus stopping Locke from ever reaching the Island, thus stopping his enemy from possessing him, thus preventing his death.
  • Rule: "Only the leader can kill Jacob". With only Jacob and his nemesis on the island in the beginning of "The Incident, Parts 1 & 2", Jacob cannot be killed since there is no actual leader. Every leader that has followed (Eloise, Widmore, etc) wouldn't fall into the trap of being manipulated into killing Jacob. Nemesis manipulates everyone into thinking Locke is the leader, but he was never Jacob's chosen leader. That is why Ben is the one who has to kill Jacob and Locke/Nemesis can't. Ben is still the true leader of the Others (the follwers of Jacob).
  • In "The Incident, Parts 1 & 2", when Ilana says to Bram (about Lapidus), "Is the a candidate?" she is talking about a candidate for Jacob to take over their body once his is "killed" by Nemesis. Jacob will be re-incarnated in Lapidus (named the candidate), following the reunion of those that Jacob touched.
  • Jacob is not dead because in 2008 when he meets Hurley in the cab Hurley thinks that Jacobs must be dead because he was waiting for him. But Jacob himself replies to Hurley that he is "definitely not dead". And this happens one year after 2007 when Jacob was "killed" by Ben.
  • Jacob is not dead. He foresaw the futures of the Oceanic 815 group, and he foresaw his nemesis' plan and made his own plan to counter it.

"Light" vs. "Dark"

Since the very beginning of the show, it has alluded to a struggle between 'dark' and 'light' forces from the Island, and explored both the duality and ambiguity of these concepts in numerous contexts. "The Incident, Parts 1 & 2" revealed more about the motivations for this conflict (on both sides) than has been gleaned from entire series prior to this. In doing so, it also provides perspective and a sense of purpose to previous events (in terms of episode chronology) with causes and motives hitherto unknown: (all referenced in ("The Incident, Parts 1 & 2"))

  • The initial discussion between Jacob and Nemesis is reminiscent of the devil's conversation with God regarding Job. Also like the discussion regarding finding good people in Sodom.
  • This is further demonstrated by Jacob wearing as white shirt and his 'nemisis' wearing a black one.
  • Jacob is ostensibly cast as 'light', and the man who desires to kill him as 'dark'. The fact that Nemesis has been driven to such great lengths by his desire to kill Jacob - and that Jacob is (eventually) willing to accept his fate as a 'loophole' in the somewhat metaphysical 'rules' both sides apparently have to abide by - tallies with our 'superficial' sense of what is good and evil.
  • 'The Incident' also showed Jacob 'intervening' in the pre-Island lives of many of the Oceanic survivors who become central to the conflict. To each one he delivers a message, perhaps what he believes they 'need to hear' at that time and, crucially, he touches each one of them. It seems clear that Jacob's intervention and direct contact with these few at key moments in their lives is necessary for him to shape their destinies. One way of summarising this is to say Jacob has power over the fate of the living, or can influence the shape of the future through other people.
    • Jacob significantly touching each of the people he meets in the past may be directly opposite to his 'Nemesis', as (assuming as some theories do, that Jacob's Nemesis is the Monster, and the Monster is also appearing as Christian Shepard) Christian specifically says to Locke in This Place is Death that he cannot help him up - thereby he cannot touch someone.
  • By contrast, we see very little of Jacob's 'nemesis' in the episode, and learn little concrete about him beyond a matter-of-fact statement of his intentions, and allusions to their conflict being cyclical in nature (even if that cycle is a 'time-loop' with no apparent beginning).
  • Thematically, Jacob represents a belief in the good part of ourselves, and human nature as a whole, and the resulting hope for the future, regardless of the hardships that must be endured. It is this part of Ben he seems to express disappointment in when he asks "What about you?". At this point, Ben has become so totally disempowered by regret and bitterness that he no longer recognises his own status or significance in matters. Everything becomes about why Jacob never spoke to him directly, and everything he lost in the past.
  • Jacob never spoke to any of the previous leaders (such as Eloise). It seems likely that Richard has always functioned as a go-between between Jacob and the Islanders - analogous to an angel acting as the 'mouthpiece of God'.
  • What if it turns out, that Jacob is the bad guy? Perhaps the slightly off topic episode "Exposé" was a hint in this direction with revealing that LaShade wasn't the "good" boss but the the true villain the "Cobra". In fact, if you think about Jacob's meetings with the small Kate, small Sawyer, the married Sayid and the fallen Locke, then he always influenced their lives in a bad way: Kate doesn't learn that the breaking of rules (stealing) has consequences. Jacob helped Sawyer to write his letter by giving him a new pen otherwise Sawyer propably wouldn't seek vengeance his whole life. And if Jacob hadn't asked Sayid a question at the street, Nadja would have no reason to stop standing in the middle of the street (just to be hit by a car). She could have told Sayid about her keys while they both were walking. For Locke: perhaps he was supposed to die, because all what came after his fall from the window was false hope and being ripped off.
  • Jacob is the "Dark" one - the bad guy, and his nemesis is the good guy. Evidence: Revisit their conversation at the beginning of "The Incident" when they talk about Jacob "bringing" more people to the island and the nemesis says (paraphrasing) "when people come to the island, it always ends the same, they destroy, they become corrupt" and Jacob says his line about there only being one ending. Watch the scene carefully. The man in the dark shirt appears to be bemoaning the fact that coming to the island is what MAKES people like that, which is why Jacob wants them to come there. More Evidence: It has bothered me all along that when Ben said "What about me?" Jacob very coldly said, "What about you?". Jacob doesn't care about people - he WANTS them to destroy and become corrupt. More Evidence: We know that Richard "works for" Jacob. When Richard visits John Locke as a child, Richard becomes visibly angry when John chooses the knife. Richard knows this indicates that LOCKE will be the instrument through which Jacob's nemesis will kill Jacob (which he does indirectly through Ben, since he can't do it himself).
  • Jacob isn't dead in our definition of "dead." As Titus Welliver said- "It can't be that easy to get rid of Jacob."

His role in the coming war

  • Nemesis wasn't mad because Jacob was bringing people to Island, he got mad when Jacob said: "It only ends once, everything else is progress". There is a war coming but it's not between Jacob and his nemesis. Someone else is going to come into the picture. Nemesis didn't like Jacob's plans for the war (or maybe Jacob was starting the war) so he got mad at him and that's why he got angry at the end "The Incident, Parts 1 & 2" and kicked Jacob into the fire after Jacob said "they're coming."

Jacob's relationship to Locke

In 1954 Locke visits Richard and tells him he is Leader and that he was sent by Jacob, Richard claims that he could not be leader because there is a complex process through which the others determine the hierarchy within their group that starts from a young age. So Locke instructs him to begin this process with his birth that is going to happen in the next few years. Locke has set down the groundwork that will later make him assigned Leader of the Others.

  1. In 1977 Richard is still unconvinced that Locke is special but Jack tells him not to give up on Locke.
  2. In circa 2000, Jacob, perhaps prompted by the 1977 discussion between Jack and Richard, visited John Locke in the moments following his defenestration. He touches Locke which apparently brings him back to life and could have bestowed on Locke certain powers akin to the Agelessness of Richard. The unknown powers are also bestowed on Christian Shephard.
  3. Locke meets with Jacob again in the "The Incident, Parts 1 & 2". Locke is making reference to this moment when he says that he has met Jacob "in a manner of speaking". What he means to say is that he has met Jacob but at the time did not know who Jacob was or Jacob's name. Locke cannot kill Jacob directly because his life and powers were given to him by Jacob.
    • Except that the so called John Locke confirmed to Jacob, at that very moment,that he finally found his loophole... At the beginning of the incident episode, we can see Jacob's Nemesis telling to Jacob that someday he will find a loophole to kill him. Therefore, the real John Locke is definitely dead, and the living John Locke is no more, no less than Jacob's Nemesis.

Jacob orchestrated his own death

  • In "The Incident, Parts 1 & 2", Jacob is seen reading Everything That Rises Must Converge before his first encounter with Locke off the island. The cover of this book illustrates a flying dove which is shot down by an arrow. A literal meaning would be that Jacob must die (converge) after his rule over the island (rise). It is his destiny to die, that is why he willingly accepts it and shows no opposition to Ben knifing him.
  • He carried out an elaborate scheme to manipulate his nemesis into the act by providing him with the tools he needed: the body of a dead leader with which to infiltrate the Others (Locke) and a willing hit man (Ben). The evidence for this is Jacob's behavior at the end: not only did he not try to escape or defend himself against Ben, he actually goaded Ben into striking. Jacob has been abusing Ben over the years in order to build up murderous resentment.
  • In support of this theory, consider Ben's interaction with the Smoke Monster in "Dead Is Dead". Assuming Locke/Nemesis' surprise at what the Smoke Monster told Ben to do was authentic, that was part of the "elaborate scheme" to make Jacob "more powerful than his nemesis could possibly imagine."
  • The man we(LP) call Jacob's nemesis is not his nemesis, but his friend. He is trying to help Jacob. Killing Jacob in that physical form is some sort of release that will allow him to become more powerful. When the man in black tells Jacob in the opening scene that he will find a loophole and kill him one day, that is actually a way of telling him he will help him out by releasing him from his human form one day. The upcoming war can only take place if both Jacob and the man in black are free from bondage in a human body.