Among biblical figures there are few viewed with as much ambiguity as Jacob. On the one hand, Jacob is a patriarch, his name becomes Israel, he is the one chosen by God to inhabit the land for the promised descendants of God's covenant people. On the other hand, many of the stories we have about Jacob portray him as deceitful, wily, scheming and even dishonest.

This chosen one of God truly had a checkered past. Jacob, the younger, the heel-grabber, appropriated both his brother Esau's birthright and blessing, thus unethically gaining for himself the privileges of the first-born. To achieve this, Jacob intentionally deceived his father, Isaac, while willingly putting his mother, Rebekah, at risk of a curse (Genesis 27:13). Having totally disrupted any semblance of family unity, Jacob then …