Jacob

Jacob is a Bible-story patriarch whose life Bernard Walton loves to recount to young listeners at Whit's End - a twin whose feud with his brother Esau starts before the two are even born. A trickster by nature, he buys Esau's birthright for a bowl of stew and, wearing goatskins on his smooth arms, deceives his blind father into giving him the blessing meant for his brother. When Esau vows to kill him, Jacob runs for his life, and God meets him under the stars in a dream of a staircase crowded with angels. The trickster gets tricked in turn by Laban, who switches brides on him after seven years of labor for Rachel. Father of a large family, Jacob openly favors his son Joseph, giving him a beautiful coat of many colors.