Jacob reaches for his brother’s heel before he is even born. The name says everything: Yaakov, heel-grabber, supplanter, one who comes from behind to take what belongs to another.

And when he steals his brother’s blessing, dressed in Esau’s clothes with goatskin on his hands, his blind father’s hands moving across him in the dim light, God allows it to stand.

The stolen blessing holds. Isaac cannot take it back. And Jacob, the deceiver, becomes Israel, the one who wrestles with God and prevails.

Honesty is a covenant virtue. Deception is a covenant violation. And yet the covenant travels forward through Jacob’s hands.