ld Testament patriarch Jacob reads like a romance.
He was the younger of the two sons of Isaac, and was at a great
disadvantage on this account. Among his people the eldest son always
became the family heir and also received the choicest blessing from
the father, a privilege coveted as much as wealth. In this case
therefore the privileged son was Jacob's brother Esau. Jacob resented
keenly the inequality of his lot; and his mother sympathized with him,
as he was her favorite. A feeling of enmity grew up between the
brothers, and in the end Jacob did Esau a great wrong.

One day Esau came in from hunting, nearly starved, and finding his
younger brother cooking some lentils, begged a portion of it for
himself. Jacob seized the chance to make a sharp bargain. He offered
his brother the food--which is called in the quaint Bible language a
"mess of pottage"--making him promise in return that he would let
their father give his blessing to the younger instead of the older
son. Esau was a careless fellow, too hungry to think what he was
saying, and so readily yielded.

But though Esau might sell his birthright in this fashion, the father
would not have been willing to give the blessing to the younger son,
had it not been for a trick planned by the mother. The old man was
nearly blind, and knew his sons apart by the touch of their skin, as
Esau had a rough, hairy skin and Jacob a smooth one. The mother put
skins of kids upon Jacob's hands and neck and bade him go to his
father pretending to be Esau, and seek his blessing. The trick was
successful, and when a little later Esau himself came to his father on
the same errand, he found that he had been superseded. Naturally he
was very angry, and vowed vengeance on his brother. Jacob, fearing for
his life, fled into a place called Padanaram.

In this place he became a prosperous cattle farmer and grew very rich.
He married there also and had a large family of children. After
fourteen years he bethought himself of his brother Esau and the great
wrong he had done him. He resolved to remove his family to his old
home, and to be reconciled with his brother. Hardly daring to expect
to be favorably received, he sent in advance a large number of cattle
in three droves as a gift to Esau. Then he awaited over night some
news or message from his brother. In the night a strange adventure
befell him. This is the way the story is told in the book of
Genesis.[2]

[Footnote 2: Genesis, chapter