more appeal. "Art thou," he asked, "my very son Esau?" and
Jacob, forced by the first lie to tell another and then another,
replied, "I am."

Isaac ate the food and then blessed Jacob, whom he supposed to be Esau.
He promised a great and prosperous future for him. People and nations
should serve him, and his brothers should bow down to him. Scarcely
had Jacob left his father, when Esau came back with the food his father
had asked him to bring and claimed the blessing.

When Isaac realized that he had been deceived he told Esau that he
could not recall the promises he had made to the one who had brought
him the food, and then Esau, who had sold his birthright, and now had
been tricked out of the blessing that was rightfully his, cried out
bitterly, "Bless me, even me also, O my father."

Then Isaac told him that it was his brother Jacob who had robbed him,
and Esau replied, "Is not he rightly named Jacob? for he hath
supplanted me these two times: he took away my birthright; and, behold,
now he hath taken away my blessing. Hast thou not reserved a blessing
for me?" And then in the bitterness of his heart he wept.

Moved by Esau's distress, Isaac did bless him, but the promises he made
were different from those he had given Jacob. He told Esau that he
should live by the sword, that he should serve his brother, but that
the time would come when he would break away from his brother's rule.

Esau hated his brother after this and made threats that he would kill
him after their father died. His mother heard of these threats and was
afraid he would carry them out, so she proposed that Jacob should go to
her brother Laban and stay with him until Esau's anger had cooled.
Isaac agreed to this and told him also to choose a wife among Laban's
daughters.

Before Jacob's departure Isaac blessed him, once more telling him that
he and his descendants should have the land which God had promised to
Abraham and his family. So the mother and her favorite son parted.
Their deceit had given Jacob the blessing that should have been Esau's,
but Rebekah was never to see Jacob again.

Jacob started on his journey to his uncle's house, and when night came
lay down to sleep, making a pillow of stones for his head. In his
sleep a wonderful dream or vision came to him. He saw a ladder with
its foot resting on the earth and its top reaching to heaven. Upon
this ladder angels went up and down, while at the top stood God
Himself, who