Stairway to Heaven And [Jacob] dreamed that there was a stairway set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it… Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!” ~Genesis 28:12, 16

The Book of Genesis makes no attempt to conceal the fact that Jacob was, among other things, a crook.  What’s more, you get the feeling that whoever wrote up his seamy adventures got a real kick out of them.  Twice he cheated his lame-brained brother Esau out of what was coming to him.  At least once he took advantage of his old father, Isaac’s, blindness and played him for a sucker…Jacob was never satisfied.  He wanted the moon, and if he’d ever managed to bilk heaven out of that, he would have been back the next morning for the stars to go with it.  But then one day he learned a marvelous lesson in a marvelous and unexpected way. (Frederick Buechner, Peculiar Treasures)