If he says he'll be with us, will he?

If he says he loves us the way a good father loves his children, does he?

If he says his kindness is a gift, that it's grace that can't and doesn't need to be earned,

is he telling the truth?

This is a story about two fathers.

It's a story about deception and manipulation and the way humans reduce one another to objects, means to a selfish end.

And it's a story about another way.

I'm Justin Gerhardt.

Welcome to Holy Ghost Stories. Jacob blinks back tears.

He looks at Rachel and then back to the baby in his arms.

A son.

Their son.

At last.

Not his first child.

His twelfth. Not his first child, his twelfth, not his first son, his 11th. But this is his first son,

his first child, with Rachel, the woman he's loved for so very long, daughter of his uncle Laban, sister of his first and current wife,

Leah. It's complicated. A long story, easily summed up by one word. Laban, the swindling father

who switched daughters on Jacob's wedding night, Jacob too tired or full of

wine or hungry, to realize until the sun rose what his father-in-law had done, kept Rachel out

of the wedding tent and had his oldest daughter Leah sneak in and consummate a marriage to her instead.

Jacob had stormed into Laban's tent that morning

and come out with an agreement.

...