The story of Rebecca

Rebecca was a distant relative of Abraham. Looking for a wife for his son Isaac, he had sent a representative to his homeland. The man was enchanted by the friendly, feisty girl he encountered by the water-well, where she handled heavy jugs seemingly without effort.
Without a trace of hesitation, she went with him, to a land far away, to marry a man she had never met, and who was a good deal older than she.
It turned out to be a good decision, because the marriage was a long and happy one, although it took some scheming and manipulating from Rebecca. She also suffered a gruelling pregnancy which made her cry out in pain and despair why she wasn't dead. God answered her - directly, which was extremely unusual - that she carried two nations in her womb and that the elder would serve the younger.
And so she privileged Jacob unashamedly and came up with a host of tricks to make him aquire the first-born rights. It worked, with the help of a goat's skin that she tied around Jacob's wrist so that his blind father would be led to believe it was his very hairy, firstborn brother.
She had to pay a high price however: both her sons disappeared - Esau because he was so very hurt and Jacob because he had to flee his brother's wrath. Neither of them ever came back to her.