Jacob is the most experienced father of adult sons in the Bible—not because he was exemplary from the beginning, but because he lived long enough to see how deeply a father’s character shapes the lives of his children. He was the father of twelve sons, the heads of the tribes of Israel, yet his fatherhood was marked by favoritism, conflict, deception, grief, and finally hard-won wisdom. Jacob did not merely raise sons; he endured them, lost them, feared them, blessed them—an