Jon Fortt and David Tieche close the Jacob cycle with Esau — the hairy, hot-headed hunter Jacob cheated out of a birthright and a blessing — and the reunion that turns out to be the whole season's defining moment.

It's a rare kind of Bible story, they note: no clean villain and hero, but two brothers who each change messily. Since the womb (Genesis 25) they've struggled — "the older will serve the younger" — Esau born red and hairy, Jacob grabbing his heel. Isaac favored Esau, the man's-man who brought home venison; Rebekah favored smooth-skinned Jacob in the kitchen, and led the trickery that sent Jacob running for his life.

Now Jacob comes home to face the brother he wronged — and Esau is riding out with 400 men. In "great fear and distress" Jacob splits his family into two camps so one can flee. Unlike Laban, whom God warned off in a dream, Esau has had no such warning, and unlike Laban his grievance is justified. But something has shifted: where Jacob used to hide at the rear as a human shield, after wrestling God he walks out front and bows to the ground seven times.

Esau's answer is the hinge of the episode: he runs, throws his arms around Jacob's neck, kisses him, and they weep. Jacob presses gifts on him — offering away, ironically, the very kind of blessing he once stole — and the brothers trade "no, you keep it, the Lord has blessed me," both finally naming God as their provider. It reads as restitution, the hosts say — Zacchaeus paying back fourfold — a real sign of a changed heart.

And then the line they linger on: "seeing your face is like seeing the face of God." Jacob's God-encounters have climbed from Bethel's distant angels to Mahanaim's army to the all-night wrestling — and now, face to face with the brother he feared, the same words. Loving God and loving your brother, they argue (the Shema and 1 John), are one thing: leave your gift at the altar and go reconcile first.

It isn't tidy. Jacob promises to follow Esau to Seir, then quietly heads to Succoth instead — Jon calls it one more trick — and the brothers never settle together. But years later they stand side by side at Mamre to bury their father Isaac, and the favoritism that tore them apart is buried with him. Esau's run-and-embrace, the hosts note, is the very picture Jesus would later paint of the prodigal's father — the God who runs to the one coming home.

Along the way: the John Williams strings swelling; Esau's venison, chicken wings, and football against Jacob's "typist hands"; a little Alanis Morissette irony; Samson torching Philistine fields with foxes; and why it mattered that, in that culture, important men don't run.

Genesis 25 and 32-35. The finale of Season 2 — next up, maybe, Joseph. Jon's calling it a cliffhanger.

Part of Character Study with Jon Fortt and David Tieche — a walk through the people of Scripture: their flaws, their faith, and what they reveal.