Jacob a liar and stealer

Regarding the deception:

"....but when circumstances call for it, He may, as a man without unrighteousness deceives a wild beast, to its capture and destruction, “send strong delusion” upon the perverse, “that they may believe a lie” (2 Thess. 2:11). On this principle we read, “If the prophet (that is, the idolatrous prophet: see context) be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I, the Lord, have deceived that prophet” (Ezek. 14:9). And again in the parable uttered before Ahab by Micaiah, the prophet of Jehovah: “There came forth a spirit and stood before the Lord and said, I will persuade him (Ahab, to go up to battle). And the Lord said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, … Go forth and do so. Now, therefore, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets” (1 Kings 22:21–23). Applying this principle to the case in hand, we may understand that God stirred up Rebekah to deceive Isaac, that Isaac might be defeated in the wrong use of the divine gift of blessing which rested upon him.
The difficulty in understanding such instances arises principally from our preconceived notions on the subject of “morality”. Human speculation, alias philosophy falsely so-called, has evolved the assumption that “morality” (as men speak) is a fixed element in the constitution of things; and to this “morality” they have imagined God is as much subject as His creatures. The fact is—as the Scriptures reveal, and nature accurately studied attests—that there is no such thing as fixed morality at all. The question of right and wrong is determinable in all things by the appointment of the eternal Creator. It is a simple question of what He has commanded. With Him is sovereign and irresponsible authority. “None may say unto him, What doest thou?” He may command a man to kill, and it is then sin not to kill, as in the case of Saul with the Amalekites; and righteousness to kill, as in the case of Samuel with Agag, on the same occasion; while when He chooses to command, “Thou shalt not kill”, he that even hates his brother becomes a murderer. This simple principle relieves the subject of the world of difficulty that human philosophy has created. It explains, too, how it is that the belief of the gospel is righteousness, and enables us to realize how unutterably out of the right way is the present generation, with all their educated contempt for the promises and the commandments of God."


Roberts, R. (1990). The Ways of Providence (38–39).