Esau marries a Canaanite
In Genesis 28, Isaac blesses Jacob and tells him not to marry a Canaanite, but instead to find one of the daughters of his uncle Laban to marry.
Esau heard about this, and angry about Jacob receiving Isaac’s blessing, he went to Ishmael and married one of his daughters, a Canaanite.
I can’t get over the prejudice!
At this point, Esau is being painted as a bad guy, and Jacob as the blessed brother set up for success. But Jacob screwed his brother Esau out of his birthright, and then his blessing. He has been a terrible person. Yet Esau decided to marry one of the daughters of Ishmael, the son of Abraham, and he is the bad guy, because grandchildren of Abraham are not good enough unless they come from Isaac.
God blesses Jacob
Jacob’s lifelong plotting has worked, and in a dream, God promises to give him many descendants and the promised land – the same promise passed down from Abraham to Isaac. The place where Jacob had this dream was renamed Bethel.
The first tithe
In Bethel, Jacob promised that if God would take care of him, he would give one tenth of all of his possessions back to God. This tradition has been carried through to Christianity today – I was raised with the teaching that 10% of (pre-tax) income needed to be given back to the church or charities. Another cool thread from the past carried through to today.