Tikva Frymer-Kensky reminds us that deception is a necessary tool of the powerless: “The biblical world valued cunning in the underdog. Only the powerful value honesty at all costs.” [emphasis added]
Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Reading the Women of the Bible: A New Interpretation of their Stories (New York: Schocken, 2002), 19; quoted in Meira Z. Kensky, “Jacob’s Struggle at Jabbok: The Limits of Strategy”
True? Even for themselves? But if so … why does that bother me so much?
Matters of Interpretation 