It was the custom with some of the older commentators to write as though their loyalty to God’s Spirit required that they should show that the acts of the Old Testament saints were all of them consistent with the highest morality. This was specially evident in their remarks on the career of the patriarch whose name stands on our title page. Ingenious attempts have been made to palliate episodes and transactions in his life, which at first sight certainly conflict with our conceptions of righteousness.

It was this that led me in the first instance to prepare this book. I wrote it with the avowed purpose of telling the story of Jacob’s life, extenuating nothing; portraying his failures as well as his victories; and endeavouring to show that the Word of God does not hesitate to describe the imperfections and native deformities of its most conspicuous characters, because of the incalculable benefit which may accrue in the two following directions.

First, mankind is taught that the love of God is not determined by what it finds in man. God loves, not because we are good, but to make us so. He is not surprised by the evil He discovers in us, and His loving-kindness is not turned away by our sin.

Secondly, it is a great comfort to find that the saints of Bible story were men of like passions with ourselves; and if God was able to shape materials so rough into vessels so fair, there is hope that He will not fail nor be discouraged until He has done the like for us.

It will also be a great pleasure if these pages will serve to show some of my fellow-workers, weary with the incessant demands of their congregations, how they may find a constant well-spring of freshness, variety, and interest, in the glorious biographies of Scripture. To recruit a dwindling congregation; to sustain interest in a crowded one; to awaken new devotion to the Bible; and to touch the many chords of human life—there is nothing to be compared with a reverent re-telling of the stories of Bible Heroes and Saints.

—F. B. MEYER

This classic includes the following chapters:

I. First Impressions (Genesis 25)
II. The Sale of the Birthright (Genesis 25)
III. The Stolen Blessing (Genesis 27)
IV. The Angel-Ladder (Genesis 28)
V. The Noble Resolve (Genesis 28)
VI. The Education of Home (Genesis 29)
VII. The Mid-Passage of Life (Genesis 30)
VIII. The Stirring-Up of the Nest (Genesis 31)
IX. The Midnight Wrestle (Genesis 32)
X. Failure (Genesis 33, 34)
XI. Back to Bethel (Genesis 35)
XII. The School of Sorrow (Genesis 35, 42)
XIII. Glimpses of the Israel-Nature (Genesis 47)
XIV. Rest and the Rest Giver (Genesis 49)
XV. Home: At Last (Genesis 50)
XVI. The God of Jacob (Psalm 46)