The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Farmer Boy; the Story of Jacob, by J. H. Willard

Title: The Farmer Boy; the Story of Jacob

Author: J. H. Willard

Release Date: January 9, 2005 [eBook #14643]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FARMER BOY; THE STORY OF JACOB***

[Frontispiece]

ALTEMUS' CHILDREN OF THE BIBLE SERIES

THE FARMER BOY

THE STORY OF JACOB

BY

J. H. WILLARD

ILLUSTRATED

Philadelphia
Henry Altemus Company

Altemus' Illustrated Children of the Bible Series

The Boy who Obeyed: The Story of Isaac
The Farmer Boy: The Story of Jacob
The Favorite Son: The Story of Joseph
The Adopted Son: The Story of Moses
The Boy General: The Story of Joshua
The Boy at School: The Story of Samuel
The Shepherd Boy: The Story of David
The Boy who would be King: The Story of Absalom
The Captive Boy: The Story of Daniel
The Boy Jesus

THE FARMER BOY

THE STORY OF JACOB

Abraham, the father of the great Israelitish, or Hebrew, nation, was the chief, or sheikh, as he would be called now, of his family or tribe, and with his flocks of sheep, herds of cattle, camels and other animals, servants and followers, moved from place to place, adding to his wealth as time went on and making for himself a respected name wherever he went.

God chose Abraham to be the founder of this mighty nation, and at his death promised a continuation of His favor to his son Isaac, who had married Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel, who was Abraham's nephew. Isaac was an only son and inherited his father's great wealth.

[Illustration: Abraham, the Founder of a Nation.]

Isaac and Rebekah had twin sons whose names were Esau and Jacob, and perhaps no brothers were ever more unlike in their dispositions. Esau grew up to be a hunter. Nothing pleased him so much as to take his bow and arrows and spend days away from home in the pursuit of deer, from whose flesh he made food which his father liked.

Among other customs of that time which seem strange to us now was that of rich men and their wives and their sons as well preparing food with their own hands, although it is done in the East to some extent in these days.

Abraham was certainly a rich man with a host of servants at command, yet the Bible tells us that Sarah, his wife, prepared with her own hands the food for the strangers who visited the patriarch as he sat in the door of his tent by the Oaks of Mamre. We can understand then that the sons of Isaac, who were even richer than his father, prepared food themselves.

Esau was looked upon as the older son and treated accordingly. There were