Library

Characters

The people the story turns on, in the words of the King James. Open a chapter and anyone from this shelf who is named there is listed under the title. A genealogy holds many more names than this.

Adam

The first man. He is made in God's image, he disobeys, and the ground is cursed because of him. Paul calls him the figure of the one who was to come.

Eve

She is called the mother of all living. She is deceived, she eats, and she is promised that her seed will bruise the serpent's head.

Cain

He brings an offering the Lord does not respect, and he kills his brother. He goes out from the presence of the Lord.

Abel

His offering is respected. He is killed for it, and he is still spoken of as righteous.

Seth

Born after Abel is killed. From him the line runs to Noah.

Noah

He finds grace in a violent generation. He does what God commands, and his house is kept through the flood.

Abraham

He leaves his country because God speaks. He believes the promise, and it is counted to him for righteousness. He is willing to offer Isaac.

Sarah

She laughs at the promise of a son in her old age. God keeps the promise anyway.

Hagar

Sarah's handmaid. She is sent away, and God hears the boy and sees her.

Ishmael

Abraham's son by Hagar. God hears him in the wilderness and makes a nation of him, but the covenant line is Isaac.

Isaac

The son of promise. He is laid on the altar, spared, and becomes the father of Jacob and Esau.

Rebekah

She leaves her family to marry Isaac. God tells her that two nations are in her womb, and the elder will serve the younger.

Jacob

He grasps the heel and later the blessing. At the ford he is renamed Israel, and he dies blessing his sons.

Esau

He sells his birthright for a meal. The New Testament calls him a profane person.

Leah

The unloved wife. The Lord opens her womb, and the line of Judah, and later David, comes through her.

Rachel

Jacob serves fourteen years for her. She dies on the road, naming her son Ben-oni, the son of my sorrow.

Joseph, son of Jacob

He refuses his master's wife, is sold and imprisoned, and later tells his brothers that they meant evil but God meant it for good.

Judah

He is the brother who says sell Joseph, and later the brother who offers himself in Benjamin's place. The scepter is promised to his line.

Moses

Drawn out of the river, sent back to Pharaoh, and meek above the men of his day. He sees the land and dies outside it.

Aaron

Moses' brother and the first high priest. He also makes the calf, and Moses calls him to account.

Miriam

She leads the song after the sea, and later speaks against Moses and is struck with leprosy.

Joshua

Moses' servant who becomes the leader. He is told to be strong, and he chooses, with his house, to serve the Lord.

Caleb

He and Joshua bring back a good report. He follows the Lord fully, and he is still strong when the land is divided.

Rahab

A harlot in Jericho who hides the spies and is spared. She is named in the line of Jesus.

Deborah

A prophetess and judge. She calls Barak to the battle, and she goes with him when he will not go alone.

Gideon

He is hiding when the angel calls him a mighty man of valour. God cuts his army down so Israel cannot say their own hand saved them.

Samson

A Nazirite from the womb, strong, and careless with his vow. He dies pulling down the house of the Philistines, and he is still listed among the faithful.

Ruth

A Moabite who will not leave Naomi. She takes refuge under the God of Israel, and she is set in the line of David.

Naomi

She goes out full and comes home bitter, and she tells them to call her Mara. The child born to Ruth is laid in her lap.

Boaz

A kinsman who does not ignore Ruth. He redeems the inheritance and takes her as his wife.

Hannah

She asks for a son and gives him back to the Lord. Samuel is the answer to that prayer.

Eli

The priest who blesses Hannah, and the father who does not restrain his sons. The word of the Lord is rare in his day until Samuel hears it.

Samuel

He says, Speak, for thy servant heareth. He judges Israel, and he anoints both Saul and David.

Saul, king of Israel

He is chosen and anointed, then he spares what God told him to destroy. Samuel tells him that to obey is better than sacrifice.

David

A man after God's own heart, and a man who takes another man's wife and is told, Thou art the man. He repents. The promise of a son on his throne outlives his sin.

Jonathan

Saul's son, and David's friend. He loves David as his own soul and gives him the throne he might have claimed.

Abigail

Nabal's wife, and wiser than her husband. She keeps David from bloodguilt, and after Nabal dies David takes her as his wife.

Bathsheba

Uriah's wife. David takes her, the child dies, and Solomon is born to her afterward.

Nathan

The prophet who tells David a story about a stolen lamb, and then says, Thou art the man.

Absalom

David's son. He steals the hearts of Israel, rebels, and dies hanging in an oak. David weeps for him.

Solomon

He asks for an understanding heart, and he is given wisdom and riches. In his old age his wives turn his heart after other gods.

Elijah

He stands alone on Carmel and asks the people how long they will halt between two opinions. Later he asks God to take his life, and God is not done with him.

Elisha

He asks for a double portion of Elijah's spirit and will not leave him. His ministry is full of mercy to ordinary people.

Ahab

He does evil above the kings before him, and he lets Jezebel take Naboth's vineyard. When he humbles himself, the judgment is delayed.

Jezebel

She feeds the prophets of Baal and writes the letters that kill Naboth. Her name is later used for a woman who teaches the church to commit fornication.

Hezekiah

He trusts the Lord more than the kings of Judah around him. When he is told he will die, he prays, and God adds years.

Josiah

He begins to seek the Lord young. When the book of the law is read to him, he tears his clothes.

Job

A perfect and upright man who loses his children, his wealth, and his health, and will not curse God. He also speaks without knowledge, and then he repents.

Isaiah

He sees the Lord high and lifted up, says he is undone, and then says, Here am I; send me.

Jeremiah

Called before he is born. He weeps over a people who will not hear, and he is told not to be afraid of their faces.

Ezekiel

A priest by the river Chebar. He is sent to a rebellious house, whether they will hear or forbear.

Daniel

He purposes in his heart not to defile himself, and he prays with his windows open even when the law forbids it.

Esther

A Jewish woman in a Persian court. She is told that she may have come to the kingdom for such a time as this, and she says, If I perish, I perish.

Mordecai

He will not bow to Haman. He raises Esther, and he is later set over the house of Haman.

Ezra

A scribe of the law of Moses. He prepares his heart to seek the law, to do it, and to teach it.

Nehemiah

He weeps over the broken wall of Jerusalem, prays, and then asks the king for leave to go and build.

Hosea

God tells him to take a wife of whoredoms. His house becomes a picture of Israel's unfaithfulness and of God's refusal to let her go.

Amos

Not a prophet's son, but a herdman. God takes him from the flock and sends him to speak against Israel.

Jonah

A prophet who runs from the presence of the Lord, is heard from the fish, and then is angry when God spares Nineveh.

Jesus

The son promised to save his people from their sins. He is the Word made flesh. He humbles himself, and becomes obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Mary

The King James uses this name for more than one woman. The mother of Jesus calls herself the handmaid of the Lord. Mary Magdalene is the one who meets him at the tomb. Mary of Bethany sits at his feet.

Joseph, husband of Mary

A just man who is told in a dream not to fear to take Mary as his wife. He obeys the angel and protects the child.

John the Baptist

The voice in the wilderness. He says he is not the Christ, and that Jesus must increase while he decreases.

Peter

He confesses that Jesus is the Christ, and the same night he denies him. The risen Lord tells him, Feed my sheep.

Andrew

Peter's brother. He hears John, follows Jesus, and first finds his own brother.

James

Two men bear this name in the story. James the son of Zebedee is with Jesus on the mount and in the garden, and Herod kills him with the sword. James the Lord's brother speaks in the council at Jerusalem.

John

The Baptist is one John. The disciple Jesus loves is another. That disciple is at the cross, he outruns Peter to the tomb, and he writes what he has seen.

Matthew

A publican at the receipt of custom. Jesus says, Follow me, and he rises up and follows.

Thomas

He will not believe unless he sees the wounds. A week later he says, My Lord and my God.

Judas Iscariot

One of the twelve. He keeps the bag, he betrays Jesus with a kiss, and he goes out and hangs himself. Not every man named Judas in the New Testament is this man.

Mary Magdalene

Jesus casts seven devils out of her. She is at the cross, and she is the first to see him risen, and she is sent to tell the others.

Martha

She serves, and she is cumbered about much serving. She also confesses, before Lazarus is called out, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.

Lazarus

The brother of Mary and Martha. Jesus loves him, weeps at his grave, and calls him out of it.

Nicodemus

A ruler who comes to Jesus by night. He is told he must be born again. Later he brings spices for the burial.

Zacchaeus

A rich publican who climbs a tree to see Jesus. He comes down, and he says he will restore what he took by false accusation.

Pilate

The governor who finds no fault in Jesus and still delivers him to be crucified. He washes his hands. The stain is not in the basin.

Herod

The name covers more than one ruler. One kills the children of Bethlehem. One beheads John. One mocks Jesus and sends him back to Pilate.

Paul

In Acts he is also called Saul. He persecutes the church, he is stopped on the road, and he spends the rest of his life telling that Christ died for our sins and rose again.

Saul of Tarsus

The name Paul carries before he is called Paul. He consents to Stephen's death, and he breathes out threatenings, until Jesus speaks his name.

Barnabas

The son of consolation. He sells a field, he brings Saul to the apostles when the others are afraid, and he contends with Paul over John Mark.

Stephen

Full of faith and of the Holy Ghost. He sees Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and he dies asking that this sin not be laid to their charge.

Philip

An apostle, and also the evangelist in Acts who preaches Christ in Samaria and explains Isaiah to the Ethiopian. The chapter will tell you which Philip is speaking.

Cornelius

A devout centurion. His prayers and his alms come up before God, and Peter is sent to his house with the word.

Lydia

A seller of purple. The Lord opens her heart, she is baptized, and she constrains the missionaries to stay in her house.

Silas

Paul's companion in the jail at Philippi. At midnight the two of them pray and sing, and the prisoners hear them.

Timothy

Paul's son in the faith. He is told not to let any man despise his youth, and to stir up the gift of God that is in him.

Titus

Left in Crete to set in order the things that are wanting, and to ordain elders.

Aquila

A tentmaker. With his wife Priscilla he takes Apollos aside and expounds the way of God more perfectly.

Priscilla

She and Aquila lay down their own necks for Paul's life. She helps teach Apollos.

Apollos

Eloquent and mighty in the scriptures, but he knows only the baptism of John until Priscilla and Aquila teach him. Paul plants, Apollos waters, God gives the increase.

Philemon

A brother in whose house the church meets. Paul asks him to receive Onesimus back, not as a servant, but as a brother.

Onesimus

A runaway who becomes profitable. Paul sends him home and says, Receive him as myself.