Isaac

(laughter) (Gen 21:1-7) - the child of promise, son of Abraham and Sarah, born when Abraham was one hundred years old and Sarah ninety. Eight days after his birth he was circumcised, and three years later he was weaned. On that occasion Abraham made a great feast, at which Ishmael, Abraham's son by Hagar, mocked Isaac; this resulted in Hagar and her son being expelled from Abraham's house (Gen 21:9-13). The holy apostle Paul calls this persecution by him who was born according to the flesh against him who was born according to the Spirit, and sees in it a sign of the world's persecution of believing Christians (Gal 4:29).

Moreover, God plainly testified to Abraham: 'In Isaac shall thy seed be called' (Gen 21:12; Heb 11:18); that is, the promised Savior of the world was to descend from Isaac. Especially noteworthy is the fact that when Isaac had fully grown, and, according to Josephus, was already twenty-five years of age, his father Abraham received God's command to offer his only son as a burnt offering on Mount Moriah (Gen 22:1-2). This was required to test Abraham's faith, and he courageously endured the trial because he believed that God was able to raise Isaac even from the dead, from whence also he received him in a figure (Heb 11:17-19).

It also tested Isaac's faith, and not only his faith but his patience and obedience. When Isaac was thirty-seven years old, his mother Sarah died at the age of one hundred twenty-seven (Gen 23:1-2). At forty Isaac married Rebekah, daughter of Bethuel. The narrative of how Rebekah, who until then had lived with her relatives in Mesopotamia, became Isaac's wife is told in Genesis 24 with majestic simplicity, vividly portraying the customs and manners of the East. See Rebekah. Twenty years passed, and Rebekah had no children.

At last God heard Isaac's prayers for Rebekah, and she bore him twin sons, Esau and Jacob, the first of whom was his father's favorite and the second his mother's (Gen 25:21, 24). A famine arose, and Isaac went to the Philistine city of Gerar, as his father Abraham had once done. There, like Abraham, he committed a very serious error by presenting Rebekah as his sister and thus exposing her to great danger (Gen 26:1-10). Nevertheless, God abundantly blessed Isaac with earthly goods, and he became exceedingly rich in herds of cattle, both large and small.

This aroused the envy of the Philistines who saw his prosperity. At last, because of the increasing dispute over the wells dug by his father's servants, he withdrew to Beersheba. There the Lord appeared to him and blessed him, and there Abimelech, king of Gerar, visited him and made a covenant of friendship with him (Gen 26:23-31). During Isaac's subsequent infirm old age and failing eyesight, his younger son Jacob, at his mother's prompting, craftily appropriated the paternal blessing that rightly belonged to his elder brother Esau (Gen 27:28-29).

In giving Jacob a richer blessing than Esau, Isaac nevertheless spoke in a prophetic spirit, and the later history of Esau and Jacob shows how astonishingly exact his predictions were. After this event Isaac sent Jacob to Padan-aram in Mesopotamia to take a wife from among the daughters of his kinsman Laban. Jacob remained there several years and returned only shortly before his father's death. As Ishmael and Isaac together had buried their father Abraham (Gen 25:9), so Jacob and Esau together buried their father, who died at the age of one hundred eighty, in the cave of Machpelah (Gen 35:29).

Several special traditions about Isaac exist among Jews and Muslims. Among the more remarkable are these: that he was one of three who had no sin, and one of six over whom the angel of death had no power; that he received knowledge of divine revelation from Shem; and that he introduced the morning prayer.