Who was Isaac in the Bible?

As Isaac was the patriarch that stood between Abraham and Jacob, it may seem remarkable that so little is recorded of him, especially as the promise given to Abraham, of all nations being blessed through his seed, was confirmed to Isaac. He was 'the son of promise,' born when Abraham was a hundred years old, and 'the son of the freewoman,' in contrast to 'the son of the bondwoman.' He became the heir, the son of the bondwoman being cast out. Gal. 4:22-30. Abraham's faith was tried when told to offer up this son of promise, called his 'only son,' as being a type of Christ. Abraham obeyed, and Isaac heard that beautiful utterance of faith, "My son, God will provide himself a lamb." He was raised as from the dead and restored to his father, and the covenant was confirmed as to the seed.

Rebekah was barren, but on Isaac beseeching the Lord, she conceived, and was told that she should be the mother of two nations, and the twin brothers Esau and Jacob were born, Esau being the firstborn. A famine being in the land, Isaac removed to Gerar, and there faithlessly said that Rebekah was his sister, and was rebuked by the king of the Philistines. God confirmed the blessing promised to Abraham, both as to Isaac's seed possessing all those countries, and also as to all the nations of the earth being blessed in his seed.

After the Philistines had had much contention with Isaac respecting some wells of water which they claimed, they bade him depart from them, for he had become too great to dwell so near. He submitted and removed to Beer-sheba. He was thus again in the truth of his calling within the limits of the land of promise: there the Lord again appeared to him, and told him not to fear, He would bless him for his father Abraham's sake. Now the Philistines come to him, admitting that they saw that Jehovah was blessing him, and they desired a covenant with him that he would do them no hurt. Thus was he now in the true place of moral superiority, in the place of his calling, and as such having no disputes with the nations, but acknowledged as the blessed of the Lord — a word surely for world-borderers of to-day.

God does not hide the failings and weaknesses of His people, hence it is related how that Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his venison; and that when he was old he directed him to make savoury meat such as he loved, that he might eat and bless him, his eldest son, before he died. God had said that the elder should serve the younger, but Rebekah, instead of leaving the matter in God's hands, contrived by a deceitful stratagem to get the blessing for Jacob instead of Esau the firstborn. The deception was soon found out; but how was it that Isaac intended to bless the elder, thus disregarding the word of the Lord? It is to be feared that his love of the venison and savoury meat led him astray. Notwithstanding this failure we read in Heb. 11:20, "By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come." This doubtless refers to Isaac's words when the deception was discovered. He said of Jacob "Yea, and he shall be blessed." Gen. 27:33.

Isaac is this child of promise, born to Sarah when she was 90 years old, and Abraham 100, when their bodies were virtually "already dead" (Rom.4:19), and any natural hope of childbearing long gone. But it was God who intervened in sovereign grace to fulfill His own word. Sarah is the free-woman, in intimate relationship to Abraham, who is a type of God the Father, and Sarah a type of the godly remnant of faith according to grace in Israel, from whom Christ came (typified in Isaac), when all natural hope of blessing was gone. Isaac then is a beautiful picture of Christ, the promised Seed (Gal.3:16), who came to earth, not on account of man's successful law-keeping or any such thing, but on account of the unbreakable promise of God, fulfilled by grace alone.

Isaac, the child of promise, is in like manner a figure of the Son; his sacrifice upon Mt. Moriah, arrested by the hand of God, a figure of that giving up of God's only begotten Son unto death which was not arrested. The union of Isaac with Rebekah is a type of Christ united to the Church — Sarah (Israel) having for the time being been set aside.

Having already sought to weigh the history of Abraham, I desire to consider what Scripture gives us to learn of Isaac. It is true that much less is said of him than of Abraham on the one hand or of Jacob on the other; even less than of Joseph among the many sons of Jacob. Yet there is not a little, in the spiritual account of him who came between the two chief fathers, distinguished by his own equable, retired, and peaceful way, and indicative of great principles in God's Word and ways, not in the Old Testament only but also in the New.

Isaac was wanting in character. He was neither of fine nor of bad natural materials. There was much in him that, as we say, was amiable, and which, after a human estimate, would have been attractive. But he was wanting in character. The style of his education may go far to account for this. He had been reared tenderly. He had never been away from the side of his mother, the child of whose old age he was — her only child; and these habits had relaxed him, and kept a naturally amiable temper in its common softness. Quietness and retirement, the temper that rather submits than resents, and this allied to the relaxing indulgence of domestic, if not animal, life, appear in him. He was blameless, we may quite assume, pious and strict in the observance of relative duties, as a child and as a husband, and would have engaged the good-will and good wishes of his neighbours; but he was wanting in that energy which would have made him a witness among them, at least; beyond the separation which attended his circumcision, his altar, and his tent. And such a life is always a poor one. To his tent and his altar he was true, to a common measure; but he pitched the one and raised the other with too feeble a hand.

Isaac was an elect one, as surely as Abraham; a stranger with God in the earth; one who used his altar as well as carried it. He was meditating in the field when he got his Rebecca, and he had prayed for the mercy, when Esau and Jacob were given to him. We speak of character in him only, when we thus contrast him with another. We speak of the living, practical ways of a saint; and we see in him what was below a witness for God abroad, though amiable and devout at home. This is found in Isaac and kindred things are still found, again I may say, as many of us know to our humbling. As one once said to me, "There is much that goes with others for being spiritual, because it is done for the eye and taste of our fellow-christians, and not, as in God's presence, with a single heart to Him."

1881 200 While in Abraham we see the energy and activity of faith, in Isaac it is rather peace and rest in the land (save when he went to Gerar, where the Philistines strove with him), that is, as compared with Abraham; for his dwelling was a tent as well as Abraham's. Isaac had also his troubles, but neither the trials nor the victories that Abraham had. In Jacob it is by no means the life of faith, hut during the earlier part — indeed nearly all that is recorded of him — rather the absence of faith, and the consequences. This marked his course up to the time when God called him to go to Bethel. (Gen. 35:1.) A saint of God living according to the world is sure to be always in trouble of some outward, if not also an inward, kind. There cannot be a more pitiable object than a saint out of communion, and, as far as he can, following his own will. The germ of life he has is always clashing with his desires and ways. Peace of heart is a stranger to his soul; difficulties and disappointments meet him at every turn, until God, faithful to His word, is compelled by some terrible event to break him to pieces, and thus bring him to know himself and grace. It was so with Jacob. He sought to obtain good by the cunning and crookedness of nature, and had to bear the sorrow which such a course surely entails, until God, in sovereign grace, after having made him feel the bitterness of his own ways, conducts him into rest and an honoured old age.

Verse 20. Isaac, like his father, was a stranger in the land. He passed his pilgrim days in the patience of a hope which, having been received by inheritance from Abraham, was afterwards confirmed to him immediately of God. The record elsewhere given of his life and its vicissitudes is full of instructive interest for the believer. Blessing, abounding in the midst of conflict, through the faithfulness of God, is its leading moral feature. The Spirit here selects a single incident in order to commemorate his faith. By faith he gave his blessing to his sons. If we read carefully the story of the birthright, we see distinctly that in the primary bestowment of his blessing on his younger son he exercised no faith. He knew not what He did till Esau really came whom he had vainly willed to bless. Throughout the life of Isaac there had been a struggle between faith and nature with respect to the direction of the inheritance. Jacob, he knew, was loved of God, and called to be His heir of blessing. But Isaac loved Esau. He meant to bless him as his heir. But God's counsel always contradicts the purposes of nature. He allows the guilty trickery of Jacob and Rebecca to rebuke the fleshly partiality of Isaac, and by means of this restores him to himself. It is in Gen. 27:33, that we find the first true recognition of God's presence in this strange plot of selfish interests. The discovery of Jacob's fraud reveals to Isaac his own folly, and apprises him of One who is the sole Selecter of the vessels of His blessing. With exceeding fear his soul receives this late discovery of his variance from God's will. But, as in Sarah's case, his fear is a reviver of his faith. In the light of God, he now sees things distinctly. Jacob is now confessedly his heir. He ratifies the choice of God who gave the blessing. This is expressed strikingly in the repetition of the blessing, "Yea, and he shall be blessed."

In fulfilment of God's promise, Isaac was at length born. When he was weaned, Ishmael was seen mocking, which roused Sarah to demand the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael. Though it was grievous to Abraham, God bade him do what Sarah desired. This is taken up in Galatians 4 as a figure of Christians being children of the free woman, that is, of Jerusalem which is above, which, says the apostle, is our mother. Ishmael represents the man born after the flesh, who persecutes him born after the Spirit.