Isaac

Isaac (Hebrew Yitzhak, "he laughs") was the son of Abraham and Sarah, the second of the three patriarchs, and the child of promise through whom God's covenant with Abraham passed to the nation of Israel. His very name preserves the laughter that surrounded him — the incredulous laughter of his aged parents at the promise (Genesis 17:17; Genesis 18:12) and the joyful laughter at his birth, when Sarah said, "God has made laughter for me" (Genesis 21:6).

Isaac's birth was itself a miracle and the hinge of the covenant. Born to a hundred-year-old father and a barren, ninety-year-old mother (Genesis 21:1–3), he was the promised heir "through whom your offspring shall be named" (Genesis 21:12), in contrast to Ishmael the son of the slave woman. Paul makes this the very paradigm of election and gospel grace: "it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise" (Romans 9:8), and believers "like Isaac, are children of promise" (Galatians 4:28).

The defining episode of his life is the Akedah, the binding on Mount Moriah. God commanded Abraham to offer Isaac as a burnt offering; the son carried the wood, asked where the lamb was, and was bound on the altar, only for the angel of the LORD to stay Abraham's hand and provide a ram in his place (Genesis 22:9–13). The episode sealed God's covenant oath to Abraham (Genesis 22:16–18) and has been read throughout Christian history as a profound foreshadowing of the Father offering His only Son — the place "the LORD will provide" (Genesis 22:14); Hebrews adds that Abraham received Isaac back "figuratively speaking" from the dead (Hebrews 11:19).

Isaac is the quietest of the patriarchs, more a vessel of the promise than a man of dramatic deeds. He took Rebekah as his wife (Genesis 24:67), prayed for her in her barrenness, and fathered the twins Esau and Jacob (Genesis 25:21–26). Like his father he dug wells, sojourned among the Philistines, and received the renewal of the covenant promise at Beersheba: "I am the God of Abraham your father. Fear not, for I am with you" (Genesis 26:24). In old age and blindness he was deceived into giving the patriarchal blessing to Jacob rather than Esau, unwittingly furthering God's elective purpose (Genesis 27:27–29). He died at 180 and was buried by his sons in the cave of Machpelah (Genesis 35:29). Forever after, God identifies Himself as "the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" (Exodus 3:6), and Jesus cites that title as proof of the resurrection, "for he is not God of the dead, but of the living" (Matthew 22:32).