The Patriarch Isaac - Orthodox-mitropolitan-of-antinoes-panteleimon ...

The Patriarch IsaacIsaac (Hebrew: ‏,יִצְחָק "he will laugh"; Greek: Ἰσαάκ, Isaak; Latin:Isaac; Arabic: إسحٰ‏ ق ) as described in the Hebrew Bible, was the only sonAbraham had with his wife Sarah, and was the father of Jacob and Esau.Isaac was one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites. According to theBook of Genesis, Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born, andSarah was beyond childbearing years.Isaac was the only Biblical patriarch whose name was not changed,and the only one who did not leave Canaan. Compared to those ofAbraham and Jacob, Isaac's story relates fewer incidents of his life. Hedied when he was 180 years old, making him the longest-lived patriarch.Etymology: The anglicized name Isaac is a transliteration of the Hebrewterm Yiṣḥāq which literally means "He laughs/will laugh." Ugaritic textsdating from the 13th century BCE refer to the benevolent smile of theCanaanite deity El. Genesis, however, ascribes the laughter to Isaac'smother Sarah rather than El. According to the Biblical narrative, Sarahlaughed privately when Elohim imparted to Abraham the news of theirson's eventual birth. Sarah laughed because she was past the age ofchildbearing; both she and Abraham were advanced in age.Isaac in Genesis: Isaac is mentioned by name 80 times in Genesis.Birth of Isaac: It was prophesied to the patriarch Abraham that he wouldhave a son and that his name should be called Isaac. When Abrahambecame one hundred years old, this son was born to him by his first wifeSarah. Though this was Abraham's second son it was Sarah’s first andonly child.On the eighth day from his birth, Isaac was circumcised, as wasnecessary for all males of Abraham's household, in order to be incompliance with Yahweh's covenant.After Isaac had been weaned, Sarah saw Ishmael mocking, andurged her husband to banish Hagar and Ishmael so that Isaac would beAbraham's only heir. Abraham was hesitant, but at God's order helistened to his wife's request.Binding of Isaac: At some point in Isaac's youth, his father Abrahambrought him to mount Moriah. At Yahweh's command to Abraham, hewas to build a sacrificial altar and sacrifice his son Isaac upon it. After

inding his son to the altar and drawing his knife to kill him, in the verylast moment an angel of Yahweh prevented Abraham from proceeding.Rather, he was directed to sacrifice a nearby ram instead. This eventserved as a test of Abraham's faith to Yahweh, not as an actual humansacrifice.Family life: When Isaac was 40, Abraham sent Eliezer, his steward, intoMesopotamia to find a wife for Isaac, from his nephew Bethuel's family.Eliezer chose Rebekah for Isaac. After many years of marriage to Isaac,Rebekah had still not given birth to a child and was believed to be barren.Isaac prayed for her and she conceived. Rebekah gave birth to twin boys,Esau and Jacob. Isaac was 60 years old when his two sons were born.Isaac favored Esau, and Rebekah favored Jacob.Occupation: Around the age of 75, Isaac moved to Beer-lahai-roi afterhis father died. When the land experienced famine, he removed to thePhilistine land of Gerar where his father once lived. This land was stillunder the control of King Abimelech as it was in the days of Abraham.Like his father, Isaac also deceived Abimelech about his wife and alsogot into the well business. He had gone back to all of the wells that hisfather dug and saw that they were all stopped up with earth. ThePhilistines did this after Abraham died. So, Isaac unearthed them andbegan to dig for more wells all the way to Beersheba, where he made apact with Abimelech, just like in the day of his father.Birthright: Isaac grew old and became blind. He called his son Esau anddirected him to procure some venison for him, in order to receive Isaac'sblessing. While Esau was hunting, Jacob deceptively, after listening to hismother's advice misrepresented himself as Esau to his blind father andobtained his father's blessing, making Jacob Isaac's primary heir, andleaving Esau in an inferior position. Isaac sent Jacob into Mesopotamia totake a wife of his own family so, he can start a family of his own. After20 years working for Laban, Jacob returned home, and reconciled withhis twin brother Esau, then he and Esau buried Isaac when Isaac died atthe age of 180.Other references - Isaac in the New Testament: In the New Testament,there are references to Isaac having been "offered up" by his father, andto his blessing his sons. Paul contrasted Isaac, symbolizing Christianliberty, with the rejected older son Ishmael, symbolizing slavery; Hagar isassociated with the Sinai covenant, while Sarah is associated with thecovenant of grace, into which her son Isaac enters. The Epistle of James

chapter 2, verses 21-24 states that the sacrifice of Isaac shows thatjustification (in the Johannine sense) requires both faith and works.In the early Christian church, Abraham's willingness to followGod's command to sacrifice Isaac was used as an example of faith and ofobedience. The Epistle to the Hebrews chapter 11, verse 19 views therelease of Isaac from sacrifice as analogous to the resurrection of Jesus,the idea of the sacrifice of Isaac being a prefigure of the sacrifice of Jesuson the Cross.Testament of Isaac: The Testament of Isaac is a pseudonymous textwhich was most likely composed in Greek in Egypt after 100 CE. It isalso dependent on the Testament of Abraham. In this testament, Godsends the archangel Michael to Isaac in order to inform him of hisimpending death. Isaac accepts God's decree but Jacob resists. Isaac in hisbed-chamber tells Jacob of the inevitability of death. Isaac has a tour ofheaven and hell shortly before his death in which God's compassion torepentant sinners is emphasized. In this testament, Isaac also talks withthe crowds on the subjects of priesthood, asceticism, and the moral life.World views: The early Christian church viewed Abraham's willingnessto follow God's command to sacrifice Isaac as an example of faith andobedience. For Christians, Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son is a"type and shadow" of God's willingness to sacrifice his only son, Jesus.Some academic scholars have described Isaac as "a legendaryfigure", while others view him as "a figure representing tribal history,though as a historical individual" or as "a seminomadic leader".Documentary hypothesis: The name Isaac occurs 32 times in theHebrew Bible. Variations of the formula "Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob"occur 23 times in the Hebrew Bible. According to the documentaryhypothesis, use of names of God indicates authorship, and form criticsvariously assign passages like Genesis chapter 26, verses 6-11 to theYahwist source, and Genesis chapter 20 verses 1-7, chapter 21, verse 1 tochapter 22, verse 14 and chapter 22, verse 19 to the Elohist source; thissource-critical approach has admitted problems, in that the name"Yahweh" appears in Elohist material. According to the compilationhypothesis, the formulaic use of the word toledoth (generations) indicatesthat Genesis chapter 11, verse 27 to chapter 25, verse 19 is Isaac's recordthrough Abraham's death (with Ishmael's record appended), and Genesischapter 25, verse 19 to chapter 37, verse 2 is Jacob's record throughIsaac's death (with Esau's records appended).

Jewish views: In rabbinical tradition the age of Isaac at the time ofbinding is taken to be 37 which contrasts with common portrayals ofIsaac as a child. The rabbis also thought that the reason for the death ofSarah was the news of the intended sacrifice of Isaac. The sacrifice ofIsaac is cited in appeals for the mercy of God in later Jewish traditions.The post-Biblical Jewish interpretations often elaborate the role of Isaacbeyond the Biblical description and largely focus on Abraham's intendedsacrifice of Isaac, called the aqedah ("binding"). According to a versionof these interpretations, Isaac died in the sacrifice and was revived.According to many accounts of Aggadah, unlike the Bible, it is Satanwho is testing Isaac and not God. Isaac's willingness to follow God'scommand at the cost of his death has been a model for many Jews whopreferred martyrdom to violation of the Jewish law.According to the Jewish tradition Isaac instituted the afternoonprayer. This tradition is based on Genesis chapter 24, verse 63 ("Isaacwent out to meditate in the field at the eventide").Isaac was the only patriarch who stayed in Canaan during hiswhole life and though once he tried to leave, God told him not to do so.Rabbinic tradition gave the explanation that Isaac was almost sacrificedand anything dedicated as a sacrifice may not leave the Land of Israel.Isaac was the oldest of the Biblical patriarchs at the time of his death, andthe only patriarch whose name was not changed.Rabbinic literature also linked Isaac's blindness in old age, as statedin the Bible, to the sacrificial binding: Isaac's eyes went blind because thetears of angels present at the time of his sacrifice fell on Isaac's eyes.Western scholarly views: Some scholars have described Isaac as "alegendary figure" while others view him "as a figure representing tribalhistory, though as a historical individual" or "as a seminomadic leader."The stories of Isaac, like other patriarchal stories of Genesis, aregenerally believed in liberal Western scholarship to have "their origin infolk memories and oral traditions of the early Hebrew pastoralistexperience." Conservative Western scholarship believes the stories ofIsaac, and other patriarchal stories in Genesis, to be factual. TheCambridge Companion to the Bible makes the following comment on theBiblical stories of the patriarchs:Yet for all that these stories maintain a distance between theirworld and that of their time of literary growth and composition, theyreflect the political realities of the later periods. Many of the narratives

deal with the relationship between the ancestors and peoples who werepart of Israel’s political world at the time the stories began to be writtendown (eighth century B.C.E.). Lot is the ancestor of the Transjordanianpeoples of Ammon and Moab, and Ishmael personifies the nomadicpeoples known to have inhabited north Arabia, although located in theOld Testament in the Negev. Esau personifies Edom (36:1), and Labanrepresents the Aramean states to Israel’s north. A persistent theme is thatof difference between the ancestors and the indigenous Canaanites… Infact, the theme of the differences between Judah and Israel, as personifiedby the ancestors, and the neighboring peoples of the time of the monarchyis pressed effectively into theological service to articulate the choosing byGod of Judah and Israel to bring blessing to all peoples.”According to Martin Noth, a scholar of the Hebrew Bible, thenarratives of Isaac date back to an older cultural stage than that of theWest-Jordanian Jacob. At that era, the Israelite tribes were not yetsedentary. In the course of looking for grazing areas, they had come incontact in southern Palestine with the inhabitants of the settledcountryside. The Biblical historian, A. Jopsen, believes in the connectionbetween the Isaac traditions and the north and in support of this theoryadduces Amos 7:9 ("the high places of Isaac").Albrecht Alt and Martin Noth hold that, "The figure of Isaac wasenhanced when the theme of promise, previously bound to the cults of the'God the Fathers' was incorporated into the Israelite creed during thesouthern-Palestinian stage of the growth of the Pentateuch tradition."According to Martin Noth, at the Southern Palestinian stage of the growthof the Pentateuch tradition, Isaac became established as one of theBiblical patriarchs, but his traditions were receded in the favor ofAbraham.