Isaac was the son of Abraham and Sarah and the father of Esau and Jacob. God named him before his birth. When Abraham was ninety-nine, God promised that Sarah would bear Isaac the following year. Abraham laughed as he considered whether they could have a child in their old age. Sarah also laughed inwardly when she later heard the promise at Mamre.
Sarah bore Isaac at the promised time. Abraham was one hundred. He named Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day, then held a great feast when he was weaned. Sarah saw Hagar’s son mocking and demanded that Hagar and the boy be sent away, saying he could not share Isaac’s inheritance. Abraham was grieved, but God told him to listen to Sarah. He gave Hagar bread and water and sent her away with Ishmael.
God tested Abraham by telling him to take Isaac to Moriah and offer him as a burnt offering, a sacrifice burned on the altar. Abraham left with Isaac and two servants. On the third day he left the servants behind. Isaac carried the wood, while Abraham carried the fire and knife. Isaac asked where the lamb was, and Abraham said God would provide it. Isaac’s age at this event is not recorded.
Abraham built an altar, arranged the wood, bound Isaac, and placed him on it. As he took the knife, God’s messenger called and told him not to harm the boy. Abraham found a ram caught by its horns in a thicket and offered it instead of Isaac.
After Sarah’s death, Abraham sent his elderly servant to his relatives to find Isaac a wife. Isaac was not to be taken back there, and the servant would be released from the oath if the woman would not come. At a well, the servant met Rebekah, who gave water to him and his camels. He explained Abraham’s request to her family, and she agreed to go.
When Rebekah arrived in Canaan, Isaac was living in the southern region. He went into the field toward evening and saw the returning camels. The servant reported what had happened. Isaac brought Rebekah into his mother Sarah’s tent and married her. He loved her and was comforted after his mother’s death. Isaac was forty when he married.
When Rebekah could not have children, Isaac prayed to God. God heard him, and Rebekah conceived twins. The children struggled within her, and she asked God about it. He said that two peoples would separate and the older would serve the younger. Esau and Jacob were born when Isaac was sixty. Esau came first, red and covered with hair, and Jacob followed holding his brother’s heel. Twenty years had passed since Isaac’s marriage.
Abraham gave all he had to Isaac and gave gifts to his other sons before sending them east. When their father died at one hundred seventy-five, Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah. God blessed Isaac after Abraham’s death. Isaac lived near Beer Lahai Roi.
Esau grew into a skillful hunter, while Jacob lived among the tents. Isaac loved Esau because he enjoyed his game, and Rebekah loved Jacob. When Esau returned hungry and asked for stew, Jacob demanded the birthright, the rights of the firstborn son. Esau swore to sell it, then ate the bread and stew Jacob gave him.
A famine brought Isaac to Gerar. God told him to remain there rather than go to Egypt and renewed the promise of land and many descendants given to Abraham. Isaac feared that he would be killed because of Rebekah, so he called her his sister rather than his wife. King Abimelech saw him caressing her and recognized their marriage. He challenged Isaac and commanded that neither of them be harmed.
Isaac farmed the land and harvested one hundred times what he had sown that year. His livestock and household grew, and the Philistines envied him. The wells dug in Abraham’s time had been blocked, and Abimelech told Isaac to leave. In the valley of Gerar, Isaac reopened his father’s wells and restored their names. When herders disputed a new well, he named it Esek. A second was also disputed and called Sitnah. At another place, a third well brought no dispute. Isaac called it Rehoboth, saying God had made room for them to flourish.
At Beersheba, God appeared to Isaac and promised to remain with him and multiply his descendants for Abraham’s sake. Isaac built an altar, called on God’s name, and pitched his tent. Abimelech and his companions came to make a covenant, saying they had seen that God was with him. Isaac held a feast. The next morning they swore an oath, and he sent them away in peace. That day his servants reported finding water in another well.
At forty, Esau married two Hittite women. These marriages grieved Isaac and Rebekah.
When Isaac was old and could no longer see well, he asked Esau to hunt and prepare a meal so that he could bless him before death. Rebekah overheard and sent Jacob with food instead. She dressed him in Esau’s clothes and covered his hands and neck with goatskin. Jacob claimed to be Esau. Isaac said the voice was Jacob’s but the hands were Esau’s. Without recognizing Jacob, he ate the meal, smelled the clothing, and blessed him with plentiful grain and wine and authority over his brothers.
When Esau returned, Isaac trembled violently and said the blessing already given would stand. Esau wept and begged for a blessing too. Isaac said that his brother had taken it through deceit. He told Esau that he would live by the sword, serve his brother, and eventually break free of the yoke.
Esau hated Jacob and planned to kill him. Hearing this, Rebekah told Jacob to flee to her brother Laban at Haran. She also told Isaac of her distress over the Hittite women and asked what life would mean if Jacob married one of them too.
Isaac called Jacob, blessed him, and told him to find a wife among Rebekah’s relatives rather than the Canaanites. He prayed for the blessing and land God had given Abraham to pass to Jacob and his descendants. Jacob went to his uncle Laban in Paddan Aram. Seeing that Canaanite women did not please his father, Esau married a daughter of Ishmael in addition to his existing wives.
After returning to Canaan, Jacob came to Isaac at Mamre near Hebron. Isaac died at one hundred eighty, and Esau and Jacob buried him together. Later, when requesting burial with his ancestors, Jacob said that Isaac and Rebekah had been buried in the cave of Machpelah.