Isaac

Patriarch Isaac

His life is narrated in the book of Genesis. His name ("he will laugh" or "he laughed") would derive from the fact that Abraham, at the time of the prophecy of his birth, would smile at the thought of seeing a child conceived by him who was a hundred years old and by his wife Sarah who was ninety and sterile. But God also promised that Ishmael, the son of Abraham had by Sarah's handmaid, Hagar, would be the father of twelve princes.

After spending his first years in Beersheba, God put Abraham to the test, asking him to offer his son Isaac as a burnt offering: he took him to a mountain in the territory of Moria to sacrifice him to the Lord. Abraham built the altar and placed the wood on it; He bound Isaac his son and placed him on the altar on top of the wood. Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to sacrifice his son, but the Angel of the Lord called him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham! Now I know that you fear God, for you did not reject your son." Abraham raised his eyes, looked, and there was a ram behind him, entangled by its horns in a bush. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it as a burnt offering instead of his son "(Genesis 22: 9-13).

Isaac at the age of forty married Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel, whom his father sent to take to Mesopotamia, his homeland. The wedding took place in the "country of the south" where Isaac lived and continued to live after accompanying Ishmael to bury the body of Abraham in the cave of Macpela, opposite the city of Hebron. Isaac pleaded with God because his wife was barren and God heard him, so Rebekah had twins, the first being Esau and the second Jacob.

Drought and famine forced Isaac to go to Egypt, but he, inspired by the Lord, he stopped in Gerar near Abimelech king of the Philistines. Fearing that his wife's beauty would make him envious of those people and that someone would kill him in order to possess her, he made Rebecca pass for her sister. While he had been there for a long time, it happened that Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looked out of the window and saw that Isaac was joking with his wife Rebekah. Then Amibelech called Isaac and said to him: "Certainly she is your wife; why then did you say: "She is my sister?" Isaac replied: "because I said: I would not want to be put to death because of her". And Abimelech: "What have you done to us? We were just short of some of the people joining your wife, and you would have brought a great guilt upon us". And Abimelech gave this order to all the people: "Whoever touches this man or his wife must be put to death".(Genesis 26, 8-11).

Isaac sowed in that region where he was and in that year he reaped the hundredfold, so the Lord blessed him. He became great and always increased his fruits, until he became very rich. But the Philistines envied him and began to persecute him, so much so that Abimelec was forced to say to Isaac: "get away from here because you have become much more powerful than us". Then Isaac set out from there and encamped in the valley of Gerar, where he made his home. Then from here he went up to Beersheba and that same night the Lord appeared to him and said to him: "I am the God of your father Abraham; do not be afraid, because I am with you, I will bless you and multiply your offspring, for the sake of Abraham my servant". Abimelech of Gerar went to him because he had clearly seen that the Lord was with Isaac and they established a solemn covenant among them.

During the last years of Isaac's life, now blind, he bestowed the blessing on his son Jacob, instead of on the foreseeable firstborn Esau for an exchange that took place between the two brothers, of which his wife Rebecca was aware; this blessing was followed by Isaac's promise to protect Jacob from his brother's resentment and to secure him a wife in Mesopotamia. After Jacob's return from Mesopotamia, Isaac died in Mambre at the age of 180 and was buried by his children in Macpela's cave.