Who Is Isaac in the Bible?

by Bill Palmer

The story of Abraham and Isaac powerfully foreshadows some of the greatest themes of the Bible. But that doesn’t make what Isaac experienced any less traumatic.

Isaac had watched as his father arranged wood on top of an altar. Then his father bound him and stood before him with the sacrificial knife, raising it to kill him!

What was going through Isaac’s mind?

Most Christians—and the Bible itself—approach this dramatic event from Abraham’s point of view. But what about Isaac and his thoughts? And how can we understand the story of Isaac in the Bible?

The sacrifice of Isaac

Scripture does not tell us how old Isaac was when God commanded Abraham to sacrifice him on Mount Moriah (Genesis 22:2). The story is focused on Abraham’s faith.

Yet this event is as crucial in understanding Isaac and his faith as it is in understanding Abraham. So, what can we know about Isaac? Approximately how old was he during this incident?

The last reference to Isaac before this sacrifice was in the story of the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael. Ishmael, the son of Sarah’s Egyptian handmaid Hagar, had brought about this ejection. He had derisively laughed at his younger half-brother during the celebration held at the time Isaac was weaned (Genesis 21:8-14).

A few years must have passed from that difficult time, however. When God commanded the sacrifice of Isaac, he was old enough that “Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son” (Genesis 22:6). For him to have carried enough wood to sacrifice a “lamb for a burnt offering” (verse 7), he had to have been at least a few years older than he was in the preceding chapter.

We can only speculate about his exact age. But Isaac was old enough to carry the wood, to hike for three days and to notice there was no lamb for the sacrifice (verses 4, 7).

Isaac’s humble obedience

Abraham was already 100 years old when Isaac was born (Genesis 21:5), and though he lived to be 175 (Genesis 25:7), he was undoubtedly slowing down by the time God asked him to take Isaac to Mount Moriah.

Wouldn’t Isaac have been strong enough to run away when he realized that his own father was about to bind him and offer him as a sacrifice? He surely could have escaped if he had tried. And yet there’s no indication that Isaac tried to run from his father.

Nothing in Scripture hints that Isaac resisted Abraham. Nothing suggests that he argued, tried to escape or made it difficult for the aging Abraham to bind him. Instead, we see a portrait of humble obedience, even to the point of death.

And that brings us back to the question of what was in Isaac’s mind. What was he thinking as his father lifted that sacrificial knife above him?

He undoubtedly had some fear of what was about to happen. For Isaac, though, what was more important was his deep and abiding respect for his father, and his fear—or reverence—for the Eternal God.

Of course, God did not make Abraham and Isaac go through with the sacrifice. God miraculously provided a ram and said to Abraham, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God” (Genesis 22:12).

It seems God also knew more about Isaac through this extreme trial—a trial that foreshadowed the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

“The Fear of Isaac”

Many years later, Isaac’s son Jacob used a unique name for God. He referred to the Eternal not only as “the God of my father, the God of Abraham,” but also as “the Fear of Isaac” (Genesis 31:42).

Isaac believed the promises God had made and embraced the future God had planned. A few verses later in this same passage, the narrator also uses this name (verse 53). This designation for God appears nowhere else in all of Scripture.

The Bible includes commands to “fear God” (Ecclesiastes 12:13; 1 Peter 2:17). There are descriptions of people who fear God (Exodus 18:21; Job 1:9), and there is a recognition of an appropriate “fear of the LORD” (Psalm 111:10; see “What Does the Fear of the Lord Mean?”).

There is no other biblical hero, however, whose name is linked to God in this way.

Clearly, Isaac’s reverence for God was a major aspect of his character. And it was a trait that others noticed and remembered.

This distinctive way of describing God “seems to accord well with the unique temperament of Isaac, his docile, retiring, unassertive attitude” (The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, Vol. 3, p. 312). It is impossible to revere God without humility.

The prophet Isaiah wrote of this need for humility in approaching God. The Eternal, he wrote, pays attention to the person who is “poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word” (Isaiah 66:2).

This is an apt description of Isaac.

More examples of humility

Other episodes in the life of this patriarch confirm his humble nature. One of those episodes was Isaac’s marriage to Rebekah. Without any hesitation or resistance, Isaac accepted the bride brought to him by Abraham’s servant (Genesis 24:66-67).

It’s true that arranged marriages were customary in the ancient Near East, but they were not universal. For example, Isaac’s oldest son, Esau, took two Hittite brides, even though his choices grieved Isaac and Rebekah (Genesis 26:34-35).

Another event that hints at Isaac’s humility occurred at the death of Abraham. Isaac and Ishmael together buried their father (Genesis 25:8-9). There’s no indication that Isaac had any ill will toward Ishmael.

One more example of the humility of Isaac can be seen in the way he interacted with the Philistines who envied his wealth (Genesis 26:12-14, 20). They first “stopped up” the wells Isaac dug (verse 15) and later claimed other wells as their own (verses 20-21).

Isaac refused to get bogged down in conflict, choosing instead to be a peacemaker. He simply kept moving on until he found a place where no one disputed his right to be there (verse 22).

Son of promise

Isaac’s humility is remarkable in light of his privileged position as the designated heir of Abraham, who was “very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold” (Genesis 13:2). By God’s design, the promised son Isaac was his father’s sole heir.

Even before Isaac was born, God had promised Abraham that He would “establish My covenant with [Isaac] for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him” (Genesis 17:19).

God had made it clear that the covenantal promises He made to Abraham would go to and through Isaac, the long-awaited son of his wife Sarah. During their many years of waiting, Sarah had suggested getting around her infertility by having Abraham impregnate her servant Hagar. But God had not endorsed their plan, and Ishmael was not the son God had promised.

That is why the apostle Paul used Isaac, the son of promise, as a symbol representing Christians, who are “children of promise” (Galatians 4:28).

Isaac was also a type of Jesus, the true Son of Promise. Just as Isaac was the son promised to Abraham and Sarah, so Jesus was the Messiah promised to Israel. Isaac was the one through whom the Abrahamic blessings to the world would come (Genesis 12:3). Chief among those blessings is the promised Messiah.

“By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau”

These promises laid the foundation for Isaac’s faith. As he was growing up, he must have heard Abraham and Sarah talk about God’s promises to them, about how long they had waited for a son, and about how Sarah was well beyond her childbearing years when she conceived him (Genesis 18:11).

Isaac also must have remembered the stories about how Abraham had wanted to make Ishmael his heir. After hearing God’s promise that Sarah would give birth to Isaac, Abraham had asked God to bless Ishmael instead (Genesis 17:18). God declined Abraham’s request.

Toward the end of his life, this background might have helped Isaac see some unsettling events with eyes of faith. Though he had intended to bless Esau, his firstborn, that’s not what happened. Jacob, Isaac’s younger son, deceived his father into giving him the blessing (Genesis 27).

Although Isaac “trembled exceedingly” (verse 33) when he discovered Jacob’s deceit, it seems he accepted the outcome. Just as God had declined Abraham’s request to bless Ishmael as his promised heir, God had allowed Jacob’s deceit to fulfill what He had promised to Rebekah when the twins were still in her womb. Though Esau was born first, God said that “the older shall serve the younger” (Genesis 25:23).

Isaac’s second blessing of Jacob (Genesis 28:3-4) demonstrated his faith in God’s will.

This is why the writer of Hebrews could say, “By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come” (Hebrews 11:20). Isaac believed the promises God had made and embraced the future God had planned.

Learning from the Isaac of the Bible

Consider that day on Mount Moriah. Abraham and Isaac did not know that their roles in that symbolic sacrifice (which never actually happened) were types. At the most critical juncture in history, the Father and the Son would fulfill what Abraham and Isaac had foreshadowed.

God the Father was willing to give His only Son in sacrifice, just as Abraham had been willing to sacrifice his son. Jesus “humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8), just as Isaac had obeyed his earthly father, willing to accept death.

It is hard to imagine being willing to die, as Isaac was, rather than disobey or dishonor God. And yet that is what we are called to do. Jesus told His disciples that “whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25).

For many Christians, the main thrust of this statement may be metaphorical, though some have indeed laid down their lives as martyrs. Stephen, for example, was stoned for his beliefs (Acts 7:59). And more will be martyred in the end times (Revelation 6:9-11; 17:6).

The lesson for us is that we, like Isaac, must be willing to set aside our own hopes, goals, dreams and desires, choosing to fear God, to place our faith in Him and to obey Him—even to death.

So, who is Isaac in the Bible? He was an imperfect man, but a man of faith who put God first.