(3) Children. Isaac having, in conjunction with his half-brother Ishmael, buried Abraham his father, 'in a good old age, in the cave of Nlach pelah,' took up a somewhat permanent residence 'by the well Lahai-roi,' where, being blessed of God, he lived in prosperity and at ease. One source of regret, however, he deeply felt. Re bekah was barren. In time, two sons, Jacob and Esau, are granted to his prayers. As the boys grew, Isaac gave a preference to Esau, who seems to have possessed those more robust qualities of character in which his father was defective, and therefore gratified him by such dainties as the pursuits of the chase enabled the youth to offer; while Jacob, 'a plain man dwelling in tents,' was an object of special regard to Rebekah—a divi sion of feeling and a kind of partiality which be came the source of much domestic unhappiness, as well as of jealousy and hatrcd between the two sons.
(4) Denies His Wife. A famine compels Isaac to seek food in some foreign land. Divinely warned not to go down to Egypt, the patriarch ap plies to a petty prince of Philistia, by name Abimelech, who permits him to dwell at Gerar. Here an event took place which has a parallel in the life of his father Abraham. Rebekah was his cousin; afraid lest she should be violently taken from him, and his own life sacrificed to the lust of Abimelech, he represented her as his sister, em ploying a latitude of meaning which the word 'sis ter' admits in Oriental usage. The subterfuge was discovered, and is justified by Isaac on the grounds which prompted him to resort to it.
Another parallel event in the lives of Abraham and Isaac may be found by comparing together Gen. xxvi :26, sq., and XX/ :22, sq. If these par allels should excite a doubt in the mind of any one as to the credibility of the narratives, let him carefully peruse them, and we think that the sim plicity and naturalness which pervade and charac terize them will effectually substantiate the reality of the recorded events, and explode the notion that fiction has had anything to do in bringing the nar rative into its present shape.
(5) Pronounces a Blessing Upon Jacob. Isaac. in his old age, was, by the practices of Rebekah and the art of Jacob, so imposed upon as to give his blessing to the younger son Jacob, instead of to the firstborn, Esau, and with that blessing to convey, as was usual, the right of headship in the family, together with his chief possessions. In the blessing which the aged patriarch pronounced on Jacob it deserves no tice how entirely the wished-for good is of an earthly and temporal nature, while the imagery which is employed serves to show the extent to which the poetical element prevailed as a constit uent part of the Hebrew character (Gen. xxvii: 27, sq.). Most natural, too, is the extreme agita tion of the poor blind old man, on discovering the cheat which had been put upon him: 'And Isaac trembled very exceedingly, and said (to Esau), Who? where is he that bath taken venison and hrought it me, and I have eaten, and have blessed him? Yea, and lie shall be blessed.' Equally natural is the reply of Esau. The eiitire passage is of itself enough to vindicate the historical char acter and entire credibility of those sketches of the lives of the patriarchs which Genesis presents.
The stealing, on the part of Jacob, of his father's blessing having angered Esau, who seems to have looked forward to Isaac's death as affording. an opportunity for taking vengeance on his unjust brother, the aged patriarch is induced, at his wife's entreaty, to send Jacob into Mesopotamia that, after his own example, his son might take a wife from amongst his kindred and people, 'of the daughters of Laban, thy mother's brother.' This is the last important act recorded of Isaac. Jacob having, agreeably to his father's command, married into Laban's family, returned, after some time, and found the old man at Mamre, in the city of Arbah, which is Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac sojourned.
(6) Death. Here, 'being old and full of days' 08o), Isaac 'gave up the ghost, and died, and was gathered unto his people, and his sons Esau and Jacob buried him' (Gen. xxxv :27, sq.).
(7) Character. Isaac, the gentle and dutiful son, the faithful and constant husband, became the father of a house in which order did not reign. If there were any very prominent points in his char acter' they IA ere not brought out by the circum stances in which he was placed. He appears less as a man of action than as a man of suffering, from which he is generally delivered without any direct effort of his own. Thus he suffers as the object of Ishmael's mocking, of the intended sacri fice on Moriah, of the rapacity of the Philistines, and of Jacob's strategem. But the thought of his sufferings is effaced by the ever present tokens of God's favor ; and he suffers with the calmness and dignity of a conscious heir of heavenly promises, without uttering any complaint, and generally without committing any action by which he would forfeit respect. Free from violent passions, Ile was a man of constant, deep, and tender affections. Thus he mourned for his mother till her place was filled by his wife. His sons were nurtured at home till a late period of thPir lives; and neither his grief for Esau's marriage, nor the anxiety in which he was involved in consequence of Jacob's deceit, estranged either of them from his affec tionate care. His life of solitary blamelessness must have been sustained by strong habitual piety such as showed itself at the time of Rebekah's bar renness (xxv :2r), in his special intercourse with God at Gerar and Beer-sheba (xxvi :2, 23), in the solemnity with which he bestows his blessing and refuses to change it. His life, judged by a world ly standard, might seem inactive, ignoble, and un fruitful ; but the "guileless years, prayers, gracious acts and daily thank-offerings of pastoral life" are not to be so esteemed. although they make no show in history. Isaac's character may not have exercised any commanding influence upon either his own or succceding generations ; but it was sufficiently marked and consistent to win respect and envy from his contemporaries. By his pos terity his name is always joined in equal honor with those of Abraham and Jacob; and so it was even used as part of the formula which Eg-yptian magicians in the time of Origen (Contra Colston, i:22) employed as efficacious 4o bind the demons whom they adjured (comp. Gen. xxxi :42, 53). (Smith, Bib. Dict.).