ISAAC (pr,T, or p11.c,:', as it occurs four times in the poetical books, viz., Ps. cv. 9 ; Jer. xxxiii. 26 ; Amos vii. 9, 16--in the last two cases being put poetically for the 1.vhole nation of Israel ; I,XX. 'Io-aciK, laughter, sporting), son of Abraham and Sarah, and child of promise, born when his father was one hundred, and his mother ninety years of age (Gen. xxi. 1-7). To the etymology of the name there is reference in Gen. xvii. 17, ; xviii. 12 ; xxi. 6. Therc need be no dispute as to which of these passages the import of the name refers ; it includes a reference to them all, besides according with, and expressing the happy, cheerful disposition of the bearer, and suggesting the rela tion in which he stood, as the sced of Abraham, the channel of the promised blessing, and the type of Him who is pre-eminently THE SEED, whose birth has put laughter into the hearts of myriads of our race.
When he was cight days old he received circum cision, and was thus received into the covenant made with his father ; while his mother's sceptical laughter was turned into triumphant exultation and joy in God (Gen. xxi. 4-7). And the child greu and was weaned' (in his third year), upon whicl. occasion Abraham made a 'great feast' to celebrate the glad event ; when Sarah saw Ishmael, the sor of the Egyptian, mocking,' as the A. V. has it, and therefore resolved that Ishmael should be ' cast out,' that he might not inherit' with her son Isaac. It is generally supposed that Paul refers to this when be says, that he who was born after the flesh'perse cuter/ him that was born after the spirit' (Gal. iv. 29). But we question the correctness of the translation, mocking,' in Genesis, and, of course, the fact of Paul's reference to it. PfTS does not mean to ins/dt, Gen. xxxix. 14, where it relates 'ad lusus venereos' (Ges. rites.); nor to pay idolatrow - wor ship, Exod. xxxii. 6, where it expresses idolatrous sports in the form of dance and song ; nor to fight, 2 Sam. ii. 14, where, to sport* covers the real object contemplated by Abner. Gesenius seems to take the right view : Vidit Sarah filium Hagariis P 111V, ludentem, e. exultantenz, saltantem—Con vivium enim Pater instituerat (com. 8) in quo filiolus saltando novain gratiam inibat a patre. Qua re novercx invidia et zelotypia ita resuscitata est, uti pueri matrisque expulsionem a marito flagi taret (com. io).' He adds, Male LXX. et Vulg. addunt ludentem cum Isaac .filio suo ; in eo enim causa odii recanciescentis esse non potuit ; et ridicule Hebrmi pueros faciunt de hereditate futura inter se disceptantcs' (Thes. 1163). Paul must, therefore, have had in view some unrecorded fact, traditionally handed down, when he repre sented the son of Hagar as persecuting Isaac. It may be added, that it is very unlikely that the verb pin should be used in a sense so different from that which it has twice before in the same chapter and in several preceding chapters.
What effect the companionship of the wild and wayward Ishmael might have had on Isaac it is not easy to say but his expulsion was, no doubt, ordered by God for the good of the child of pro mise, and most probably saved him front many an annoyance and sorrow. Freed from such evil in fluence, the child grew up under the nurturing care of his fond parents, mild and gentle, loving and beloved. In his twenty-fifth year thc most notable circumstance of his life occurred to him. Jehovah, resolving to test the faith of Abraham, and exhibit it as a pattern to all generations, commanded him to take his son, the son of his love, Isaac, to the land of Moriah, and offer him up as a burnt-offer ing t upon a mountain by and by to be shown him " De lusu puerorum se invicem tentantium, quid vires valeant' (Ftirst).
t Kurtz maintains that the basis for this trial of Abraham was laid in the state of mind produced in him by beholding the Canaanitish hinnan sacrifices around him. His words are : These Canaanitish sacrifices of children, and the readiness with which the heathen around him offered them, must have excited in Abraham a contest of thoughts . . . anti induced him to examine himself whether he also were capable of sufficient renunciation and self denial to do, if his God demanded it, what the heathen around him were doing. .b'zzt if this Via. lion was raised the heart of Ahrahanz, it musZ also have been brought to a definite settlement through some outward fact. Such was the basis for the
demand of God so far as Abraham was concerned, and such the educational motive for his trial. The obedience of Abraham's,faith must, in energy and entireness not lag behind that which the religion of nature 'demanded and obtained from its profes (ver.. 22). Not hesitating for a moment, nor stag gered by the imposition of a service so severe and unnatural, and although pierced through the heart with sorrow, Abraham directly set out to fulfil the Divine command, accompanied by two servants and his son, and in full confidence tbat God, who had quickened Sarah's womb, would quicken his son when slain, and raise him from the dead (Heb. xi. 19). Nothing but a clear command from God could have suggested sudh a service. A craving to please, or propitiate, or communicate with the powers above' by surrendering an object near and dear' to one, which Canon Stanley erroneously says is the source of all sacrifice;' and to which he attributes Abraham's conduct in the present case, could never have led to such an act. The idea is wholly improbable and irrational (Lectures on the Hist. of the 7 Ch., P. 47)• As they drew near to the place of sacrifice, Isaac bearing the wood, and Abraham the fire and the knife, the former said to his father, behold the fire and the wood ; but where is the lamb for the burnt-offerine—words which must have pierced like a sword through the father's heart ; replying to which Ile uttered an unconscious prophecy : `141y son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering.' Arrived at the place,* Abraham built an altar, arranged the wood, and bound his son, to whom no doubt he had before this communi cated the divine command, and who, unresistingly submitted to the will of his father, and,of his father's God. But when the patriarch was in the very act of stretching forth his hand to complete the solemn, awful act, the voice of the Angel of the Lord ' reached his ear, forbidding the deed, and accept ing the obedient, submissive will instead. A ram caught by its branching horns in a thicket, and thus providentially furnished, served as a substitute. But, virtually, the sacrifice was consummated. The obedience of the father, and the submission of the son concurred in it—the actual death of the victim was neither necesary, nor desired by God. An example of faith and self-sacrifice was furnished to the world, which still continues, and shall, to the end of time, continue to exert a blessed influ ence, and teach mankind that their best and dearest are to be surrendered unto God whenever he de mands them. At the same time a check was given to human sacrifices, which are here most strikingly shewri not to be pleasing to God, but, on the con trary, abhorrent to his will. ` Human sacrifice which was in outward form nearest to the offering of Isaac was, in fact and in spirit, condemned and repudiated by it' (Stanley's 7. Ch., p. 51). Isaac became by this transaction pre-eminently a type of the Messiah. In the surrender by the father of his only son,' the concurrence of the son's will with the father's, the sacrificial death which virtu ally Wok place, and the resurrection from the dead, Whence Abraham received his son in figure ' (Heb. xi. r9) are all points of analogy which cannot be overlooked.* When Isaac Itad reached the age of forty years, Abraham, disliking the daughters of Canaan, sent his most trusted servant to Mesopotamia to take from thence of his own kindred a wife for his son (Gen. xxiv.) This mission having, by the guidance of Jehovah, proved successful, the servant imme diately returned home with the bride, and fell in with Isaac, who, in accordance with his reflective disposition, had gone out into the fields at even tide' to meditate. Isaac having heard from the servant the story of his wonderful success, received Rebecca as a gift from God, and brought her to his mother Sarah's tent, and she became his wife, and he tloved her, and was comforted after his mother's death.' As Kaliscla remarks, after three years lonely sorrow for his loved mother, joy for the first time entered his heart. This simple record brings before us, very beautifully, the domestic character and loving disposition .of Isaac.