The sons which Abraham had by Keturah he sent away with appropriate gifts from his sou Isaac, sometime after which he died, when Isaac and Ishmael united in burying him in the family tomb.
Isaac was forty years old when he married Re becca, who, to his great grief, was barren; but he, although the seed through whom Abraham's pos terity was to be multiplied as the stars of heaven, and although he knew the Divine purpose could not be frustrated, yet had recourse to prayer for the fulfilment of the promise, and the Lord was en treated of him,' and Rebecca bore him two sons at a birth (Esah and Jacob), when he was in the six tieth year of his age. Of these Esau, the open, ingenuous, brave, impuisive boy, was, naturally-, his father's favourite.
Isaac dwelt by the well Lahai-roi, but a famine drove him unto Gerar (ch. xxvi.), God appearing to him and forbidding him to go down into Egypt, and renewing, to him the covenant promise given originally to Abraham. While here he fell into the great error and sin into which his father had fallen twice,—the sin of denying-, his wife, and say ing that she was his sister, through fear of suffering for her sake. There is no improbability, as has been asserted, that the same sort of event should happen in rude times at different intervals ; and, therefore, no reason for maintaining that these events have the same historical basis, and are, itt fact, the same event differently represented. Neither is it an unfair assumption that Abimelech was the common title of the kings of Gerar, as Pharaoh was of the kings of Egypt, or that it may have been the proper name of several kings in succession, as George has bcen of several English kings. Abirne lech discovered the cheat practised by Isaac. Front a window, which probably overlooked the courts of the surrounding houses, he saw Isaac sporting,' prilip,* with Rebecca his wife, in a way that plainly indicated the relationship between them ; and having called him severely reproved him for his falsehood, and afterwards charged his people respecting them. Isaac's excuse was that he thought the fear of God' was `not in the place ;' but the real cause was, the failure of his own trust in the gracious guardian care of Jehovah.
While in Gerar his prosperity was so great that the Philistines envied him ; and Abirnelech re quested him to depart from them. He, therefore, left the city and dwelt in the country. But even there he was not free from annoyance. Having digged wells, the herdsmen of Gerar contended for them ; and in accordance with his pacific temper, he yielded them up, one after another, rather than live in contention, till at length his servants digged one for which no one contended, which, from that circumstance, he called RehabotIz=-- room ; for now,' saith he, ` the Lord bath made room for us' (vers. 17-23). But Abimelech, feeling that God
was with him, visited him, in company with Ahuz zath, and Phichol the chief captain of his army, and entered into a covenant-oath with him of mutual peace and friendship. On the day this covenant was ratified, Isaac's servants having found water came and told him of it ; when he, in commemora tion of the event which had just occurred, called the well Beer-Sheba—the well of the oath.
The last prominent event in the life of Isaac is the blessing of his sons (ch. xxvii.) When old and dim of sight (which fails much sooner in eastern countries than in Europe), supposing that the time of his departure was at hand, he called for his be loved son Esau, and sent him to take some veni son ' for him, and to make his favourite savoury meat,' that he might eat and ` bless him before his death. Esau prepared to obey his father's will, and set forth to the field ; but through the decep tious stratagem of Rebecca the savoury meat ' was provided before Esau's return ; and Jacob, dis guised so as to resemble his hairy brother, imposed on his father, and obtained the blessing. Yet, on the discovery of the cheat, when Esau brought into his father the dish he had prepared, Isaac, remem bering no doubt the prediction that the elder should serve the younger,' and convinced that God intended the blessing for Jacob, deeply agitated though he was, would not, perhaps rather could not, reverse the solemn words he had uttered, but bestowed an inferior blessing on Esau. -1' There is little ground for founding on this narra tive a criticism adverse to Isaac, as if he had de. generated very much from his former self, because of his seeming to lay so much stress on the savoury meat' Ile requested of his son. Such a longing in an old man was innocent enough, and indicated nothing of a spirit of self-indulgence. It was an extraordinary case, too, and Kalisch sets it in its true light : The venison is evidently like a sacri fice offered by the recipient of the blessing, and ratifying the proceedings ; and hence Jacob killed and prepared two kids of the goats (ver. 9), where as, for an ordinary meal, one would have been more than sufficient ; it imparted to the ceremony, in certain respects, the character of a covenant (comp. xxi. 27-3o ; xxvi. 3o ; Exod. xii. 2 ; XXiv. 5-1 t, etc.) ; the one party shewed ready obedience and sincere affection, while the other accepted the gift, and granted in return, the whole store of hap piness he was able to bequeath. Thus the meal which Isaac required has a double meaning, both connected with the internal organism of the book' (Com. on Gen. xxvii. 1-4).