Isaac lived after this forty or fifty years in com plete privacy, and died in Hebron at the advanced age of ao years, and was buried by his sons Esau and Jacob in the cave of Machpelah.
The character of Isaac may be summed up in the words of Kalisch : Isaac was the worthy off spring of the chosen patriarch. He ever displayed imperturbable harmony of soul, unmoved by the greatest and dearest sacrifices ; his mind was, by nature, calm and placid ; modest and reserved ; be was susceptible of that happiness which flows from sentiment ; his heart was warm and sensitive ; his piety internal and unostentatious ; he inclined to reflection and prayer ; his aiTections were strong without impetuosity ; his impressions profound without exuberance. His destinies corresponded with his character. They form the exact medium between the history of Abraham and that of Jacob. He spent his life without the deeds of the one and the sufferings of the other ; he was not like either, compelled to distant wanderings ; after the grand trial of his youth, the course of his life was, on the whole, calm and even. Without labour or care he inherited a large fortune, while both his father and his son acquired property but gradually, and tbe latter not without laborious exertion ; he obtained a pious and beautiful wife without the least per sonal effort, by the care of a provident father and a faithful servant, whereas Jacob had, for the same purpose, not only to undertake a perilous journey, but to submit to a long and toilsome servitude ; and though we shall soon have occasion to sbew many parallels in the destinies of Isaac and Abra ham, the history of tbe former exhibits a certain pause in the progress of the narrative ; it contains few new elements, and advances but little the Hebrew theocracy ; its tendency is rather to secure the old ideas, than to introduce new ones ; and its chief interest consists in proving how the enlighten • ment of Abraham had, by habit and temperament, become with Isaac an impulsive feeling ; and how the acquirements of the mind had become the pro perty of the heart' (Com. on Gen. xxiv. 62-67).
Many curious legends exist among the Jews and Mohammedans respecting Isaac, such as that he was an angel created before the world, who descended to earth in a human form : that he was one of the three in whom there was no sin, and one of the six over whom the angel of death had no power ; and that he was the instituter of evening prayer, as -Abraham was of morning-, and Jacob of night prayer ; but that related by Canon Stanley, in his account of the visit of the Prince of Wales to the patriarchal tomb at IIcbron, is the strangest, be cause of its being so totally out of harmony with the character of the patriarch. It is as follows On requesting to see the tomb of Isaac, we were en treated not to enter.' Asking the reason of this, we werc told that Abraham was full of loving kindness,' etc. ; but that Isaac was proverbially jealous, and it was exceedingly dangerous to pro voke him. When Ibrahim Pasha [as conqueror of Palestine] had endeavoured to cuter, he was driven out by Isaac, and fell back as if thunderstruck' (Lect. on the Hist. of the7. Ch., pp- 496, 497)• On the history of Isaac the following works may be consulted :—Kalisch's Com. on Genesis ; Kurtz on the Old Cov., in the For. Theo!. Lib., vol. ; Graves on the Pentateuch, part. iii. ; Maurice, Patriarchs and Lawgivers, iv. ; Frischmuth, Thes. Meal. Phil., attached to the Critici Sacri, etc.— I. J.