International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

This name has the double spelling, יצחק, yicḥāḳ, and ישׂחק, yisḥāḳ (Ἰσαάκ, Isaák), corresponding to the two forms in which appears the root meaning “to laugh” - a root that runs through nearly all the Semitic languages. In Hebrew both cāḥaḳ and sāḥaḳ have their cognate nouns, and signify, in the simple stem, “to laugh,” in the intensive stem, “to jest, play, dance, fondle,” and the like. The noun yicḥār, meaning “fresh oil,” from a root cāhar (“to be bright, conspicuous”), proves that nouns can be built on precisely the model of yicḥāḳ, which would in that case signify “the laughing one,” or something similar. Yet Barth (Die Nominalbildung in den semitischen Sprachen, 154, b and c) maintains that all proper names beginning with yōdh prefixed to the root are really pure imperfects, i.e. verbal forms with some subject to be understood if not actually present. Hence, Isaac would mean “laughs”: either indefinite, “one laughs,” or “he laughs,” namely, the one understood as the subject. There are some 50 Hebrew names that have a similar form with no accompanying subject. Of these sometimes the meaning of the root is quite obscure, sometimes it is appropriate to any supposable subject. Each is a problem by itself; for the interpretation of any one of them there is little help to be gained from a comparison with the others.

What subject, then, is to be understood with this imperfect verb yicḥāḳ? Or is no definite subject to be supplied? (1) 'Ēl, God, may be supplied: “God laughs.” Such an expression might be understood of the Divine benevolence, or of the fearful laughter of scorn for His enemies (Psa 2:4), or, euphemistically, of the Divine wrath, the “terrible glance,” as of Moloch, etc. (so Meyer, Israeliten und ihre Nachbarstämme, 255). (2) Some human person: “he laughs.” So, for example, he himself, namely, the child who receives the name; or, the father; or, the brother (not the mother, which would require ticḥāḳ). In the light now of these possibilities we turn to the narratives of Isaac´s birth and career and find the following subjects suggested: (a) father, Gen 17:17; (b) indefinite, “one laughs” (not “she laughs,” see above), Gen 18:12-15; Gen 21:6; (c) brother, Gen 21:9; (d) himself, Gen 26:8. Of these passages the last two show the verb in the intensive stem in the signification of (c) “mock” (?), and (d) “dally.” We find this same verb in these senses in Gen 19:14 and Gen 39:14, Gen 39:17, in the stories of Lot and of Joseph, and it is possible that here also in the story of Isaac it has no more connection with the name Isaac than it has there with the names Lot and Joseph. However, this may be, there is obviously one interpretation of the name Isaac, which, required in two of the passages, is equally appropriate in them all, namely, that with the indefinite subect, “one laughs.” Consideration of the sources to which these passages are respectively assigned by the documentary hypothesis tends only to confirm this result.

A child whose coming was heralded by such signal marks of Divine favor as was Isaac's would be, even apart from other special considerations, a welcome and honored member of the patriarchal household. The covenant-sign of circumcision (which Isaac was the first to receive at the prescribed age of 8 days), the great feast at his weaning, and the disinheritance of Ishmael in his favor, are all of them indications of the unique position that this child held, and prepare the reader to appreciate the depth of feeling involved in the sacrifice of Isaac, the story of which follows thereupon. The age of Isaac at the time of this event is not stated, but the fact that he is able to carry the wood of the offering shows that he had probably attained his full growth. The single question he asks his father and his otherwise unbroken silence combine to exhibit him in a favorable light, as thoughtful, docile and trustful. The Divine interposition to save the lad thus devoted to God constitutes him afresh the bearer of the covenant-promise and justifies its explicit renewal on this occasion. From this point onward the biographer of Isaac evidently has his marriage in view, for the two items that preceded the long 24th chaper, in which Rebekah's choice and coming are rehearsed, are, first, the brief genealogical paragraph that informs the reader of the development of Nahor's family just as far as to Rebekah, and second, the chapter that tells of Sarah's death and burial - an event clearly associated in the minds of all with the marriage of Isaac (see Gen 24:3, Gen 24:16, Gen 24:67). Divine interest in the choice of her who should be the mother of the promised seed is evident in every line of the chapter that dramatizes the betrothal of Isaac and Rebekah. Their first meeting is described at its close with the tender interest in such a scene natural to every descendant of the pair, and Issac is sketched as a man of a meditative turn (Gen 24:63) and an affectionate heart (Gen 24:67).

The dismissal of the sons of Abraham's concubines to the “East-country” is associated with the statement that Isaac inherited all that Abraham had; yet it has been remarked that, besides supplying them with gifts, Abraham was doing them a further kindness in thus emancipating them from continued subjection to Isaac, the future head of the clan. After Abraham's death we are expressly informed that God “blessed Isaac his son” in fulfillment of previous promise. The section entitled “the tōledhōth (generations) of Isaac” extends from Gen 25:19 to Gen 35:29. At the opening of it Isaac is dwelling at Beer-lahai-roi (Gen 25:11), then at Gerar (Gen 26:1, Gen 26:6) and “the valley of Gerar” (Gen 26:17), then at Beer-sheba (Gen 26:23; Gen 28:10), all localities in the Negeb or “South-country.” But after the long narrative of the fortunes of Jacob and his family, occupying many years, we find Isaac at its close living where his father Abraham had lived, at Hebron.

For 20 years Isaac and Rebekah remained childless; it was only upon the entreaty of Isaac that God granted them their twin sons. A famine was the usual signal for emigration to Egypt (compare Gen 12:10; Gen 42:2); and Isaac also appears to have been on his way thither for the same cause, when, at Gerar, he is forbidden by God to proceed, and occasion is found therein to renew to him the covenant-promise of his inheritance: land, posterity, honor and the Divine presence (Gen 26:1-4).

The favoritism which Isaac showed for one son and Rebekah for the other culminated in the painful scene when the paternal blessing was by guile obtained for Jacob, and in the subsequent enforced absence of Jacob from his parental home. Esau, too, afforded no comfort to his father and mother, and ere long he also withdrew from his father's clan. The subsequent reconciliation of the brothers permitted them to unite at length in paying the last honors to Isaac on his decease. Isaac was buried at Hebron where his parents had been buried (Gen 49:31), and where his place of sepulture is still honored.

But apart from this formula Isaac is referred to in the Old Testament only as follows. During the lifetime of Jacob the names of Abraham and Isaac are repeatedly linked in the same way as are all three subsequently: they form for that age the dynasty of the covenant. But several times Jacob calls Yahweh the God (or, the Fear; see infra) of Isaac, because Isaac is his own immediate predecessor in this chain of the faithful. Isaac is called the “gift” of God to Abraham, in the farewell address of Joshua, just as Jacob and Esau are called God's “gifts” to Isaac (Jos 24:3 f; compare Koran, Sura 6 84). The “house of Isaac” is used by Amos as a parallel expression for “Israel,” and “the high places of Isaac” for “the sanctuaries of Israel” (Amo 7:16, Amo 7:9), in the same way as “Jacob” is often used elsewhere Septuagint in Amo 7:16 reads “Jacob”). Other references to Isaac are simply as to his father's son or his children's father.

He fares better in the New Testament. For, besides the genealogical references, Isaac's significance as the first to receive circumcision on the 8th day is remembered (Act 7:8); his position as first of the elect seed is set forth (Rom 9:7); his begetting of two sons so unlike in their relation to the promise as were Esau and Jacob is remarked (Rom 9:10); the facts of his being heir to the promise, a child of old age, and, though but one, the father of an innumerable progeny, are emphasized in Heb (Heb 11:9-12), which also discovers the deeper significance of his sacrifice and restoration to his father Heb 11:17-19; compare Jam 2:21); and in the same context is noticed the faith in God implied in Isaac's blessing of his sons. But Isaac receives more attention than anywhere else in that famous passage in Gal (Gal 4:21-31), in which Paul uses Isaac and his mother as allegorical representations of Christians who are justified by faith in the promise of God, and are the free-born heirs of all the spiritual inheritance implied in that promise. Even Isaac's persecution by Ishmael has its counterpart in the attitude of the enemies of Paul's gospel toward him and his doctrines and converts.

Philo, the chief allegorizer of Scriptural narratives, has little to say of Isaac, whom he calls “the self-instructed nature.” But modern critics have dissolved his personality by representing him as the personification of an ethnic group. “All Israel,” writes Wellhausen (Prol., 6th edition, 316), “is grouped with the people of Edom under the old name Isaac (Amo 7:9, Amo 7:16) ... the material here is not mythical (as in Gen 1 through 11) but national.” And just as Israel plus Edom had little or no significance in national customs or political events, when compared on the one hand with Israel alone (= Jacob), and with Israel plus Edom plus Moab and Ammon (= Abraham) on the other hand; so likewise the figure of Isaac is colorless and his story brief, as compared with the striking figures of Jacob on the one hand and of Abraham on the other hand, and the circumstantial stories of their lives.

Other scholars will have none of this national view, because they believe Isaac to be the name of an ancient deity, the local numen of Beersheba. Stärk, whom others have followed, proposes to interpret the phrase translated “the Fear of Isaac” in Gen 31:42, Gen 31:53 as the name of this god used by his worshippers, the Terror Isaac, Isaac the terrible god. For the sense of Isaac in that case see above under I, 2, (1). Meyer (loc. cit.) defends the transfer of the name from a god to the hero of a myth, by comparing the sacrifice of Isaac (“the only story in which Isaac plays an independent role”!) with the Greek myth of Iphigenia's sacrifice (Hesiod, Euripides, etc.), in which the by-name of a goddess (Iphigenia) identified with Artemis has passed to the intended victim rescued by Artemis from death.

Taken from: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia by James Orr, M.A., D.D., General Editor