1. Isaac first appears in the Torah, in which he is the son of Abraham and Sarah, the father of Jacob and Esau, and the grandfather of the twelve tribes of Israel.
21 Facts About Isaac
1. 2.
Isaac's name means "he will laugh", reflecting the laughter, in disbelief, of Abraham and Sarah, when told by God that they would have a child.
3.
Isaac is the only patriarch whose name was not changed, and the only one who did not move out of Canaan.
4.
Recent scholarship has discussed the possibility that Isaac could have originally been an ancestor from the Beersheba region who was venerated at a sanctuary.
5.
Isaac laughed because Sarah was past the age of childbearing; both she and Abraham were advanced in age.
6.
Isaac was Abraham's second son and firstborn of Sarah who was then Sarai.
7.
Isaac was 60 years old when his two sons were born.
8.
The narratives about Isaac do not mention his having concubines.
9.
Isaac had gone back to all of the wells that his father dug and saw that they were all stopped up with earth.
10.
So, Isaac unearthed them and began to dig for more wells all the way to Beersheba, where he made a pact with Abimelech, just like in the day of his father.
11.
Isaac called his son Esau and directed him to procure some venison for him, in order to receive Isaac's blessing.
12.
Thereafter, Isaac sent Jacob into Mesopotamia to take a wife of his mother's brother's house.
13.
Isaac reconciled with his twin brother Esau, then he and Esau buried their father, Isaac, in Hebron after he died at the age of 180.
14.
The sacrifice of Isaac is cited in appeals for the mercy of God in later Jewish traditions.
15.
Isaac was the only patriarch who stayed in Canaan during his whole life and though once he tried to leave, God told him not to do so.
16.
Isaac was the oldest of the biblical patriarchs at the time of his death, and the only patriarch whose name was not changed.
17.
Tertullian draws a parallel between Isaac's bearing the wood for the sacrificial fire with Christ's carrying his cross.
18.
The New Testament states Isaac was "offered up" by his father Abraham, and that Isaac blessed his sons.
19.
Paul contrasted Isaac, symbolizing Christian liberty, with the rejected older son Ishmael, symbolizing slavery; Hagar is associated with the Sinai covenant, while Sarah is associated with the covenant of grace, into which her son Isaac enters.
20.
Isaac is mentioned seventeen times by name in the Quran, often with his father and his son, Jacob.
21.
The earliest Christian portrayal of Isaac is found in the Roman catacomb frescoes.