Isaac is the second Hebrew patriarch in Judaism and an important figure in the Abrahamic religions, including Samaritanism, Christianity, Islam, the Baháʼí Faith, and Rastafari. 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.
Isaac's name means "he will laugh", reflecting the laughter of Abraham and Sarah when they were told that they would have a child at their advanced ages., He is the only patriarch whose name was never changed, and the only one who did not move out of Canaan. According to the narrative, he died aged 180, the longest-lived of the three patriarchs.
Recent scholarship has discussed the possibility that Isaac could have originally been an ancestor from the Beersheba region who was venerated at a sanctuary.
Etymology The anglicized name "Isaac" is a transliteration of the , which literally means "He laughs/will laugh". Ugaritic texts dating from the 13th century BCE refer to the benevolent smile of the Canaanite deity El. Genesis ascribes the laughter to Isaac's parents, Abraham and Sarah, instead. According to the biblical narrative, Abraham fell on his face and laughed when God (Hebrew, ) imparted the news of their son's eventual birth. He laughed because Sarah was past the age of childbearing; both she and Abraham were advanced in age. Later, when Sarah overheard three messengers of the Lord renew the promise, she laughed inwardly for the same reason. Sarah denied laughing when God questioned Abraham about it.
Genesis narrative
Birth After God changes Abram and Sarai's names to Abraham and Sarah, he tells Abraham that he will bear a second son by Sarah named Isaac, with whom a new covenant would be established. In response, Abraham began to laugh, as both he and Sarah were well beyond natural child-bearing age. Some time later, three men who Abraham identifies as messengers of God visit him and Sarah, and Abraham treats them to food and niceties. They repeat the prophecy that Sarah would bear a child, promising Isaac's birth within a year's time, at which point Sarah laughs in disbelief. God questions why the pair laughed in disbelief at his words, and if it is because they believe such things were not within his power. Now afraid, they futilely deny ever having laughed at God's words.
Time passes as Isaac is born. Isaac was Abraham's second son and firstborn of Sarah who was then Sarai. Sarai had been barren for a long time and sought a way to fulfill God's promise that Abram would be father of many nations, especially since they had grown old, so she offered Hagar to Abram to be his concubine.
On the eighth day from his birth, Isaac was circumcised, as was necessary for all males of Abraham's household, in order to be in compliance with the Jewish covenant.
After Isaac had been weaned, Sarah saw Ishmael playing with or mocking him (the Hebrew term is ambiguous), and urged her husband to cast out Hagar the bondservant and her son, so that Isaac would be Abraham's sole heir. Abraham was hesitant, but at God's order he listened to his wife's request.
Binding
At some point in Isaac's youth, his father Abraham took him to Mount Moriah. At God's command as the last of ten trials to test his faith, Abraham was to build a sacrificial altar and sacrifice his son Isaac upon it. After he had bound his son to the altar and drawn his knife to kill him, at the last moment an angel of God prevented Abraham from proceeding. Instead, he was directed to sacrifice a nearby ram that was stuck in thickets.
Family life
Before Isaac was 40, and when Abraham was advanced in years, the latter sent his chief steward into Mesopotamia to find a wife for Isaac, from his nephew Bethuel's family. The steward chose an Aramean woman, Rebekah, and brought her back to Isaac; in the biblical narrative, the steward refers to Isaac as "my master". Isaac married Rebekah, and on Abraham's death he inherited all his possessions, with the exception of some gifts which had been given to his six half-brothers, who had been sent to live "to the East to be away from Isaac".: New Century Version
After many years of marriage, Rebekah had still not given birth to a child and was believed to be barren. Isaac prayed for her and she conceived twins. They struggled with each other in her womb. Rebekah gave birth to twin boys, Esau and Jacob. Isaac was 60 years old when his two sons were born. Isaac favored Esau, and Rebekah favored Jacob.
The narratives about Isaac do not mention his having concubines.Encyclopaedia Judaica, Volume 10, p. 34.
Migration Isaac moved to Beer-lahai-roi after his father died. When the land experienced famine, he moved to the Philistine land of Gerar where his father once lived. This land was still under the control of King Abimelech as it was in the days of Abraham. Like his father, Isaac also pretended that Rebekah was his sister due to fear that Abimelech would kill him in order to take her. He had gone back to all of the wells that his father dug and saw that they were all stopped up with earth. The Philistines did this after Abraham died. 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.
Birthright Isaac grew old and became blind. He called his son Esau and directed him to procure some venison for him, in order to receive Isaac's blessing. While Esau was hunting, Jacob, after listening to his mother's advice, deceived his blind father by misrepresenting himself as Esau and thereby obtained his father's blessing, such that Jacob became Isaac's primary heir and Esau was left in an inferior position. According to Genesis 25:29–34, Esau had previously sold his birthright to Jacob for "bread and stew of lentils". Thereafter, Isaac sent Jacob into Mesopotamia to take a wife of his mother's brother's house. After 20 years working for his uncle Laban, Jacob returned home. He reconciled with his twin brother Esau, then he and Esau buried their father, Isaac, in Hebron after he died at the age of 180.Jewish Encyclopedia, Isaac
Death and burial Isaac was 180 years old when he died. He was buried by his sons.
Traditional information
The servant sent by Abraham to find a wife for Isaac is traditionally held to be Eliezer of Damascus, who in Genesis 15 is Abraham's steward and, at that time, his heir-apparent. He is not named in the narrative concerning Isaac.Biblehub.com Topical Encyclopedia, Eliezer: Abraham's Servant, accessed on 13 June 2026
According to local tradition, the graves of Isaac and Rebekah, along with the graves of Abraham and Sarah and Jacob and Leah, are in the Cave of the Patriarchs. The Gentiles have erected six sepulchres in this place, which they pretend to be those of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah.
Jewish views While the Book of Genesis does not tell the age of Isaac at the time of binding, some Talmudic sages take it to be thirty seven, likely based on the next biblical story, which is of Sarah's death at 127 years, being 90 when Isaac was born,Jon D. Levenson, Lecture October 13, 2016: "Genesis 22: The Binding of Isaac and the Crucifixion of Jesus" , starting at about 1:05:10 attributing this to her hearing the news of his intended sacrifice.The New Encyclopedia of Judaism, Isaac. The sacrifice of Isaac is cited in appeals for the mercy of God in later Jewish traditions.Encyclopædia Britannica, Isaac. The post-biblical Jewish interpretations often elaborate the role of Isaac beyond the biblical description and primarily focus on Abraham's intended sacrifice of Isaac, called the ("binding"). According to a version of these interpretations, Isaac died in the sacrifice and was revived. According to many accounts of Aggadah, unlike the Bible, it is Satan who is testing Isaac as an agent of God.Brock, Sebastian P., Brill's New Pauly, Isaac. Isaac's willingness to follow God's command at the cost of his death has been a model for many Jews who preferred martyrdom to violation of the Jewish law.
According to the Jewish tradition, Isaac instituted the afternoon prayer. This tradition is based on Genesis chapter 24, verse 63 ("Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the eventide").
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. Rabbinic tradition gave the explanation that Isaac was almost sacrificed and anything dedicated as a sacrifice may not leave the Land of Israel. Isaac was the oldest of the biblical patriarchs at the time of his death, and the only patriarch whose name was not changed.Easton, M. G., Illustrated Bible Dictionary, 3rd ed., Isaac.
Rabbinic literature also linked Isaac's blindness in old age, as stated in the Bible, to the sacrificial binding: Isaac's eyes went blind because the tears of angels present at the time of his sacrifice fell on Isaac's eyes.
Christian views
The early Christian church continued and developed the New Testament theme of Isaac as a type of Christ and the Church being both "the son of the promise" and the "father of the faithful". Tertullian draws a parallel between Isaac's bearing the wood for the sacrificial fire with Christ's carrying his cross.Cross and Livingstone, Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 1974, art Isaac and there was a general agreement that, while all the sacrifices of the Old Law were anticipations of that on Calvary, the sacrifice of Isaac was so "in a pre-eminent way".Kelly, J.N.D., Early Christian Doctrines, A & C Black, 1965. p. 72
The New Testament states that Isaac was "offered up" by his father Abraham, and that Isaac blessed his sons. Paul contrasted Isaac, symbolizing Christian liberty, with the rejected older son Ishmael, symbolizing slavery;Encyclopedia of Religion, Isaac. Hagar is associated with the Sinai covenant, while Sarah is associated with the covenant of grace, into which her son Isaac enters. The Epistle of James chapter 2, verses 21–24, states that the sacrifice of Isaac shows that justification (in the Johannine sense) requires both faith and works.Encyclopedia of Christianity, Bowden, John, ed., Isaac.
In the Epistle to the Hebrews, Abraham's willingness to follow God's command to sacrifice Isaac is used as an example of faith as is Isaac's action in blessing Jacob and Esau with reference to the future promised by God to Abraham. In verse 19, the author views the release of Isaac from sacrifice as analogous to the resurrection of Jesus, the idea of the sacrifice of Isaac being a prefigurement of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.F.F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews Marshall. Morgan and Scott, 1964 pp. 308–313
The Presbyterian minister James Oswald Dykes portrays Isaac as deeply affected by his mother's death: after her death, "as the months grew into years, his grief for her loss seems to have grown more settled", leaving Abraham obliged to restore his energies by finding a wife for him.Dykes, J. O., A Bride for the Heir, The Biblical Illustrator, Electronic Database, accessed on 13 June 2026
The Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church consider Isaac as a saint along with other biblical patriarchs."The patriarchs, prophets and certain other Old Testament figures have been and always will be honored as saints in all the Church's liturgical traditions." – Catechism of the Catholic Church 61 Along with those of other patriarchs and the Old Testament Righteous, his feast day is celebrated in the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Byzantine rite of the Catholic Church on the Second Sunday before Christmas (December 11–17), under the title the Sunday of the Forefathers.Liturgy > Liturgical year >The Christmas Fast – Byzantine Catholic Archeparchy of Pittsburgh
Isaac is commemorated in the Catholic Church on 25 March or on 17 December.
Islamic views