Abraham's second son was named Isaac, which means 'he will laugh'. The laughs of disbelief from his parents when told that they would have a son in their old age had turned to joyous laughter upon his birth. Isaac's story is told in Genesis chapter 21, verse 1 to chapter 35, verse 29. The family must have been so happy while he was growing up, but the latter part of his early life became very traumatic. While still relatively young, we don't know what age, but certainly old enough to understand what was going on, his father had taken him away to sacrifice him. Only at the last moment, when he had been tied up and Abraham was holding the knife over him, did God intervene and provide a ram as an alternate sacrifice. That incident must have stayed with him all his life. He had a deeper understanding of the trauma of sacrifice than most other people and also of God's mercy in providing a substitute.
Isaac lived with his parents until he was 40 years old and then his mother, Sarah, died. After the family had finished mourning, Abraham decided that Isaac should get married and so he sent his chief servant off to the village where his brother, Nahor, lived. Abraham had given the servant a particular sign to recognize the right wife for Isaac and a young lady called Rebekah came along and said the very words that Abraham had predicted. To cut a long story short, she turned out to be a cousin of Isaac and when the servant explained the situation, Rebekah and her family agreed that she should go with the servant to marry Isaac. They fell in love, but couldn't have children because Rebekah was barren.
Now a new famine occurred and Isaac went to Gerar with his wife, where he told King Abimelech that Rebekah was his sister. Perhaps his father had told him that this was a ruse that had worked well for him in the past - which clearly wasn't quite true - or maybe it's the obvious thing to do if you visit a foreign country with a beautiful wife. Either way, eventually Abimelech found out the truth and gave Isaac and Rebekah protection in Philistia, perhaps because he had been on good terms with Abraham. Isaac became very rich there and eventually Abimelech asked them to move away, so they went back to Canaan.
After 20 years of marriage, Rebekah suddenly became pregnant and eventually gave birth to twins, Esau and Jacob. They had very different characters: Jacob was rather quiet but Esau was an outgoing hunter. Rachel preferred Jacob, but Isaac loved Esau more and this caused some conflict in the marriage. One day, when they were living at Lahai Roi and Isaac was 75, he called for Esau, to give him the blessing of the first born (since he had been born just before Jacob). However, Rachel wanted Jacob to receive the blessing, so she dressed him as Esau and presented him to Isaac, who couldn't see very well any more. Isaac unwittingly gave Jacob the blessing, but a bit later Esau came into the room. Isaac realized that he had been tricked and became angry; Esau, though, was livid, so Jacob had to run away, facilitated by Rebekah.
We don't know much more about Isaac, except that Esau married a couple of Canaanite women, who drove Isaac and Rebekah dotty and so he eventually then married a relative as well, a daughter of Abraham's son by Hagar, Ishmael, to appease his parents. Overall, Isaac's life story may not appear to be very inspiring, with a repeat of Abraham's deception at Gerar, a breakdown of trust in his marriage, a son, Esau, who married unsuitable wives, causing trouble, and his other son having to run away from home. However, God used him passively in various powerful ways. His enduring the aborted sacrifice provides us with one of the strongest messages about our redemption through Jesus acting as a substitute lamb for us on the cross. Equally, by blessing Jacob rather than Esau, he was taking part in God's plan to raise up a people for Himself through Jacob. In one of these prophetic acts the main player was his father and in the other his wife. Even with regard to his wedding, it was a prophetic word by his father rather than himself that identified Rebekah as the wife chosen for him by God.
Sometimes it is important that we hear God clearly and act on that. Sometimes, though, God uses our lives in ways where we don't feel in control, but it is important that we then are receptive to what He is doing. At times, as with Isaac, the events themselves might be quite shocking and even make us angry, but we need then to recognize that God has been at work and accept that He knows best. Where Abraham was an example of a man with a rather ordinary ability to make a mess of things being blessed by God, because he mustered up faith in the midst of not really knowing what was going on, Isaac demonstrates the importance of allowing God to use us as passive instruments for Him, even if sometimes that is against our (seeming) best judgement or will at the time.
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