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Isaac

An imagined portrait of Isaac in the style of a tinted engraving
An imagined, stylized portrait. No one knows what Isaac looked like. AI-generated
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In Genesis 21–35, the son promised to Abraham and Sarah. Abraham is told to offer him as a sacrifice and is stopped; later he is the father of Esau and Jacob.

See Genesis 21:3, Genesis 22:2, Genesis 22:12, Genesis 25:26.

A ram caught in a thicket marks Isaac in the reading view: the ram offered in his place (Genesis 22:13).

A realistic AI imagining of Isaac

The same AI portrait re-imagined as a photograph. It is no more accurate than the stylized version: no one knows what Isaac looked like.

Mentioned in 123 verses across 21 books, first in Genesis 17:19. The verses below are the ones linked to this person (the Theographic dataset, with our sourced corrections).

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In the Bible

All 74 verses in Genesis, in Bible order. Text from the Berean Standard Bible; verse numbers follow the KJV.

Genesis

  • Genesis 17:19

    But God replied, “Your wife Sarah will indeed bear you a son, and you are to name him Isaac. I will establish My covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.

  • Genesis 17:21

    But I will establish My covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this time next year.”

  • Genesis 21:3

    And Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore to him.

  • Genesis 21:4

    When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God had commanded him.

  • Genesis 21:5

    Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

  • Genesis 21:8

    So the child grew and was weaned, and Abraham held a great feast on the day Isaac was weaned.

  • Genesis 21:10

    and she said to Abraham, “Expel the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac!”

  • Genesis 21:12

    But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to everything that Sarah tells you, for through Isaac your offspring will be reckoned.

  • Genesis 22:2

    “Take your son,” God said, “your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. Offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will show you.”

  • Genesis 22:3

    So Abraham got up early the next morning, saddled his donkey, and took along two of his servants and his son Isaac. He split the wood for a burnt offering and set out for the place God had designated.

  • Genesis 22:6

    Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac. He himself carried the fire and the sacrificial knife, and the two of them walked on together.

  • Genesis 22:7

    Then Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” “Here I am, my son,” he replied. “The fire and the wood are here,” said Isaac, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”

  • Genesis 22:9

    When they arrived at the place God had designated, Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood. He bound his son Isaac and placed him on the altar, atop the wood.

  • Genesis 24:4

    but will go to my country and my kindred to take a wife for my son Isaac.”

  • Genesis 24:14

    Now may it happen that the girl to whom I say, ‘Please let down your jar that I may drink,’ and who responds, ‘Drink, and I will water your camels as well’—let her be the one You have appointed for Your servant Isaac. By this I will know that You have shown kindness to my master.”

  • Genesis 24:62

    Now Isaac had just returned from Beer-lahai-roi, for he was living in the Negev.

  • Genesis 24:63

    Early in the evening, Isaac went out to the field to meditate, and looking up, he saw the camels approaching.

  • Genesis 24:64

    And when Rebekah looked up and saw Isaac, she got down from her camel

  • Genesis 24:66

    Then the servant told Isaac all that he had done.

  • Genesis 24:67

    And Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah and took Rebekah as his wife. And Isaac loved her and was comforted after his mother’s death.

  • Genesis 25:5

    Abraham left everything he owned to Isaac.

  • Genesis 25:6

    But while he was still alive, Abraham gave gifts to the sons of his concubines and sent them away from his son Isaac to the land of the east.

  • Genesis 25:9

    His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah near Mamre, in the field of Ephron son of Zohar the Hittite.

  • Genesis 25:11

    After Abraham’s death, God blessed his son Isaac, who lived near Beer-lahai-roi.

  • Genesis 25:19

    This is the account of Abraham’s son Isaac. Abraham became the father of Isaac,

  • Genesis 25:20

    and Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan-aram and the sister of Laban the Aramean.

  • Genesis 25:21

    Later, Isaac prayed to the LORD on behalf of his wife, because she was barren. And the LORD heard his prayer, and his wife Rebekah conceived.

  • Genesis 25:26

    After this, his brother came out grasping Esau’s heel; so he was named Jacob. And Isaac was sixty years old when the twins were born.

  • Genesis 25:28

    Because Isaac had a taste for wild game, he loved Esau; but Rebekah loved Jacob.

  • Genesis 26:1

    Now there was another famine in the land, subsequent to the one that had occurred in Abraham’s time. And Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines at Gerar.

  • Genesis 26:6

    So Isaac settled in Gerar.

  • Genesis 26:8

    When Isaac had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked down from the window and was surprised to see Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah.

  • Genesis 26:9

    Abimelech sent for Isaac and said, “So she is really your wife! How could you say, ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac replied, “Because I thought I might die on account of her.”

  • Genesis 26:12

    Now Isaac sowed seed in the land, and that very year he reaped a hundredfold. And the LORD blessed him,

  • Genesis 26:16

    Then Abimelech said to Isaac, “Depart from us, for you are much too powerful for us.”

  • Genesis 26:17

    So Isaac left that place and encamped in the Valley of Gerar and settled there.

  • Genesis 26:18

    Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug in the days of his father Abraham, which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died. And he gave these wells the same names his father had given them.

  • Genesis 26:19

    Then Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found a well of fresh water there.

  • Genesis 26:20

    But the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen and said, “The water is ours!” So he named the well Esek, because they contended with him.

  • Genesis 26:25

    So Isaac built an altar there and called on the name of the LORD, and he pitched his tent there. His servants also dug a well there.

  • Genesis 26:27

    “Why have you come to me?” Isaac asked them. “You hated me and sent me away.”

  • Genesis 26:31

    And they got up early the next morning and swore an oath to each other. Then Isaac sent them on their way, and they left him in peace.

  • Genesis 26:32

    On that same day, Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well they had dug. “We have found water!” they told him.

  • Genesis 26:35

    And they brought grief to Isaac and Rebekah.

  • Genesis 27:1

    When Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he could no longer see, he called his older son Esau and said to him, “My son.” “Here I am,” Esau replied.

  • Genesis 27:5

    Now Rebekah was listening to what Isaac told his son Esau. So when Esau went into the field to hunt game and bring it back,

  • Genesis 27:20

    But Isaac asked his son, “How did you ever find it so quickly, my son?” “Because the LORD your God brought it to me,” he replied.

  • Genesis 27:21

    Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Please come closer so I can touch you, my son. Are you really my son Esau, or not?”

  • Genesis 27:22

    So Jacob came close to his father Isaac, who touched him and said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.”

  • Genesis 27:26

    Then his father Isaac said to him, “Please come near and kiss me, my son.”

  • Genesis 27:30

    As soon as Isaac had finished blessing him and Jacob had left his father’s presence, his brother Esau returned from the hunt.

  • Genesis 27:32

    But his father Isaac replied, “Who are you?” “I am Esau, your firstborn son,” he answered.

  • Genesis 27:33

    Isaac began to tremble violently and said, “Who was it, then, who hunted the game and brought it to me? Before you came in, I ate it all and blessed him—and indeed, he will be blessed!”

  • Genesis 27:37

    But Isaac answered Esau: “Look, I have made him your master and given him all his relatives as servants; I have sustained him with grain and new wine. What is left that I can do for you, my son?”

  • Genesis 27:39

    His father Isaac answered him: “Behold, your dwelling place shall be away from the richness of the land, away from the dew of heaven above.

  • Genesis 27:46

    Then Rebekah said to Isaac, “I am weary of my life because of these Hittite women. If Jacob takes a Hittite wife from among them, what good is my life?”

  • Genesis 28:1

    So Isaac called for Jacob and blessed him. “Do not take a wife from the Canaanite women,” he commanded.

  • Genesis 28:5

    So Isaac sent Jacob to Paddan-aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, who was the mother of Jacob and Esau.

  • Genesis 28:6

    Now Esau learned that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him to Paddan-aram to take a wife there, commanding him, “Do not marry a Canaanite woman,”

  • Genesis 28:8

    And seeing that his father Isaac disapproved of the Canaanite women,

  • Genesis 28:13

    And there at the top the LORD was standing and saying, “I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you now lie.

  • Genesis 31:18

    and he drove all his livestock before him, along with all the possessions he had acquired in Paddan-aram, to go to his father Isaac in the land in Canaan.

  • Genesis 31:42

    If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been with me, surely by now you would have sent me away empty-handed. But God has seen my affliction and the toil of my hands, and last night He rendered judgment.”

  • Genesis 31:53

    May the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us.” So Jacob swore by the Fear of his father Isaac.

  • Genesis 32:9

    Then Jacob declared, “O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, the LORD who told me, ‘Go back to your country and to your kindred, and I will make you prosper,’

  • Genesis 35:12

    The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give this land to your descendants after you.”

  • Genesis 35:27

    Jacob returned to his father Isaac at Mamre, near Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had stayed.

  • Genesis 35:28

    And Isaac lived 180 years.

  • Genesis 35:29

    Then he breathed his last and died and was gathered to his people, old and full of years. And his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

  • Genesis 46:1

    So Israel set out with all that he had, and when he came to Beersheba, he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac.

  • Genesis 48:15

    Then he blessed Joseph and said: “May the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day,

  • Genesis 48:16

    the angel who has redeemed me from all harm— may He bless these boys. And may they be called by my name and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and may they grow into a multitude upon the earth.”

  • Genesis 49:31

    There Abraham and his wife Sarah are buried, there Isaac and his wife Rebekah are buried, and there I buried Leah.

  • Genesis 50:24

    Then Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will surely visit you and bring you up from this land to the land He promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

Events

Events the dataset lists Isaac as taking part in. Dates follow its Ussher–Jones reckoning (one of several traditional counts), not established history.

  1. c. 1896 BC
    Birth of IsaacGenesis 17:19–21:3
  2. c. 1896 BC
    Lifetime of IsaacGenesis 17:19–35:28
  3. c. 1856 BC
    Isaac Marries RebekahGenesis 25:20
  4. c. 1836 BC
    Birth of Jacob and EsauGenesis 25:24–26
  5. c. 1716 BC
    Death of IsaacGenesis 35:28–29 · at Mamre

Dictionary

From Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897), as attached to this record by Theographic. The entry is for the name and can describe more than one person who bore it. Easton wrote in 1897, and some of his views are now debated.

Read Easton’s entry

The only son of Abraham by Sarah. He was the longest lived of the three patriarchs (Gen. 21:1-3). He was circumcised when eight days old (4-7); and when he was probably two years old a great feast was held in connection with his being weaned.

The next memorable event in his life is that connected with the command of God given to Abraham to offer him up as a sacrifice on a mountain in the land of Moriah ([Gen. 22](/gen#Gen.22)). When he was forty years of age Rebekah was chosen for his wife ([Gen. 24](/gen#Gen.24)). After the death and burial of his father he took up his residence at Beer-lahai-roi (25:7-11), where his two sons, Esau and Jacob, were born (21-26), the former of whom seems to have been his favourite son (27, 28).

In consequence of a famine (Gen. 26:1) Isaac went to Gerar, where he practised deception as to his relation to Rebekah, imitating the conduct of his father in Egypt (12:12-20) and in Gerar (20:2). The Philistine king rebuked him for his prevarication.

After sojourning for some time in the land of the Philistines, he returned to Beersheba, where God gave him fresh assurance of covenant blessing, and where Abimelech entered into a covenant of peace with him.

The next chief event in his life was the blessing of his sons (Gen. 27:1). He died at Mamre, “being old and full of days” (35:27-29), one hundred and eighty years old, and was buried in the cave of Machpelah.

In the New Testament reference is made to his having been “offered up” by his father (Heb. 11:17; James 2:21), and to his blessing his sons (Heb. 11:20). As the child of promise, he is contrasted with Ishmael (Rom. 9:7, 10; Gal. 4:28; Heb. 11:18).

Isaac is “at once a counterpart of his father in simple devoutness and purity of life, and a contrast in his passive weakness of character, which in part, at least, may have sprung from his relations to his mother and wife. After the expulsion of Ishmael and Hagar, Isaac had no competitor, and grew up in the shade of Sarah’s tent, moulded into feminine softness by habitual submission to her strong, loving will.” His life was so quiet and uneventful that it was spent “within the circle of a few miles; so guileless that he let Jacob overreach him rather than disbelieve his assurance; so tender that his mother’s death was the poignant sorrow of years; so patient and gentle that peace with his neighbours was dearer than even such a coveted possession as a well of living water dug by his own men; so grandly obedient that he put his life at his father’s disposal; so firm in his reliance on God that his greatest concern through life was to honour the divine promise given to his race.”, Geikie’s Hours, etc.

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