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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 092. Isaac
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Literature
Beecher, H. W., Bible Studies (1893), 83.
Bell, C. D., The Roll-Call of Faith (1886), 127.
Brown, C., God and Man, 162.
Burrell, D. J., The Golden Passional (1897), 277.
Cox, S., The Hebrew Twins (1894), 23.
Cumming, J. E., Scripture Photographs, 62.
Dods, M., Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph (1880), 3.
Grant, F. W., Genesis in the Light of the New Testament, 134.
Greenhough, J. G., Old Pictures in Modern Frames (1902), 34.
Gunsaulus, F. W., Paths to the City of God (1906), 200.
Henson, P. S., The Four Faces (1911), 185.
Holden, J. S., Redeeming Vision (1908), 72.
Jukes, A., The Types of Genesis (1875), 247.
Kemble, C., Memorials of a Closed Ministry, i. 51.
Mackintosh, H. R., Life on God's Plan (1909), 1.
Maclaren, A., Expositions: Genesis (1904).
McNeill, J., Regent Square Pulpit, iii. (1891), 217.
Matheson, G., The Representative Men of the Bible, i. (1902) 131.
Morrison, G. H., Flood-Tide (1901), 148.
Mortimer, A. G., Stories from Genesis (1894), 147.
Mortimer, A.G., Studies in Holy Scripture (1901), 18.
Peake, A. S., The Heroes and Martyrs of Faith (1910), 82.
Perin, G. L., The Sunny Side of Life (1909), 135.
Price, A. C., Fifty Sermons, ii. (1884) 345; vii. (1889) 145.
Rawlinson, G., Isaac and Jacob (1890), 2.
Robertson, F. W., Sermons, iv. (1874) 123.
Stosch, G., The Origin of Genesis (1897), 153.
Young, D. T., Neglected People of the Bible (1901), 1.
Children's Pulpit: Boys and Girls of the Old Testament, xvi. 30.
Christian World Pulpit, xlix. (1896) 4 (T. C. Finlayson); lxxii. (1907) 118 (F. R. Smith).
Expositor, 5th Ser., iv. (1896) 16 (R. W. Dale); 6th Ser., xi. (1905) 123 (J. Watson).
Preachers' Monthly, vii. (1884) 134, 310.
1. Isaac is one of those men who have never received justice from the readers of Bible history. This is not because anything very serious can be said against him, but because very little can be said about him, either good or bad. His fate is not to be criticized, it is to be ignored; it is not that people have a grudge against him, it is that they have no opinion about him. If one were required to write a sketch of Isaac and to subtract from it all that belongs to Abraham and all that must be assigned to Rebekah, there would be a very scanty balance. He appears in various striking scenes, but in each he is only a secondary figure-a mere accessory to the play. Sum up his record according to the Book of Genesis and it comes to this: at twenty-five Abraham would have sacrificed him; at forty Abraham married him; at sixty his sons were born; at a hundred and thirty-seven Jacob deceived him; and at a hundred and eighty he died. Add for the sake of completeness that Isaac was born, and you have all the features of this drab-coloured and characterless life.
Isaac is thus felt by every Bible-reader to be a much less commanding figure than the men who stand on either side of him-his father Abraham and his son Jacob. Abraham was a hero; he stands out conspicuously above the history of his time like a great mountain peak above the surrounding country. Jacob stands no less conspicuously above the other members of his family and the people of his time. Isaac's life was quiet. He impersonates, as it were, the peaceful, obedient, and submissive qualities of an equable trust in God, distinct alike from the transcendent faith of Abraham, and from that lower type which in Jacob was learned through discipline and purged from self-will. He was peaceful, pleasant, harmless, useful, but in no sense romantic. There was not one thing in his life that in and of itself stirs the imagination. There was not a phase of his character the contemplation of which would lead one to an involuntary exclamation of admiration. Isaac is the representative of the unimportant but overwhelming majority, and his life and history stood to his descendants, and stand to us, for the glorification of the commonplace. A great master-brain, an Empire-making idealist in front; a daring, struggling, self-conquering hero behind Isaac is the plain man of business between them.
2. It was not without significance for the Israelites that the prehistoric founders of their race were not all of heroic mould. The ordinary materials of Hebrew life, as represented in Isaac and Jacob, were selected to be the channels of special revelation no less than the more splendid and striking personality of their father Abraham. Isaac was similar to the majority in every community, yielding, easy-going, stationary, content to receive the promise without realizing the extent or nature of the privilege. The events of his life are associated with a few localities, all (except Mamre, Gen_35:27-29) within a restricted area in S. Palestine. His encampments at Beer-lahai-roi, Gerar, and Beersheba form a sharp contrast to the varied scenes in the lives of Abraham and Jacob. The typical service of one of the patriarchs was rendered in quietness and sitting still.
In the cave of Machpelah there are still to be seen six cenotaphs of the patriarchs of Israel and their wives. There are the monuments of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob; of Sarah, of Rebekah, and of Leah. Of these there is one larger and more imposing than the others. Were we asked to say beforehand which this is, probably the universal voice would be-that of Abraham, the father of the faithful. And if, on being told that this was not so, we were asked again to select a name, we should probably select the name of Jacob, and give as our reason that he was the second father of the race, from whom the name of Israel came. There are few who do not receive with surprise the tidings that the most imposing of the monuments of Machpelah, in outward appearance, is that of Isaac. And the surprise increases when we learn that among the Jews there has always been an undercurrent of feeling to the same effect, and that for the name of Isaac they reserve their greatest honours and their deepest reverence. Why this should be we can give no account. But it is certain that of the three patriarchs, and indeed of all characters in the Old Testament, Isaac is made in the New the most striking type of the Lord Jesus Christ.1 [Note: J. E. Cumming, Scripture Photographs, 62.]