The son of the patriarch Abraham, by Sarah his wife.  By the Hebrew chronology Isaac was born about 1897 B.C., when his father was 100 years old and his mother also of advanced age.  When the Divine promise was made to her that she should have a son, its fulfilment seemed so improbable that she received it with a laugh of unbelief, for which she was rebuked by God.  It was to commemorate her conduct on this occasion that she named the child when it was born Isaac or Laughter.  He was circumcised on the eighth day, and being the child of promise had from the first higher privileges than were accorded to Ishmael, Abraham's son by his Egyptian maid, Hagar (Gen. xviii. 9-15; xxi. 1-12).  Abraham loved his younger son with very deep affection, but his obedience to the Divine will was such that when, to try his faith, God required him to offer Isaac in sacrifice, he took steps to carry out the dreadful injunction.  When the faith thus tested came out triumphant, the voice of God from heaven directed him to do the lad no injury, and added promises of a numerous progeny and of blessings through his seed to all families of mankind (xxii. 1-18).  The temperament of Isaac fitted him for a retired and contemplative, rather than an active life.  He had, moreover, an affectionate heart, and feeling deeply the death of his mother when it occurred, was not again happy till Rebekah was brought from Mesopotamia to be his wife (xxiii. 1, 2; xxiv. 1-67).  He was then about forty years old.  Twenty years later Rebekah gave birth to twins, Esau and Jacob, Esau being Isaac's and Jacob Rebekah's favourite (xxv. 19-28).  The consequences of this partiality were harmful to all the parties concerned.  Rebekah took advantage of Isaac's age and the blindness and bluntness of feeling which it produced to pass Jacob off for Esau, and obtain the special blessing which the father had intended for his favourite son.  Then Jacob had to be sent out of the country, to escape the threatened vengeance of the brother whom he had cheated; and as he was away twenty years, Rebekah never saw him more (xxvii.-xxxiii.).  Isaac resided chiefly at Mamre or Hebron (xxxv. 27), though on one occasion, during famine, he for a considerable time sojourned near Gerar, in the Philistine country, where, like Abraham on a similar occasion, he denied his wife (xxvi. 1-33).  He died at the age of 180, by the Hebrew reckoning about 1716 B.C., and was buried by Esau and Jacob (xxxv. 28, 29) in the cave of Machpelah, where already the mortal remains of his parents and his wife had been laid (xlix. 31).  The New Testament alludes to Isaac as a child of promise (Gal. iv. 22, 23), and instances his tent-life and his blessing Esau and Jacob as evidences of his faith (Heb. xi. 9, 20). (The Sunday School Teacher's Bible Manual, Hunter, 1894)