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IsaacAid to Bible Understanding
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a son. (Gen. 25:19-21) As in his own case, it was again demonstrated that the seed of promise would come, not through the natural course of events, but only through Jehovah’s intervening power. (Josh. 24:3, 4) Finally, in 1858 B.C.E., when Isaac was sixty years old, he was given the double blessing of twins, Esau and Jacob.—Gen. 25:22-26.
Due to a famine, Isaac moved his family to Gerar in Philistine territory, being told by God not to go down to Egypt. It was on this occasion that Jehovah confirmed his purpose to carry out the Abrahamic promise through Isaac, repeating its terms: “I will multiply your seed like the stars of the heavens and I will give to your seed all these lands; and by means of your seed all nations of the earth will certainly bless themselves.”—Gen. 26:1-6; Ps. 105:8, 9.
In this not too friendly Philistine country, Isaac, like his father Abraham, used strategy by claiming his wife was his sister. After a time Jehovah’s blessing on Isaac became a source of envy to the Philistines, making it necessary for him to move, first to the torrent valley of Gerar, and then to Beer-sheba, on the edge of the arid Negeb region. While here, the formerly hostile Philistines came seeking “an oath of obligation” or a treaty of peace with Isaac, for as they acknowledged, “You now are the blessed of Jehovah.” At this place his men struck water and Isaac called it Shibah. “That is why the name of the city is Beer-sheba [meaning well of the oath or of seven], down to this day.”—Gen. 26:7-33; see BEERSHEBA.
Isaac had always been fond of Esau, because he was the outdoor type, a hunter and a man of the field, and this meant game in Isaac’s mouth. (Gen. 25:28) So, with failing eyesight and a feeling he did not have long to live, Isaac prepared to give Esau the firstborn’s blessing. (27:1-4) Whether he was unaware that Esau had sold his birthright to his brother Jacob, and whether he failed to remember the divine decree, given at the two boys’ birth, that “the older will serve the younger,” is not known. (25:23, 29-34) Whatever the case, Jehovah remembered, and so did Rebekah, who quickly arranged things so that Jacob received the blessing. When Isaac learned of the ruse that had been used to accomplish this, he refused to change what was unmistakably Jehovah’s will in the matter. Isaac also prophesied that Esau and his descendants would reside far away from the fertile fields, would live by the sword, and would finally break the yoke of servitude to Jacob from off their necks.—27:5-40; Rom. 9:10-13; see ESAU.
Subsequently, Isaac sent Jacob to Paddan-aram to make sure he did not marry a Canaanitess, as his brother Esau had done to the vexation of his parents. When Jacob returned many years later, Isaac was residing at Kiriath-arba, that is, Hebron, in the hill country. It was here in 1738 B.C.E., the year before his grandson Joseph was made prime minister of Egypt, that Isaac died at the age of 180, “old and satisfied with days.” Isaac was buried in the same cave of Machpelah where his parents and wife, and later his son Jacob, were buried.—Gen. 26:34, 35; 27:46; 28:1-5; 35:27-29; 49:29-32.
SIGNIFICANCE OF OTHER REFERENCES TO ISAAC
Throughout the Bible Isaac is mentioned dozens of times in the familiar expression ‘Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.’ Sometimes the point being made is in reference to Jehovah as the God these patriarchs worshiped and served. (Ex. 3:6, 16; 4:5; Matt. 22:32; Acts 3:13) At other times the reference is to the covenant Jehovah made with them. (Ex. 2:24; Deut. 29:13; 2 Ki. 13:23) Jesus also used this expression in an illustrative way. (Matt. 8:11) In one instance Isaac, the patriarchal forefather, is mentioned in a Hebraic parallelism along with his descendants the nation of Israel.—Amos 7:9, 16.
Isaac as the seed of Abraham was pictorial of Christ, through whom everlasting blessings come. As it is written: “Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. It says, not: ‘And to seeds,’ as in the case of many such, but as in the case of one: ‘And to your seed,’ who is Christ.” And by extension, Isaac was also pictorial of those who “belong to Christ,” who “are really Abraham’s seed, heirs with reference to a promise.” (Gal. 3:16, 29) Furthermore, the two boys, Isaac and Ishmael, together with their mothers, “stand as a symbolic drama.” Whereas natural Israel (like Ishmael) “was actually born in the manner of flesh,” these making up spiritual Israel “are children belonging to the promise the same as Isaac was.”—Gal. 4:21-31.
Isaac is also numbered among the “so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us,” for he too was among those “awaiting the city having real foundations, the builder and creator of which city is God.”—Heb. 12:1; 11:9, 10, 13-16, 20.
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IsaiahAid to Bible Understanding
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ISAIAH
(I·saʹiah) [salvation of Jehovah].
A prophet, the son of Amoz (not the prophet Amos). He served Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah of Judah. (Isa. 1:1) Kings Pekah and Hoshea were ruling in the northern kingdom of Israel, which ended in 740 B.C.E., during the time of Isaiah’s prophetic service. Contemporary prophets were Micah, Hosea and Oded. Isaiah evidently began his prophesying later than Hosea’s start and before Micah began.—2 Chron. 28:9; Hos. 1:1; Mic. 1:1.
BEGINNING OF PROPHETIC WORK
In the year that King Uzziah died (778/777 B.C.E), Isaiah had a vision commissioning him to the special work of speaking for Jehovah to the people of Judah and Jerusalem about God’s coming judgments, He was told in advance that their ears would be unresponsive. Jehovah said that this situation would continue until the nation would come to ruin, and that only a “tenth,” a “holy seed,” would be left like the stump of a massive tree. Isaiah’s prophetic work must have comforted and strengthened the faith of that small number, even though the rest of the nation refused to take heed.—Isa. 6:1-13.
It is probable that Isaiah’s vision recorded in chapter six of his book marks the beginning of his prophetic service, although he may have been active as a prophet before that time. He says that he prophesied in the days of Uzziah, which could possibly include more than the last year of Uzziah’s life, when Uzziah’s son Jotham was administering the affairs of the king’s house and judging the people, because of his father’s leprous condition.—2 Chron. 26:21.
LENGTH OF PROPHETIC SERVICE
Though concentrating on Judah, Isaiah also uttered prophecies concerning Israel and the nations round about, as they had a bearing on Judah’s situation and history. He enjoyed a long term in the prophetic office, continuing at least until the fourteenth year of Hezekiah’s reign (732/731 B.C.E.) and possibly beyond that date, though no prophecy of his can be definitely shown to have been made later. (Isa. 36:1, 2) It was in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah that Sennacherib sent an army against Jerusalem and was turned back. In addition to giving the account of the threatened siege and the delivery of Jerusalem, Isaiah tells of Sennacherib’s return to Nineveh and his assassination. (Isa. 37:36-38) If this bit of historical information was written by Isaiah and was not an insertion by a later hand, it may show that Isaiah prophesied for some time after Hezekiah’s fourteenth year. The Assyrian chronological records (though their reliability is questionable) say that Sennacherib ruled some twenty years after his
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