Genesis 22:3. The historian Josephus estimated (in The Antiquities of the Jews, l. 1. chapter 13) that Isaac was 25 years old at the time that he was to be sacrificed by Abraham, who would then have been 125. The Annals of the World, James Ussher (revised and updated by Larry and Marion Pierce, Master Books, 2003), section 92.
15 Genesis 22:5. YLT defines Isaac as a “youth”; NKJV and NAS define him as a “lad.” (None of these more literal translations call him a “boy.”)
16 Hebrews 11:17–19
17 Romans 10:9–10 — “. . . if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the head one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
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DEATH, MARRIAGE, AND THE STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN
(c. 1859–1759 B.C.)
Sarah, Rebekah, and Jacob
More than a decade after God tested Abraham’s faith by telling him to sacrifice his son, Isaac, Abraham’s wife Sarah breathed her last.1 Sarah, the mother of Isaac, was God’s chosen matriarch of the future Israelite people,2 and Abraham purchased a cave near Hebron as a tomb to bury her.3
After about three years when Isaac was 40,4 Abraham sent his most-trusted servant, Eliezer, to find a bride for Isaac among Abraham’s relatives.5 It may have been weeks before his ten-camel caravan arrived at the well outside Haran.6 As the sun drew near to the western horizon, the godly servant prayed for specific confirmation about Isaac’s wife-to-be. The description in Genesis 24 is a striking reminder that the Creator orchestrated this crucial moment in molding a chosen people.
God answered Eliezer’s prayer down to its finest detail when the beautiful maiden Rebekah arrived. She showed great kindness to him and his caravan. Later that evening her father and brother gave permission for the marriage, and many valuable gifts from Abraham were bestowed.7 The next morning, Rebekah agreed to depart immediately. Trusting God, she said goodbye to loved ones she might never see again and set out to meet her unknown groom in an unfamiliar land.
Some days later in a field in Canaan where Isaac was praying at evening, Rebekah dismounted her camel, and the couple finally met.8 Obviously pleased by Eliezer’s amazing report of the Lord’s leading, Isaac and Rebekah soon married, and she gladdened his heart.9
However, God did not give children quickly. Finally, after 20 years of waiting, and Isaac’s earnest prayer for his wife, Rebekah bore twins! The first was red and very hairy so they named him Esau.10 The second grabbed his brother’s heel, so they named him Jacob.11
When they became adults, Esau loved hunting, while Jacob apparently helped oversee the family’s herds.12 One day when Jacob was making stew, Esau came in. Tired and famished, he wanted to eat immediately. Jacob respected that God had given Abraham and Isaac an amazing inheritance and knew that Esau did not value it. So he offered his hungry brother a quick meal in exchange for his birthright.13 Incredibly, Esau agreed. He simply ate and left.14
When the twins were about 7715 and their wealthy father had gone blind,16 Isaac was about to bestow the blessing of family leadership on Esau — who was ungodly, sexually immoral, and had sold his birthright to Jacob!17 However, God had revealed to Rebekah that the older would serve the younger,18 so when she commanded Jacob to help deceive her husband in order to receive the birthright blessing, she felt justified. Rebekah prepared goat meat to taste like wild game, which Isaac was awaiting from Esau. Then she had Jacob wear Esau’s clothes and placed goatskin on his smooth neck and hands.19 Jacob repeatedly lied to his blind father Isaac, who gave Jacob the blessing.20
Within minutes, Esau learned of the deception and wailed bitterly. He threatened to kill his brother,21 so Rebekah convinced Isaac to send Jacob north to find a wife among her nieces, away from pagan Canaanite women like Esau’s wives, who brought them much heartache.22
Jacob fled Beersheba for Haran.23 Possibly that very night he dreamed of a ladder that connected earth and heaven. Angels went up and down.24 Like us, Jacob was a sinner but God had chosen him, promised to protect him, and to give him and his descendants the land where he was sleeping. Genesis says that when he awoke he was awestruck, so he took the stone that had been his pillow, set it to mark the spot, and called the place Bethel.25 Then he started again to Haran.
Many years later, Jesus revealed that He is the ladder, the only true way to heaven.26
PRIMARY PASSAGES
Gen. chapters 23–28, Gen. 35:28–29
KEY VERSE
“So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night. . . . Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood above it and said . . . ‘the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants. Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’” Gen. 28:11–14
WRAP UP
“You bring good from bad, Lord. You even use broken, deceptive sinners to accomplish Your plan. Thank You so very much that in spite of Isaac’s favoritism toward his immoral son Esau the hunter, and Rebekah’s scheming and deception with her favorite son Jacob the rancher, You made sure that Your sovereign will was accomplished. Your plan is never overwhelmed by man’s feeble deceptions. Thank You, Lord, for Your love-filled grace!”
1 Sarah died at age 127 (Gen. 23:1). This means that Isaac was 37 when his passed away. Ussher’s Annals of the World, note 93, says Sarah was 127 in 1859 B.C., and we know Abraham was 100 when Isaac was born and Sarah was about 10 years younger than Abraham, about 90. Since Sarah was 127 at her death, and 90 at Isaac’s birth, Isaac was about 37 when his mother died. Abraham was about 137 when Sarah died, and he lived to 175, per Genesis 25:7.
2 To understand the difference between an Israelite, a Hebrew, and a Jew, see the online article, “Who is a Jew” at www.biblelineministries.org/articles/basearch.php3?action=full&mainkey=WHO+IS+A+JEW%3F), accessed February 2017.
3 Genesis 23:2–19. Also of note is that Genesis 18 states that it was in this area — perhaps at the same field where this cave-tomb was located — that the Lord told Abraham when he was 99 that within a year his 90-year-old wife, Sarah, would bear the long-awaited son of promise, Isaac. The field chosen to bury his sister-wife may have been especially significant to Abraham because of the promise God made to him at that place. In the cave that Abraham purchased for a tomb (in Ephron’s field in Machpelah near “Mamre,” which is near Hebron at the south end of the Dead Sea) all three patriarchs and their covenant wives were eventually buried; Abraham and Sarah, the mother of Isaac (Gen. 25:8–10), Isaac and Rebekah, the mother of the heel-grabber Jacob, and Jacob (Israel) and Leah, the
