Forefather Forefather Isaac

Righteous Isaac is the second of the biblical patriarchs, the only son of Abraham and Sarah, born by God's promise when his father was a hundred and his mother ninety years old (c. 1900 BC). His very birth was a miracle and a sign of God's faithfulness.

Circumcised on the eighth day, as a youth he nearly became a sacrifice: at God's command Abraham led him up Mount Moriah for a burnt offering, and only at the last moment did an angel stay his father's hand, God accepting the willingness of the sacrifice and providing a ram instead. The Church reads this as a prefiguration of Christ's sacrifice on the Cross — Isaac obediently carrying the wood for his own offering foreshadows the Savior carrying His Cross.

At forty, Isaac married Rebekah, and after twenty childless years the twins Esau and Jacob were born. In old age, blind, Isaac blessed the younger Jacob instead of the elder Esau by God's providence, passing on the promise to the chosen line. He died at one hundred eighty and was buried in the cave of Machpelah. Unlike his father, Isaac has no individual fixed feast day; he is glorified together with the other forefathers on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers and the Sunday of the Holy Fathers.