Irad Isaac

of King David and a priest of Israel. [2 Sam. 20:26] 2. c. 10 century B C . Son o f Ikkesh of Tekoa, he was one of the warriors in King David's army distinguished for his bravery and appointed one o f the twelve commanders. [2 Sam. 23:26; 1 Chr. 11:28; 27:9]

) . c. 10 century B C . A n Ithr i te in the army o f King David, distinguished for his bravery. [2 Sam. 23:38; 1 Chr. 11:40]

Irad (Heb. 'fleet') date u n k n o w n . Son of Enoch and a grandson o f Cain. [Gen. 4:18]

Iram date unknown. A n Edomite leader descended from Esau. [Gen. 36:43; 1 Chr. 1:54]

I r i c. 16 century B C . Son o f Bela and a grandson of Benjamin, he and his broth­ers were leaders of the tr ibe o f Benjamin and mighty warriors. Also k n o w n as I r , the father of Shuppim and H u p p i m . [1 Chr. 7:7, 12]

Ir i jah (Heb. 'may God see') c. 6 century B C . Son of Shelemiah, he was an army captain in Jerusalem in the days of King Zedekiah who imprisoned the prophet Jeremiah after accusing h i m of deserting to the Babylonian army. [Jer. 37:13]

Irnahash (Heb. 'serpent city ') date un­k n o w n . Son of Tehinnah, a leader of the tribe of Judah. [1 Chr. 4:12]

I r u c. 13 century B C . Son o f Caleb, and a leader o f the tribe of Judah. [1 Chr. 4:15]

Isaac (Heb. 'he laughed') c. 18-16 cen­turies B C . The second patriarch son of Abraham.

Abraham was ninety-nine years old when the Lord told h i m that his barren wife Sarah would bear h i m a son. Ac­cording to the account in Genesis, Abra­ham laughed in his heart, and Sarah

was also bitterly amused because she was ninety and long past child-bearing age. The son was called Isaac (Hebrew Yitzchak) meaning 'he laughed'.

When Isaac was a young lad, Abra­ham's obedience to God was put to a fearful test. He was to ld to take the boy to a distant mountain top and sacrifice h i m to the Lord . They set out w i t h t w o young servants and a load of firewood. When they neared the place, the servants and the ass were left behind and father and son went forward on foot. Isaac asked, 'Behold, the fire and the w o o d ; but where is the lamb for a burnt offer­ing?' (Gen. 22:7) Abraham replied eva­sively that the Lord w o u l d provide the lamb.

A t the spot for the sacrifice, Abraham erected an altar, arranged the wood on i t , and laid the bound boy on top. When he stretched his hand for the knife an angel of the Lord intervened, and a ram that was seen in a nearby thicket was sacrificed instead of Isaac.

Stricken in years, Abraham concerned himself w i t h finding a wife for Isaac, then forty years o ld . Abraham did not want h i m to marry a local Canaanite g i r l , so he sent a trusted servant to his o w n kinsmen in Haran (northern Syria). The servant returned w i t h Rebekah, the daughter of Abraham's nephew. One evening Isaac was strol l ing through the fields when he saw the camel caravan approaching. Rebekah modestly veiled herself and alighted to greet h im. 'Then Isaac brought her into the tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wi fe ; and he loved her. So Isaac was com­forted after his mother's death.' (Gen. 24:67)

Nearing the end of his days, Abraham declared that Isaac w o u l d be the heir to his estate. T o avoid trouble later, Abra ham gave gifts to the sons he had had by concubines and sent them to live further east. Abraham died and was buried next to Sarah in the Cave ol Machpelah by Isaac and lus hall brothi 1

Isaac Isaac

Ishmael, the son of Hagar, Sarah's Egyptian slave-maid.

A t first Rebekah was barren but after Isaac had appealed to the L o r d , she gave b i r th to twins. The first to be born was Esau, covered w i t h red hair, and then Jacob, clutching his brother's heel.

There was a famine in the land and Isaac started moving w i t h his flocks and herds towards Egypt, as his father Abra­ham had done in an earlier famine. He reached Gerar, ruled over by his father's friend (or his friend's namesake) Abime-lech. Here the Lord appeared to h im and t o l d h i m not to go d o w n to Egypt but to stay in that area. The Lord re­called his covenant w i t h Abraham and repeated to Isaac the promise that he w o u l d be blessed and mult ip ly and the land w o u l d belong to his seed. So Isaac remained in Gerar.

As Abraham had done w i t h Sarah, Isaac passed Rebekah off as his sister for fear that he might be ki l led for her sake, as she too was fair to look upon. Looking through a w i n d o w Abimelech saw Isaac and Rebekah together and realized they were husband and wife. He was angry at first at the deception but gave orders that anyone who molested them would be put to death.

Isaac re-opened the wells that Abra­ham had dug in this area and that had been filled in again. He reaped good crops f rom his sowing; his herds and flocks mult ipl ied and he became wealthy and important . This aroused local envy. At Abimelech's suggestion, Isaac moved further away, though remaining in the region of Gerar and Beersheba. Again he located and restored some of Abraham's wells. There was friction w i t h local shepherds over t w o of these watering places, but at the t h i r d , Rehoboth, they were left in peace. Isaac said, 'For now the L o r d has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land. ' (Gen. 26:22) Isaac built an .ih.ir .it Beersheba as his father had il( i n c .

I S A A C ' S B L E S S I N G

Being aged and practically b l ind , Isaac sent for his favourite son Esau who was a skilled hunter. He asked h i m to take his quiver and bow, shoot a deer and prepare some of the venison he loved. He would then bless h im before he died. Rebekah overheard this, and determined to secure the blessing for Jacob w h o m she loved more. She told Jacob to slaughter t w o young goats, made a savoury stew of the meat, and sent it in to Isaac w i t h Jacob pretending to be Esau. T o make the deception more effective, she covered Jacob's smooth hands and neck w i t h bits of the fleece of the slain kids (for Esau was a hairy man) and she put Esau's garment on Jacob. Isaac was suspicious at first, saying, 'The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.' (Gen. 27:22) But when he asked Jacob to come near and kiss h i m , the smell of the fields clinging to Esau's garment convinced h i m . He then gave Jacob his blessing, declaring that he w o u l d be the head of the family when Isaac died and his brethren would serve h i m

Esau came in w i t h the venison he had prepared for his father, and Isaac real­ized he had been deceived. But he could not now take back the blessing bestowed on Jacob. Esau, wai l ing w i t h anger and grief, pressed Isaac to bless h i m as wel l . The old man replied that Esau would have to serve Jacob, but he too would prosper and become independent.

Fearing that Esau w o u l d k i l l Jacob in revenge, Rebekah persuaded Isaac to send Jacob to her brother Laban in Haran so that he too should marry someone of his own k i n .

Isaac died at the age of one hundred and eighty and was buried by his t w i n sons Esau and Jacob i n the Cave of Machpelah at Hebron, w i t h his father and mother and his wife Rebekah.

O f the three patriarchs, Isaac is a less str ik ing figure than either his father Abraham or his son Jacob.

In the dramatic episode of the

I s a i a h I s a i a h

sacrifice, he shows a touching faith and docil ity towards his father. I n his later life, moving through the southland w i t h his flocks, he stays in his father's foot­steps, re-digging Abraham's abandoned wells. As soon as there is f r ict ion w i t h the local inhabitants, he chooses to move elsewhere.

In his o ld age, he is not only deceived by his wife and his son Jacob, but seems helpless to undo the w r o n g done to the first-born son Esau, cheated of the paternal blessing.

The character that emerges f rom the story is not strong, but benign, pious and gentle. [Gen. 17-28]

Isaiah (Heb. 'God's salvation') c. second hal f of 8 century B C . A Hebrew prophet in the kingdom of Judah. Isaiah the son o f Amoz was the greatest of the Hebrew prophets, and the author of the most sublime religious poetry in the O l d Testament. The force and beauty of his message is best appreciated in the origi­nal Hebrew, a terse and sonorous language, rich in concrete similes.

Isaiah was born in Jerusalem about 765 B C . A t the age of twenty-five he had a vision o f G o d : ' I n the year that King Uzziah died I saw the L o r d sitting upon a throne, high and lifted u p ; and his train filled the temple . . . A n d I heard the voice o f the Lord saying, " W h o m shall I send, and who w i l l go for us?" Then I said, "Here am I ! Send m e . " ' (Isa. 6:1, 8) From that day he devoted himself to the vocation of prophecy.

The Hebrew prophets were inspired men w h o preached the w o r d o f God and fearlessly attacked the evils of men, not even sparing kings. They acted as the moral conscience of the community . Being able to predict future events was not their main attribute. The discourses of some of them were preserved and later collected in separate books of the Bible.

The l i t t le that is k n o w n about Isaiah is contained in the book that bears his

name, and from the parallel account in the Second Book of Kings. I t appears that he was a man of posit ion in the capital , w i t h access to the k ing and a voice in affairs of state. He had a wife and t w o sons, both of w h o m are given symbolic names: Shear-jashub ('the rem­nant w i l l return') and Mahershalal-hash-baz ('the booty and shame arc imminent ' - a reference to the impend­ing d o o m of Samaria). His prophecies covered about half a century, during the reigns o f the Judean kings Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah.

His whole life was bound up w i t h Jerusalem, that ' faithful c i ty ' he loved and chided. In his vision o f the future it was f rom this city, remote in the Judean hil ls , that men would gain inspirat ion: ' . . . and many peoples shall come, and say: "Come, let us go up to the moun­tain o f the L o r d , to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths." For out of Z i o n shall go forth the law, and the w o r d of the Lord from Jerusalem.' (Isa. 2:3)

I t was a turbulent period in the his­tory o f the Near East. The t w o small Hebrew kingdoms, Israel and Judah, often at odds w i t h each other, were being caught up in the clash o f empires. In Isaiah's time, the dominant power was Assyria, located on the Upper Oron tes river in Mesopotamia. Four times in Isaiah's life the Assyrian cohorts rolled southward ' l ike a w o l f on the fold' (Byron), threatening the small states in their path. The northern kingdom <>l Israel was wiped out w i t h the fall nl Samaria in 721 B C . In Judah's struggle to survive, its rulers sought to insure ilic k ingdom by makeshift alliances. Is.11.1l1 strongly disapproved o f this game ul power politics. As a statesman, he Jul not believe that Judah's safety la) M pacts o f expediency. As a man of deep religious conviction, he insisted on faith in God alone. He saw the enemy b< fori the gate as an instrument o f God's w i l l .

I s a i a h I s a i a h

to punish the chosen people for its trans­gressions.

Soon after Ahaz came to the throne of Judah, Pekah king of Israel and Rezin king of Aram-Damascus formed an al l i­ance in an attempt to halt the Assyrian advance. They wanted Ahaz to join them, and when he refused they invaded Judah to depose h i m . When they reached Jerusalem, there was panic in the city. The k ing sent to consult Isaiah, who replied firmly, 'do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint because of these t w o smouldering stumps of fire­brands . . . ' (Isa. 7:4). The L o r d would not permit the attempt to succeed.

Against Isaiah's counsel, Ahaz sent messengers w i t h gifts to the k i n g of As­syria, asking for his help. The Assyrians advanced, took Damascus, and occupied part of Israel. The pressure was relieved 011 Judah, but she remained a subservient vassal of Assyria.

T h i r t y years later, K ing Hezekiah joined in a revolt against the Assyrians, who marched to quell i t . Isaiah derided I lezekiah's feverish preparations for the defence o f Jerusalem: ' . . . and you saw

11 the breaches of the city of David W i n many, and you collected the waters nl 1 lie lower pool , and you counted the I n i i i s e s of Jerusalem, and you broke down the houses to fortify the wal l . . . But you d id not look to h i m who did i t , " i have regard for h im w h o planned it I' ing ago.' (Isa. 22:9-11)

Isaiah was even more scornful of the mission Hezekiah sent to Egypt to gain support against the Assyrians. ' " W o e to

rebellious chi ldren," says the L o r d , " w I n 1 e . i r ry out a plan, but not mine . . . I hi refore shall the protection of Phar-I . .I1 111 rn to your shame, and the shelter m shadow of Egypt to your humil ia-I I . m " ' (Isa. 30:1, 3) He pointed out that

I I n Egyptians are men, and not God; i n . I 1I1. 11 horses are flesh, and not spirit '

KM. jxsj). I n 1 i n the Assyrian monarch Sen-

n i . I n 11b swept through Judah and de­

manded the surrender o f Jerusalem. It was again Isaiah who persuaded Heze­kiah to stand firm: 'Therefore thus says the L o r d concerning the k ing o f Assyria, He shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there . . . By the way that he came, by the same he shall return . . . For I w i l l defend this city to save i t . ' (2

Kgs. 19-^-4) A pestilence struck the camp of the

Assyrians and they wi thdrew. The deliv­erance of Jerusalem was regarded as a divine miracle.

T H E M E S S A G E O F I S A I A H

In v iv id phrases Isaiah foretold the fate of each o f Judah's enemies. About Baby­lon he thundered: ' w i l d beasts w i l l lie d o w n there, and its houses w i l l be full of h o w l i n g creatures; . . . Fallen, fallen is Baby lon ; and all the images of her gods he has shattered to the ground. ' (Isa. 13:21; 21:9)

Isaiah's strongest invective however was reserved for his o w n people. They were a 'sinful nation, a people laden w i t h in iqui ty , offspring of evildoers . . . ' (Isa. 1:4). ' H o w the faithful city has become a harlot , she that was full of justice! Righteousness lodged in her, but now murderers. Your silver has become dross, your wine mixed w i t h water. ' (Isa. 1:21, 22)

Isaiah railed against religious hypoc­risy: ' W h a t to me is the mult i tude of your sacrifices? says the L o r d ; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; . . . When you spread forth your hands, I w i l l hide my eyes f rom y o u ; even though you make many prayers, I w i l l not l i s ten; your hands are full of b lood. ' (Isa. 1:11, 15) What the Lord wanted, he said, was not rituals and prayers but simply that each man should 'cease to do evi l , learn to do good' (Isa. 1:16, 17).

I t was not only the prophets of humble or ig in , like Amos and Hosea, that lashed out against the greed and luxury of the establishment and the ex­ploitat ion of the poor. This social