Rescuing Isaac

If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the fear of Isaac, had not been for me, surely now you would have sent me away empty  Genesis 31:42a  NASB

Fear – It seems that everyone wants to rescue Isaac from the text.  Jonathan Sacks’ statement may be Jewish, but it is reflected over and over in Christian commentaries:

“Isaac’s is the quiet heroism of continuity.  He is a link in the chain of the covenant, joining one generation to the next.  He is steadfastness, loyalty, the determination to continue.  Without these virtues, Judaism would not have survived.”[1]

But is this true?  Do we find this kind of “quiet heroism” in the narrative?  Perhaps those stories about Isaac’s favoritism, anxiety, paucity of character development, and general repetition of his father’s successes and failures paints a picture of someone who receded from life rather than embracing it “heroically.”  One striking indication is found in Jacob’s assessment of his father’s faith.  In Genesis 31:42, Jacob uses the Hebrew term paḥad, not the expected yārāʾ, the usual word for “fear of the Lord.”   paḥad carries an entirely different nuance and should probably not be translated (as the NASB) “fear.”  It is much more like “terror.”

pāḥad serves as a strong verb of fearing with emphasis either on the immediacy of the object of fear or upon the resulting trembling.^[2]

unlike yārāʾ, it is not used for the abstract, intellectual apprehension of evil.^[3]

A larger number of passages use the term to refer to an external terror or object of fear. The Psalmist was a “terror” (RSV “object of dread”) to those who knew him (Ps 31:11 [H 12]). In other contexts poetic parallels indicate that the paḥad is an external danger comparable to the pit and the snare (e.g. Isa 24:17–18; Jer 48:43). In Isa 2:10, the “terror” of the Lord is something external from which one can hide; here, “terror” may refer to the terrifying aspect of God’s revealed glory. ^[4]

Some time ago we looked at this unusual description.  Perhaps you will recall that investigation: CLICK HERE.   As we discovered, virtually all Bibles soften the implication.  No one wants Isaac to be suffering from PTSD.  Except the narrative certainly looks like that would be an accurate description of this patriarch.  After his near-death experience at the hand of his father, Isaac fades from the Genesis text until Jacob’s deception resets the drama.

I appreciate Sacks concern that steadfastness, loyalty, and determination are essential for the survival of Judaism, but I’m not sure we can ascribe these to Isaac.  In fact, Isaac’s “faith” seems more like a deliberate attempt to avoid God’s will.  Rabbi Ismar Schorsch’s commentary on this unusual description is incredibly important.

Isaac never seems to recover from his binding at the hands of his father. Abraham may have passed the divine test at Moriah, but Isaac’s religious growth is permanently stunted. In a mystifying omission, the Torah reports after the aborted sacrifice that only “Abraham then returned to his servants (Genesis 22:19).” On the way to Moriah, the Torah states on two separate occasions that father and son walked together, as if to stress their unity of purpose (Gen. 22:6, 8). Yet once the ordeal is over, the Torah omits to tell us that Isaac accompanied his father home. Did he flee from the scene in terror and incredulity? It is the kind of narrative gap that begs for reader participation.

Curiously, we are told later that the name by which God was known to Isaac is “the Fear of Isaac,” a name of God not found elsewhere in the Torah (Gen. 31:42). Does the nomenclature suggest that Isaac knew God only as a demonic presence, a source of dread, as God surely must have appeared to him at Moriah?

The Torah offers only the most fragmentary data about Isaac, which are all strikingly bereft of spirituality. Indeed, they point to a man who, having faced death early, lusted for life ever after.[5]

Perhaps Schorsch’s insight is another example of the psychological impact parents have on their children.  Isaac’s subsequent favoritism toward Esau may be a result of his father’s apparent lack of concern for his son’s life.  Certainly Isaac ignores YHVH’s design for the younger of his twins, although there are hints that Isaac regretted his behavior.  Nevertheless, “neither Abraham nor Isaac nor Jacob are portrayed by the Torah as men without flaws, or saints who could do no wrong. They exhibit the warts and weaknesses we recognize in ourselves. What sets them apart, rather, is the nobility and courage of their convictions as evinced in moments of luminous insight and supreme self-denial.”[6]

The Torah doesn’t rescue Isaac, but Judaism wants to for purposes far beyond the concern of the narrative.  We can hardly fault the tradition for wanting its patriarchs to exhibit qualities needed for survival, but that’s a different story.

Topical Index: Isaac, paḥad, fear, terror, Jonathan Sacks, Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, Genesis 31:42a

[1] Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Covenant & Conversation: A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible: Genesis: The Book of Beginnings (Maggid Books & The Orthodox Union, 2009), p. 180.

^[2] Bowling, A. (1999). 1756 פָּחַד. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 720). Moody Press.

^[3] Ibid.

^[4] Ibid.

[5] Ismar Schorsch, Chancellor’s Parashah Commentary, November 13, 1993.

[6] Ibid.