49. {Then when he had withdrawn from them and from that which they worship besides Allah} by emigrating to the aforementioned [destination], {We bestowed upon him Isaac and Jacob} as a substitution for those he had parted from—namely, his father and his unbelieving people—though this did not happen immediately upon his emigration. The well-known view is that the first of the children bestowed upon him (peace be upon him) was Ishmael (peace be upon him), due to His saying: {So We gave him tidings of a forbearing boy} following his supplication: {My Lord, grant me [a child] from among the righteous.} It was after he had emigrated and Sarah became jealous [of Hagar] that she conceived Isaac (peace be upon him), and when he grew older, Jacob (peace be upon him) was born to him.

It is possible that the mentioning of these two as a gift [in the text] immediately following his withdrawal is to demonstrate the perfect greatness of the blessings which Allah the Exalted gave him in exchange for abandoning his family and relatives. For they are the trees of the prophets, and they had children and grandchildren of significant status and great number, even though He, glory be to Him, intended to mention Ishmael (peace be upon him) by his virtue separately. It is reported that when he (peace be upon him) headed for the Levant, he first came to Harran, married Sarah, and she bore him Isaac, and Isaac had Jacob. The first [view] is the nearest and most apparent.

{And each}—meaning every one of them, whether Isaac and Jacob, or both of them and Abraham (peace be upon him)—{We made a prophet.} It [the object] is placed before the verb {We made} for the sake of particularization, though not in relation to those other than them, but in relation to some of them; meaning: each one of them We made a prophet, not some of them to the exclusion of others. There does not appear in this sequence—according to the second interpretation of "each"—that Abraham (peace be upon him) was a prophet before the withdrawal.