(Verses 62 and 63.) And he himself dwelt in the land of the south: and Isaac went forth to meditate in the field towards evening. The land of the south signifies Gerar, to which he had once been led by his father to be sacrificed. But when it says, And he went forth to meditate in the field, which in Greek is called ἀδολεσχῆσαι, in Hebrew it is read: And Isaac went forth to speak in the field, the evening already declining. That signifies, according to what the Lord alone prayed on the mountain, even Isaac, who in the type of the Lord, as a just man going out of his house, offered spiritual victims to God either at the ninth hour or before sunset.
Are you not yet moved to understand that these words are spoken spiritually? Or do you think that it always happens by chance that the patriarchs go to wells and obtain their marriages at waters? He who thinks in this way is “a sensual man” and “does not perceive these things which are of the Spirit of God.” But let him who wishes remain in these understandings, let him remain “a sensual man.” I, following Paul the apostle, say that these things are “allegories,” and I say that the marriages of the saints are the union of the soul with the Word of God: “For he who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit.”But it is certain that this union of the soul with the Word cannot come about otherwise than through instruction in the divine books, which are figuratively called wells. If anyone should come to these and draw from these waters, that is, by meditating on these words should perceive the deeper sense and meaning, that one will find a marriage worthy of God; for [that person’s] soul is united with God.
He withdrew and lifted himself away from the vices of this world, he lifted up his soul, even as Isaac meditated—or, as others have it, walked about—in the field.
That field contained a figure of the world. Isaac went out into the field, because Christ was to come into the world; Isaac toward the evening of the day, Christ at the end of the world. “He went out,” it says, “to meditate.” For this reason Isaac went to meditate in the field, because Christ came into the world to fight against the devil, that he might justly conquer him while being unjustly killed by him, so that by dying he might destroy death, and by rising again bring life to all who believe. Moreover, just as Rebekah was corporally joined to Isaac, so the church was spiritually joined to Christ, receiving at present the blood of her spouse as a precious dowry and later to receive the dowry of his kingdom. The blessed apostle Peter clearly proclaims this when he says, “You were redeemed, not with gold or silver but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish.”
[AD 420] Jerome on Genesis 24:62-63